Increased social media and tech censorship must be understood in the wider context of the establishment desperately seeking to hold on to what used to be called “the vital centre”, a US-based author and economist tells Sputnik.
Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, author, and founder of the non-profit Democracy At Work. Recent Facebook posts made by Democracy at Work were blocked from being shared via the social media platform, adding to the growing list of censorship and quasi-censorship that has become commonplace online.
Professor Wolff’s weekly show Economic Update is syndicated on over 100 radio stations and goes to 55 million TV receivers via Free Speech TV. In a detailed interview with Sputnik, he explained why such behaviour by internet giants must be understood as part of a wider collapse of the economic system, and the attempts of those who already hold power to reaffirm and consolidate their ever weakening position.
Sputnik: Explain what exactly happened regarding Facebook, censoring of the article that you posted.
Professor Richard Wolff: Yes, it was very strange for us. We have been active on Facebook for many years, doing a variety of political, economic analyses, nothing in the recent situation was different in any significant or basic way from what we have been doing for years. During all that time, we never had the slightest difficulty with Facebook, nor they with us that we were aware of. So it came as a complete surprise that basically what they did is blocked people who liked what we had posted from sharing it with their friends in the usual way that Facebook functions. You don’t get much explanation from Facebook when you inquire about these things. It’s happened to several times now, all in the recent period. And so, we’re assuming that there’s some algorithms, some rule that somebody is applying somewhere. So that certain words in our posting set off a constriction of
— source sputniknews.com | 05.03.2021