Previous waves of censorship have hit the “Online Right” particularly hard such as the 2017 backlash to the Trump presidency and the covid saga.
As the war drum beats ever louder, we must remember that war and threats to national security are permanent states of exception that a regime can use to ram through all manner of draconian laws and limits to free expression. So, it’s important to prepare for what comes next instead of only reacting after the fact.
Previous episodes of censorship may have acted as a filtering process. Thanks in large part to covid, “the Regime” has the technical and regulatory frameworks to cancel people. We can also thank the pandemic for allowing the Regime to know who is and is not susceptible to trusting their narrative. Rest assured, the list of dissenters has already been drafted and names noted of the rotten apples that must be tossed out of the barrel.
In an essay, Morgoth explores a hypothetical scenario where “the Regime” can claim that those naysaying the “war effort” are a danger to national security and can therefore be dealt with accordingly. The essay explores the options facing the Online Right, dissenters who speak out online, in an era of heightened geopolitical tension and national security risks.
Hellbound and Down 