If you’re looking to do more reading in 2025, might I recommend George Orwell’s “1984”? Or perhaps “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury? “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood? All are wonderful, classic reads with increasing relevance in today’s political climate.
How could such far-out concepts come into play? We know better than that, don’t we?
But totalitarian governments where Big Brother is always watching or entire masses of people are forced into hiding do not blatantly spawn into existence one day — they gradually develop.
We allow our “unshakeable principles” to be nudged bit by bit. It begins with subtle propaganda and control over the media, which then becomes a gateway into ignorant voting, policies, and actions.
And as Trump enters his second term in office, the political propaganda and censorship has seemingly become outright blatant and intrusive. Push has come to shove.
A prominent example of this comes at the hands of the TikTok ban, particularly looking at Trump’s role in the situation and his involvement with other media platforms and owners.
Trump first proposed and supported the ban during his first term in office, although his stance since then has drastically changed. It seems Trump has reevaluated how TikTok benefited him in the 2024 election and the popularity he stood to gain by reviving it.
Access to the app in the United States shut down Saturday night at 10:30 EST with a message appearing to users stating, “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!”
14 hours later, the app was functional again for American users with a new message again crediting Donald Trump’s efforts.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pointed out in a TikTok video of her own that “TikTok’s decision to name Trump in the notification is a choice. They are signaling that they … have agreed to privately collaborate with Donald Trump and the Trump administration … They’re using it as a propaganda tool for the right.”
Not only was the accreditation to Trump suspicious, the app needn’t have gone dark in the first place. The ban only prohibited the app from undergoing any updates and new users from downloading the app.
Furthermore, the Biden Administration indicated they would not be enforcing the ban, instead leaving it to Trump and his administration. Thus, the entire “blackout” appears to be carefully engineered propaganda complete with a picture painted of Trump as the hero, sweeping in to save the day.
Many American users additionally noted what they interpreted to be greater censorship of political content throughout the app upon its revival, with others pointing out the app and algorithm just don’t feel the same.
Videos and comments are being flagged or taken down, while certain hashtags and search results no longer appear. Searches for terms such as “banned books” or “fascism” reveal only misspelled suggestions that divert viewers from the content they seek, completely unrelated content, or “no results found.”
On Tuesday, similar claims of censorship circulated from Meta-owned apps with some users noticing they could not search for posts that included the hashtag “#democrats.” Other users reported that Instagram was automatically following the POTUS and VP accounts without users’ knowledge or consent, in some cases refollowing the accounts after a user had hit unfollow or not allowing them to unfollow at all.
As for the latter, I can personally attest. After seeing a post warning of this happening to people, I promptly checked to make sure I was following neither the POTUS or VP on Instagram. I wasn’t. About an hour or so later, my friend, Grace Morley, texted me saying, “I think it’s important that you know you are following the VP on Instagram.” I checked, and I was — as were several of my friends and other people I followed who I knew would never follow JD Vance or who just don’t care to follow politicians at all.
Meta has claimed these issues are to be expected; they’re simply a product of changing administrations as well as of glitches produced from accounts suddenly loaded with millions of followers and unfollows.
As logic would have it for many, however, Meta seems to be abusing its powers to please the executive government, a move that lines up with co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s intentions.
Zuckerberg has been clear in his recent alliance toward Trump, revealing he would be ending fact-checking on his platforms and rolling back several DEI protections — all actions that align with Trump’s agenda. He was even present in the front row of Trump’s inauguration on Monday, seated in front of Trump’s cabinet with other wealthy tech executives including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and the TikTok CEO, Shou Zi Chew.
If one thing is blatantly clear from all this, it is that there is a conflict of interests in the relationship between Trump and media executives that has caused Americans to be wary of the way media is being presented to them.
While there is a clear disconnect between what is happening now and the totalitarian propaganda in the classic cautionary tales, we are slowly yet surely allowing ourselves to be nudged, our “unwavering” morals put to the test.
We may not be burning books like in “Fahrenheit 451,” but propaganda is being spread online, and information is being censored all the same.
I encourage people to question what they see and to search for evidence for all sides. We must question the decisions of those in positions of power and influence.
This post was originally published on here
