By Randy Rossi -
When George Orwell wrote his famous book 1984, I am sure that he couldn’t imagine how willingly the people of the world would cooperate with “Big Brother” and the “Thought Police” to control their lives. No doubt Orwell could never have imagined over a billion people happily signing on to Facebook, Twitter, and/or Google to give away all of their personal information which they then sell for a profit. There is no way Orwell could have imagined millions of people inviting Apple’s “Siri” into their homes and bedrooms which listens to every word they say and sends it back to Apple who then sells that material to its customers who want to know everything about you to sell you more of their “stuff”.
But that loss of privacy for profit isn’t the worst part of “Siri” as the Chinese have shown us. China uses the internet to spy on every aspect of the Chinese people to control their lives. They watch and listen to what the Chinese people do and say and they use facial recognition to watch everything that they do in the streets of China to control their lives. If a Chinese citizen says or does anything the Chinese government doesn’t agree with, that person can lose their job, their credit rating, or their ability to travel. The people of China have lost their freedom and are now simply robots controlled by the government.
Anybody who doesn’t think that can’t happen in America is living in an alternate universe. Facebook, Twitter, and Google have all been attacked for not only spying on Americans, they have been proven to control the messages that the American people get about every aspect of life here in America. They have been proven to be incredibly biased toward favoring Democrat and liberal opinions while hiding or withholding Republican and conservative opinions. They have blocked messages from many conservatives from Dennis Prager and his wonderful Prager University 5 minutes videos which educate the world on tons of subjects to blocking Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnel’s posting of liberal ANTIFA extremists threatening to kill him outside his house as he recovered from a broken shoulder because of his conservative values.
These “Big Tech” companies are now being formally investigated by the federal government for having a monopoly which controls information to the public which is viewed by many as a major threat since according to polls, 67% of Americans get their news on social media which is largely controlled by them. Another perfect example of that threat is Google who has refused to cooperate with the U.S. government on a critical strategic military issue but is apparently perfectly happy to cooperate with the Chinese government and its “Thought Police” who control every aspect of the Chinese people’s lives.
Freedom and democracy can’t exist without the freedom of speech and a free press which gives access to all facts and all opinions to all voters so that they can make intelligent choices at the polls. Once “Big Brother” or “Big Tech” control what the people hear and learn, that is the end of democracy which is exactly what has happened in China. It is also exactly what Orwell predicted in his book 1984. But what Orwell didn’t predict is that so many of the people of the world would happily give control over their lives and freedom to “ Big Brother” and the “Thought Police” so that they can ask “Siri” to order their groceries for them! Freedom is not free and if a majority of Americans are willing to give away their freedom because they are lazy, then they don’t deserve freedom.
I strongly suggest that everyone read or reread Orwell’s book 1984 and then rethink inviting “Siri” into their bedrooms!
