Back when it first became known that Google (among others) were giving in to Chinese censorship demands and actively working with the Chinese government better keep track of the population mmy working assumption is that for Google this was a win-win situation. They get access to China and can earn while they learn how to better…. manage the flow and perceptions of approved news in the West.
Similarly, the recent coordinated media attack against gab and the systematic denial of services needed to stay on the internet looked a lot like a trial run to me. They don’t care about gab (no worse than any other social media and no more a haven of ‘hate speech’ than any other platform) and aren’t concerned now that it’s back up. I can’t get away from the feeling that they just wanted to see where the leaks are in the system so they can get to work on plugging those up too for when they are serious.
The internet, once the liberation of information from accredited gatekeepers is being turned into a tool for the gatekeepsers to set up even higher barriers to entry.
And most people don’t know or care as they flock around the stupidest most useless capacities of the internet on the worst possible device (the stupidphone).
The Worked Shoot 