Summary
➡ The article discusses the manipulation of public opinion by big tech companies and the media, using AI to predict and influence people’s thoughts and actions. It highlights the dangers of echo chambers, where only one viewpoint is represented, leading to targeted marketing and manipulation of vulnerable individuals. The author criticizes the misuse of authority to legitimize or delegitimize messages, and the suppression of free speech. They suggest that the best defense against such manipulation is ensuring free speech and privacy, and encouraging people to seek information from multiple sources.
➡ This text discusses the importance of maintaining privacy online to avoid manipulation and control by big tech companies. It highlights the role of pseudo anonymity in protecting individuals from targeted marketing and harmful messaging. The author also mentions the growing trend of political balance among Gen Z, contrary to the expectations of the elites. Lastly, the author invites readers to join a privacy-focused platform, Braxma, and introduces a new privacy phone, Brax 3, designed to keep users invisible from big tech.
Transcript
They can do that. That is part of freedom. Although I think that people in this group are victims of manipulation. It is beyond the pale though, when the goal of winning means that one wants to ensure that censorship is in place so only one side is heard. It is disgusting when differing opinions are mislabeled with tags of hate speech, when in fact those who say it are the ones we hate. Apparently, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr now calls for the dismantling of the censorship cartel in reference to the big tech platforms. Yes, censorship cartel is a good term and it is disgusting because as a moderate minded person, my life’s experience guides me to consider any anti democratic act to be ideas of dictators suddenly controlling ideas.
Controlling free speech is a good thing. Mind control is needed and winning is more important than anything else. Some of you think that free speech doesn’t impact you. You cannot be influenced by others. I beg to differ. You are vulnerable. Let me explain my viewpoint, so stay right now. Personally, I’ve had a life experience that probably made me the way I am. As a young kid, I was exposed to the control press of a dictator in another country. Think of an environment where there was only one news channel and everything said on the channel is directly curated by the government censorship bureau.
Oh sure, elections were held every four years, but there’s only one candidate and the dictator always wins by a margin of 99% or something like that. There’s never any debate because if you debated against the government you go to jail, or if you are an opposition leader, you get assassinated. I personally know people who had been hunted down by the government for teaching what would be labeled as subversive ideas. Fortunately, they escaped to the jungles and emerged decades later still alive. You don’t realize how it feels when you can’t speak your mind. The anxiety it causes and the Fear, because back in those days, even people you think are friends could report you to the authorities.
My own father had a regular column in the biggest newspaper. The entire newspaper was shut down by the government and he died without ever speaking out in public ever again. I tell you the story, so you know what drives me deeply. I can now speak in public and I will do it for my own father. I’m not really a political channel. I don’t openly take sides with political candidates in my videos. But even with my stance, I’ve received a lot of censorship here on YouTube. I’ve released several videos that have been demonetized for truly arbitrary issues.
Demonetization is a form of suppression of speech. Let me lay out a few examples. My recent iPhone 16 video, which has over a million views now, was demonetized. The supposed reason was that I used a title that the algorithm decided was against community guidelines. The word apparently was shitless, which was to me very mild. After manual review, I said okay, I’ll remove it. And I did. And YouTube responded that it still does not comply, though there’s no further explanation. The only thing in the video is of course my attack on Apple, which I’m sure is a major advertiser for YouTube.
So I said zuck this and I put the supposedly offensive word back in the title. Lots of ads in it by the way. One million views and all the advertising dollars go to YouTube instead of me. Got it. One time I was once again criticizing Apple with my commentary on CSAM and client side scanning. YouTube demonetizes the video because I defined what CSAM is. Though it is crazy to demonetize a video talking about a legitimate feature in a tech product. Apparently I can never define this because it will cause me to be demonetized. Not sure if it is about CSAM itself or just because the video is anti Apple.
Of course during the pandemic era you couldn’t even mention the disease or the thing that bugged me the most about that time was going to restaurants, having my ID checked. That is about as anti privacy as you can imagine. I made a video about that ID checking not even about the vax. Suppressed. Demonetized. I think I made three attempts at telling you the story of how Google has an entity called Moon something, CVE something and jigging the saw. And every time I mention the full name of these Google entities, my videos get suppressed. So I will not name them here.
In case you’re wondering what these videos were about, they were about Google tracking your activities on the Internet using your Google ID and classifying many of you in little buckets like right wing, violent extremist and similar categories and plotting your location on a precise map. What I’m explaining here are the specific tools of manipulation which is like a volume control knob. The first is the application of suppression in a dictatorship. This is just the shutting down of opposition media. In the social media world this can be done either by not recommending a video, demonetizing it so it is not worth promoting, or making sure the creator is financially hit so their a pain point for not staying on the prescribed lane.
Suppression of course impacts viewers directly because an important point of view is hidden and thus it is made to make that point of view lose significance. Censored social media sites with a focus on only one political side results in an echo chamber where everyone thinks the same, but this same environment allows the application of another tool. The other side of manipulation is amplification, an artificial method used to amplify a message so you suddenly think it is organic. I gave the example of the real thing that Google does which is to alter the search results so that the first page results are actually curated to fit your particular profile.
This is the intent of the specific Google project which I can’t name. You know, the moon something. Or rather this particular project dealt with search redirection which is the official project purpose. Redirection to alternate search results. The intent of this is amplification. An alternate message is placed on the first page of results which then amplifies the importance of the message. Another implementation of amplification is when certain content is pushed to the top of the page of YouTube search results for example, or when in other platforms the content shows up. In trending you should always wonder when something is designated as trending, is it organically trending or did someone else push it? And this can be pushed by the platform itself or in some cases by bots of some foreign player with evil intent.
A very big user of bots on Twitter before was Iran. Google has other tools for manipulation. For example they have AI based bots that can actually interject in comments on various platforms to switch the point of view and minimize the impact of a message. Suppression and amplification. The point of this folks is that there are many tools to manipulate messaging and this was something that the CIA was hard at work on historically when they tried to subvert whatever opposition government they wanted to overthrow. But now this is as simple as big tech turning on a volume control knob.
Suppress or Amplify Everyone who studies marketing knows that the most effective Way to reach a population is via target marketing. Target marketing allows an advertiser to fashion a message that a particular person is receptive to and thus the chances are the message will be heard. The important element for target marketing to work is that the advertiser must know the person well. There has to be a profile. So this is directly tied to big tech knowing your identity and what you do on the Internet. If a message is not targeted, it is ignored and resources are wasted on message sending.
This, by the way, is exactly what happens during an election cycle. Through a series of polling of opinions, the operatives in a political party fashion a message and then each message is focused on hitting a particular population. Mind you, each message has to be tested and this is first done with small sample groups called focus groups. And then when an approach tests out to be effective, it is applied to the receptive target market. In their case, they hope to convince a majority greater than 50% that their side is better. What’s coming up soon though, is that you can be polled without your consent.
This is the scary side. This is when big tech uses AI to scan your device content and actions and thus divine your thoughts and choices automatically. This is a problem because they take the response to polling out of your hands and it becomes part of the machine. This is a newly arising problem because it could remove the lying aspect in polling. In echo chamber communities, you have even more risk of utilizing the tools of suppression and amplification more effectively. Why? Because in effect, the only people left are only those with one particular viewpoint. This is what happens happens in online communities with no free speech.
So in effect, everyone that remains in an echo chamber site is essentially already a target market. If your thoughts are known, if your reactions to certain issues are predicted, you will be subject to mind blowing messaging and you will react. You can see this today with extreme reactions on social media, on the Trump reelection with women going crazy and saying that the world will blow up on us. Surprisingly, the mainstream thinks the world already blew up, so it can only get better from here. The point is that the women cutting their hair and hoarding abortion pills and withholding sex and wearing blue bands is an example of the effectiveness of target marketing.
These individuals were the target and the mainstream media and big tech hit the bullseye with them. Clearly this population was very well known and identified and of course they’re advertising their thoughts on social media, so no mystery there. And there’s a certain percentage of the population that is easily manipulated. Send them a message and they’re likely going to eat it. Up and then they can go crazy. There are targets on either side. Conspiracy theorists, flat earth people, religious fanatics. And so unfortunately, they are the victims. The establishment uses them to enrage the masses. And in the end, I feel sorry for their mental health because in essence, they are just being used.
Even when I lived in a dictatorship, I didn’t go crazy. But it is useful to have people react in crazy ways because it can go viral on social media. The reality is that for most of us, Whoever lives on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue doesn’t change our lives enough for most of us to go crazy. So the extreme reactions on social media indicate some pretty effective mind control to certain people susceptible to target messaging. By the way, let me just say that the people pulling the levers, like the politicians themselves, do not appear to be going crazy. Yes, if it doesn’t go their way, they’re obviously unhappy to lose power, but they’re going to go home and drink their wine and relax like normal people do.
Trust me, Nancy Pelosi isn’t going to cut her hair. Biden will continue, continue to hang out at the beach. They’re just mad because they’ve lost their opportunity to make lots of money. What is to fear is the manipulation of vulnerable people who are known to overreact. These vulnerable people have been targeted. The people who react are the everyday people who are easily convinced, sensitive, and perhaps mentally uncontrolled. They, unfortunately, are the victims of mind control. Some of you think you’re immune from mind control, and that’s because you’re thinking of this in theory. When you lived in an environment like myself, with no opposing viewpoint and no one else to talk to you, you will begin to doubt yourself if you should challenge the stated truth.
This kind of stated truth is what I call propaganda. I lived this and I felt it. An example of a really effective manipulation technique is the organization called NewsGuard. This is supposedly a fact checking group that ensures that no one spreads disinformation. And how is that done? Well, NewsGuard is made up of real journalists. So the premise is that because these are credentialed intellectuals, then they must be right and anyone else must be wrong when they interject themselves in fact checking. But in truth, even the FCC now clearly states that NewsGuard is a key part of this Orwellian censorship cartel because the FCC chairman thinks they’re completely one sided.
I don’t think there’s any doubt that the majority of people know that journalists are biased. 89% anti Trump, 86% pro Kamala. Messaging too obvious to Hide. This should be obvious since it is clear that for whatever reason, the career choice of being a journalist also means a choice to side with one particular belief system. This is true too with the intellectual elites that are now positioned as caretakers of our government in various positions, especially in local government. I witnessed this heavily myself in Los Angeles, where this intellectual elite who became a council member decided that residents of his district in Los Angeles should be subjected to a road diet.
This council member proceeded to change a busy four lane road with heavy traffic down to two lanes and converted the extra lanes to bike lanes. Years later, I have yet to see a bike on this road. It is so rare. The way this intellectual elite decided to govern was by dictating his own rules. No polling, no community input. Back in the day this was called communism. You see, he was too smart. He’s smarter than the rest of us. So he will single handedly convert LA to a biking community from a car focused city. And result for a while there was that it would take up to an hour to travel a mile.
Did the traffic get redirected elsewhere? No, because the intellectual turned out to be an idiot. Fortunately, people are smart and he’s no longer in office. But this is the mentality of this group of elites. They think they’re better educated, so they must know more. This is now the establishment and this is what drives them to quash any dissenting opinions because it affects their power. You see, this group of establishment idiots think we’re too dumb to decide anything for ourselves. That’s part of the legitimizing process, by the way, because they’re elected officials, they can do no wrong.
So cover your intent with authority. Wasn’t that what happened during the pandemic? I recall during the pandemic that people would defend Big Tech censorship and say, hey, they’re private companies companies and they can do anything they want. Then when Elon bought X. Now even the EU lawmakers and of course the same elite say Elon is a promoter of disinformation. But he’s a private company. Can’t he do whatever he wants? So it’s only okay if Big Tech legitimizes your own argument. The establishment authority can legitimize or delegitimize a message. The FBI knows this, so that’s why during the Twitter times they actively sought to control messaging of users on that platform.
They did the same with Facebook and I would have no doubt they did the same with YouTube. Using a law enforcement authority to participate in free speech manipulation is truly disgusting. Mislabeling opposition views is another method of delegitimizing a message. Call it hate speech and then get a crowd action to cancel a person. That’s exactly how this is done. Or lying and calling something a Russian hoax. Then to legitimize the hoax, you get a bunch of establishment leaders and even cybersecurity people to agree agree that it’s a foreign attack when the data doesn’t really show that.
But get enough people to sign onto it and you’ve got a legitimate authority against counterfeit information. This kind of legitimizing by authority really plays tricks in our hands because we assume the authority is typically correct, and so even the best of us can be influenced by this propaganda. My point is, beware of authority legitimizing an argument. Do not assume that authority is correct. As always think if that authority has some other motive. The best defense against organized disinformation or propaganda is truly free speech. But there’s more. Since the establishment powers have increased and there’s more of a need to prevent them from whittling down our intellectual barriers and push their message in.
We can’t really hear free speech if someone is always watching over our shoulder and knows exactly who we are. That’s why free speech is guaranteed only with privacy. If big tech knows who you are precisely based on your Internet actions, or based on the analysis of you using the AI off the phone, then you are vulnerable. Understand this clearly. You will be as vulnerable as those poor women who went crazy and cut their hair. You will be targeted, and then the message will be legitimized by authority, and the majority of you will kneel down to the messaging of the establishment elite.
The only way to stop any interference with what is the truth is to have protection on two fronts. First is to ensure that free speech is always guaranteed so we can hear alternative opinions. Since we cannot guarantee that some platforms will always give free speech, and clearly the majority of platforms are anti free speech, then the answer is to spread your information sources to multiple places, go around and listen to other points of view. This is hard for some of you, as many of you are hardwired to be in a particular direction. And second, it is important to ensure that no machine is capable of knowing exactly what you think.
This is either from live polling or from device profiling, as will be a big thing from here on with AI like an Apple intelligence on an iPhone. If a certain number of us hide our opinions, the machine will fail and elections will always remain un unknown element. The elites will be more careful with what they say because they can’t be sure of the reaction. It will put them on their toes. By the way, I’m actually impressed with Gen Z since this is the first generation that got introduced to identity politics and pronouns. This is the first generation that had to announce in school what their pronouns were in a classroom.
And the elites then stated that this generation had the highest percentage of gender fluid people ever, meaning they thought that the pronouns opened up people to reveal what they really think their sexual orientation is. Now, in hindsight, apparently some of these kids must have considered this a joke. As the election results show, this generation is more politically balanced than the Millennials. So in spite of what the elites thought they were thinking, apparently they were hiding their thoughts. Future Privacy people in the making here. I want to make this clear. Our vulnerability with the technology always comes back to some big tech or institutional entity knowing what we think.
Plastering your thoughts openly on social media isn’t necessarily freedom, but plastering your thoughts in social media with pseudo anonymity is better. No one has to know exactly who you are and by doing so you’re being protected from the harmful messaging that will be sent your way. And if they attack your pseudo anonymous identity anyway, you come back with a new identity. Life continues as normal. Let me rephrase this so it’s clear you need to prevent yourself from being the target in target marketing. How do you do this? By being pseudo anonymous on the Internet. This is what this privacy channel is all about.
We talk about tools to prevent precise identities from being attached to everything we do online. This is a big deal. It is difficult, there is work to do, but I’ve learned that it is effective. You have to choose the right devices, use the proper products for email and phone numbers, and protect your Internet identifiers. But big tech will strive to identify you even more. So this is not a one shot project. It is a lifestyle of not behaving like a normie. Even if only a few of us take the strategy, we basically make a portion of the population invisible from manipulation and even a small number can sway an election.
This will be a group to fear. It will introduce unpredictability in a society and it will stop the machine from assuming control. Folks, I created a platform for the Privacy Aware community and it is Braxma. It is a growing group that now exceeds 100,000 participants. Please join us there and when you are there, check the store for privacy oriented products and services that we offer that supports this channel. All these products are intended to maintain our pseudo anonymity on the Internet and you already know how important I believe that is. Also, we have our new phone model Brax 3 which is now on pre order and can be found on brxtech.net it is also on the crowdfunding site Indiegogo.
This is a privacy phone and it is designed to be invisible from big tech. Check it out. Thank you for watching and see you next time.
[tr:tra].
See more of Rob Braxman Tech on their Public Channel and the MPN Rob Braxman Tech channel.
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