By Dennis Etler
YouTube has once again canceled Iranian Press TV's channel. This move by Alphabet, the parent company of both Google and YouTube is coordinated with Washington's reimposition of the full panoply of sanctions against Iran dubbed the "snapback" which has been repudiated by the UN and signatories to the JCPOA (aka the Iranian Nuke Deal).
What this shows is that US social media platforms, which dominate the internet, other than in China, and to a lesser extent elsewhere, are not the independent agents of "free speech" that they purport to be. All the major US social media companies are deeply intertwined with American politics and dance to the tune of the prevailing political winds. They are all products of the American capitalist system and serve to protect its interests and work against the interests of those countries the US targets for destabilization and regime change. They are thus willing tools of US imperialism.
The three major social media companies, Google/YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are frequently used by anti-government political forces to organize opposition and spread disinformation in countries around the world that the US disapproves of. Yet, when a threat is perceived to political stability in the US, they are all quick to denounce foreign interference in the American political process as an attempt to sow division and as an existential threat to democracy, censoring and blocking accounts and channels at will.
It seems that the US has carte blanche to interfere in other nation's internal affairs, but they have no right to do the same. Foreign social media such as TiKTok and WeChat are accused of being security risks and shut down unless they submit to US controls. When other countries do the same they are accused of censorship.
Whenever the US feels under threat they pull out all stops to thwart it. They enlist their subservient and compliant media, be it the traditional press, the airwaves, or cyberspace, to spread their vile propaganda of lies, distortions, and disinformation, to slander other countries, and they deploy their intelligence agencies to infiltrate and destroy any opposition from within.
The US will condemn others for human rights abuses and then use their own laws to accuse opponents of sedition and subversion, framing and at times assassinating them as conditions warrant. Their control of the global mass media allows the US to frame false narratives and create public opinion which facilitates their war-mongering and interventionism. The holier than thou attitude of the US and its media outlets is laughable and should be exposed for all to see.
Dennis Etler is an American political analyst who has a decades-long interest in international affairs. He’s a former professor of Anthropology at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California. He has a PhD in anthropology from the University of California in Berkeley. He recorded this article for Press TV website.
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