Don’t you just hate it when people hold a different opinion to you? I mean, who do these people think they are? Surely by now we all know which are the correct opinions? Why should the rest of us have to endure these stubborn contrarians spreading their scepticism and infecting our clean and sanitised minds?
Fortunately the powers that be have been working round the clock to provide us with solutions. There are a host of options on social media for us to block, report, snitch-on and fact-check any wrongthinkers we encounter online. Trusted media monopolies go out of their way to only give priority to stories and issues that support the correct narrative.
The problems arise when wrongthinkers become too numerous or too vocal to ignore. How can we keep them and their 'freedum' rhetoric out of the public consciousness if they choose to take to the streets?
The following are 3 handy tips employed by our most trusted news agencies.
Ignore it anyway
It’s worth a shot. Do you know about the July the 3rd London anti-lockdown protest? Or how about the French anti forced-vaccination protest on July the 14th? If you rely on the BBC for your news you will have been unburdened by the knowledge of these disruptive events. The BBC made sure not to report on them, at least not to a long time afterwards. Instead we were treated to an important story on why we need to be told what to eat.
Make it ‘nazi’
In any crowd of a few thousand people, you are bound to get a few extremists. Make sure your story focuses on them. Take only pictures of the most overtly right-wing individuals in the crowd to make it look like they are all right-wing. Also, make sure your headline misframes and generalises their cause. For instance, people protesting against forced-vaccinations are now ‘anti-vaxxers’, irrespective of their opinion on vaccine in general or whether or not it is only the coercive aspect they object to. This way, you can easily make a pro-liberty crowd look like a bunch of anti-science Nazis
Focus on something else
Take a leaf out of The Guardian’s playbook. When there is more than one protest happening, photograph only the one that supports your narrative. Focusing on the few hundred extinction rebellion protestors allows you and your readers to safely ignore the few thousand anti-lockdown protesters who were also in London that weekend.
While the war against independent thought is far from won, with the help of the tactics described above we are slowly winning the battle against free speech and expression 🙃
