by Lew Rockwell, Lew Rockwell:
In an interview with the journalist Mike Wallace in 1958, Aldous Huxley warned about the danger of propaganda in leading America down the road to totalitarianism. The danger has only gotten worse since then.
In the interview, Huxley responded to Wallace: “WALLACE: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Now the devices that you were talking about, are there specific devices or er…methods of communication which diminish our freedoms in addition to overpopulation and over-organization? HUXLEY: Well, there are certainly devices which can be used in this way. I mean, let us er…take after all, a piece of very recent and very painful history is the propaganda used by Hitler, which was incredibly effective. I mean, what were Hitler’s methods? Hitler used terror on the one kind, brute force on the one hand, but he also used a very efficient form of propaganda, which er…he was using every modern device at that time.
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He didn’t have TV., but he had the radio which he used to the fullest extent, and was able to impose his will on an immense mass of people. I mean, the Germans were a highly educated people. WALLACE: Well, we’re aware of all this, but how do we equate Hitler’s use of propaganda with the way that propaganda, if you will, is used let us say here in the United States. Are you suggesting that there is a parallel? HUXLEY: Needless to say it is not being used this way now, but, er…the point is, it seems to me, that there are methods at present available, methods superior in some respects to Hitler’s method, which could be used in a bad situation. I mean, what I feel very strongly is that we mustn’t be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology. This has happened again and again in history with technology’s advance and this changes social condition, and suddenly people have found themselves in a situation which they didn’t foresee and doing all sorts of things they really didn’t want to do. WALLACE: And well, what…what do you mean? Do you mean that we develop our television but we don’t know how to use it correctly, is that the point that you’re making? HUXLEY: Well, at the present the television, I think, is being used quite harmlessly; it’s being used, I think, I would feel, it’s being used too much to distract everybody all the time. But, I mean, imagine which must be the situation in all communist countries where the television, where it exists, is always saying the same things the whole time; it’s always driving along. It’s not creating a wide front of distraction it’s creating a one-pointed, er…drumming in of a single idea, all the time. It’s obviously an immensely powerful instrument. WALLACE: Uh-huh. So you’re talking about the potential misuse of the instrument. HUXLEY: Exactly. We have, of course…all technology is in itself moral and neutral. These are just powers which can either be used well or ill; it is the same thing with atomic energy, we can either use it to blow ourselves up or we can use it as a substitute for the coal and the oil which are running out. WALLACE: You’ve even written about the use of drugs in this light. HUXLEY: Well now, this is a very interesting subject. I mean, in this book that you mentioned, this book of mine, “Brave New World,” er…I postulated it a substance called ‘soma,’ which was a very versatile drug. It would make people feel happy in small doses, it would make them see visions in medium doses, and it would send them to sleep in large doses. Well, I don’t think such a drug exists now, nor do I think it will ever exist. But we do have drugs which will do some of these things, and I think it’s quite on the cards that we may have drugs which will profoundly change our mental states without doing us any harm. I mean, this is the…the pharmacological revolution which is taking place, that we have now powerful mind-changing drugs which physiologically speaking are almost costless. I mean they are not like opium or like coca…cocaine, which do change the state of mind but leave terrible results physiologically and morally.”
Of course, prpaganda has grown much more dangerous than in Huxley’s time. Now, social media like Facebook have become much more powerful than television, and they spy on us and manipulate us. As Thierry Meyssan pointed out in October 2021, “In the global imagination, Facebook would be a responsible social network that allows everyone to connect confidentially while censoring messages contrary to local laws. In practice, it is quite different. Facebook collects information about you for the NSA, censors your opinions and mints its own currency. In a few months, this company has become one of the most influential players in world politics.
The most important political player on the Internet is the social network Facebook. As of January 1st, 2021, it had 2.85 billion monthly active users and 1.88 billion daily active users worldwide. The social network routinely censors posts that include nude photos, sexual activity, harassment, hate speech, forgeries, spam, terrorist propaganda or violence using particularly crude and unfair artificial intelligence. It shuts down accounts that it deems dangerous, either because they have been censored several times or because they are linked to enemies of the United States.
Facebook is a huge company that includes Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Oculus, Workplace, Portal, Novi. It employs over 60,000 people.
Facebook now issues its own currency as a state, the Libra. It is backed by a basket of currencies composed of 50% dollars, 14% yen, 11% Sterling pounds and 7% Singapore dollars.
By becoming a bank whose currency is progressively accepted by Internet sales sites, Facebook is building a parallel economy, both virtual and global, that is larger than the economy of many states.
Facebook calls on its users to detect accounts that violate its rules. It opens a file on each of its informants and notes them.
Facebook, which claims to treat every user equally, has secretly compiled a list of 5.8 million VIPs to whom its rules do not apply. Only they can say and show everything
The personal data of at least 87 million users was targeted and siphoned off by the British company Cambridge Analytica (of billionaire Robert Mercer and Steve Bannon) and its Canadian subsidiary, AggregateIQ. They were used at least:
for the election of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014.
for 44 local elections in the US in 2014,
for Mauricio Macri in the Argentine presidential election,
for Nigel Farage in the UK Brexit referendum in 2016.
And above all during the US presidential campaign also in 2016, successively for Ben Carson, Ted Cruz ,and finally for Donald Trump and his campaign manager… Steve Bannon.
According to The Observer, Cambridge Analytica employed many figures from the British military-industrial complex and MI6 propaganda services. Perhaps this is just the tip of the iceberg: Edward Snowden revealed that Facebook had joined the ultra-secret PRISM electronic surveillance network allowing the National Security Agency (NSA) to access the personal data of all its customers. But nothing has leaked out about what use the NSA makes of it.
