Silencing of the Lambs

 I like to know what other people think. This is important to me because I live in a very rural backward ignorant community. That may sound harsh, but for example, my Obama sign was stolen. They tried to rip down my hand painted Bernie signs (which I heard through the grapevine caused outrage locally, someone supporting a liberal!)

I had made those signs out of the backs of old giant stereo speakers, which happened to be ringed with small screws jutting out the back. This was due to laziness on my part-I hate prep before painting. One day one of my signs was bent, and I imagine someone tried to tear it off the tree and ran into some of those screws on the back. 

the local grapevine said, after Biden won the primary, "notice they didn't put signs up for the "other" guy (Biden)"

The "deputy fire warden" thinks she owns the road, and last election was proudly displaying a sign, "Trump, 2020, 2024, 2028", and also treated us to an "ALL lives matter" sign. 

Her SO's son proudly displays a confederate flag on his property.

Now I have painted that picture, maybe it can be appreciated how much OTHER people's opinions matter to me. One online news source, the Bangor Daily News, allowed comments without paid subscriptions. This was important to me, as I am a vocal opponent to various wildlife management practices in the state, ie, baiting and hounding. When you live alone in the middle of nowhere, you really don't want sadists with guns knowing your name and location.

This is not unfounded fear, as others have found dead coyotes in their driveways, and became targets for harassment. Luckily some of us were able to bond and the State finally passed a law regarding hound dog trespass, which was a huge success for those of us who didn't appreciate being surrounded by piles of slaughterhouse offal and having baying hounds run amok through the neighborhood.

So, I have always begun my morning with a cup of coffee, a few smokes, and reading through the local news articles on BDN. Well, BDN started doing things like pulling comments with no explanation, closing comment threads on hot topics overnight, and then putting up a paywall just to read articles.The last article I commented on a few days ago, completely disappeared after being up one day, while other articles are up for months.

Shut out of everything but headlines this morning, I went on to Huffpost, a liberal news site that is typically filled with great comments from liberals. A day or two after the alleged assassination attempt, the comments section started to be full of conservative comments.This morning, to my frustration, all new political news is being lumped into a "live update" link, where there is NO link for comments.

So in less than a week, both online media that is part of my daily affirmation ritual has been blocked. Not only can I not read articles, and the associated comments on BDN, but I can't access any comments on  contentious articles on huffpo.

Some may wonder why I don't just buckle down and do the paid subscription on BDN. Well, as I said, I prefer to remain anon on that publication for personal safety, AND if they are going to wipe comments, remove articles, etc, being a paid subscribers does not prevent that sort of "moderation".

I am left to come rant on my blog, which google long ago hid on its search engine. If you type in my nic, Tree Ocean, you get returns on a hotel. If you try and search blogs, that has changed as well. When I started here, there was a way to cruise through other blogs with a link on the page. No longer. Now if you want to search blogs, or the last time I checked, you can download an app. 

Is it really freedom of speech, when news platforms control what you say, when search engines bury your words, and track where you go and how long you are there?

Yes, it might sound a bit paranoid, but I started at blogging on the old yahoo 360, and I used to get hundreds of page views per day. Well, Bush et al didn't like what was being said in "the chats"-he referenced this in a speech at one point. Suddenly yahoo ditched the 360 platform leaving it's bloggers to scramble for alternatives. I had a lot of really cool folks that just vanished into the ether. I landed here on google, and if I get a page view a day it is big news. If you can find me. 

Might was well just scream at the wall. Sigh. 

Edit to add: a few hours after I typed this, the Willow texted me to let me know that Biden has dropped. I went online and Huff Po has stopped it's "Live Update" and comments are open on the breaking news of Biden dropping out. I don't comment on Huffpo but I like to read everyone else's comments, except the extremist conserves who, like their orange master, are saying horrible things right now (as always).