Confrontation: The Meaning of Freedom

Corporate media has not been spared from public alienation in this populist age of discontent toward and disillusionment of America’s social and political institutions. This is evident from the fact that in the year 2021, the American people’s trust in the accuracy of reporting from corporate press reached its second lowest score on record- with only 36 percent of people placing their confidence in mass media. In effect, the majority of the American public do not trust their own corporate media. This has sparked a debate on whether the corporate press is fair and balanced in its coverage of issues of public concern and whether much of the criticism can be dismissed as coming from a malicious place. A recent policy change announced on October 13th by Facebook, a social media platform, that they will count political activists and journalists as “involuntary” public figures, entitling these figures to increased protections from bullying and harassment, touches a chord within this greater discussion. While bullying and harassment are obviously terrible things, such a policy could be abused to flag criticism of any kind as bullying and harassment. Under the current wording of how Facebook will purport to remove posts that they deem to be harassment, calling someone “a dirty ugly smear-merchant” could technically qualify as being removable due to using what could be negative physical descriptors (dirty or ugly) to attack someone as being dishonest. While one may find that such metaphors in this description are colorful or crude, supposing whether the person who is attacked engaged in unsavory or dishonest practices may give weight to such an accusation. Regardless of the particulars of the policy itself, the hypocritical notion that journalists themselves are immune from being effectively counted as public figure while they play a part in determining who is a public figure can be seen as problematic given the avenues of misuse and abuse that this policy invites.

“I don’t know if it’s quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it’s very close to that. It has all of our attention.” - General Miley, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs

Following a series of heavy losses this past month for the Ethiopian army, Ethiopia's prime minister Ahmed Abiy appealed for Ethiopian citizens to join the military in its fight against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) saying, “Now is the right time for all capable Ethiopians who are of age to join the defence forces, special forces and militias and show your patriotism.” Prime Minister Abiy's personal appeal came after the recent announcement by Tigrayan fighters that they had captured the key towns of Dessie and Kombolcha in the neighboring Amhara region which are of strategic importance for further southern advances towards Addis Ababa. Ethiopia’s Government has also declared a nationwide state of emergency effective in Addis Ababa for six-months, which will include the establishment of roadblocks, the disruption of transportation services, a strictly enforced curfew and the takeover of certain areas by the military. Anyone suspected of collaboration with the TPLF could be detained without a court warrant and those found to have violated the emergency could face 10 years in prison.

The recent controversy over comments made by Dave Chapelle regarding transgender people, thrust the phenomenoa of cancel culture into the spotlight once again. A small group of protesters (primarily Netflix employees) staged a protest outside Netflix headquarters in late October demanding that Netflix fund more transgender talent in entertainment in response to Chapelle’s Netflix special where he stated “gender is a fact”. Chapelle is the latest public figure to symbolize the phenomena that has become known as "cancel culture", but what is cancel culture and what is driving its emergence?