I’m no fan of actors, musicians, sports stars and other ‘celebrities’ spouting garbage opinions on things they mostly know absolutely nothing about. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t spout their opinions – they have every bit as much right to spout garbage opinions as the rest of us.
No one has to take notice of them – but no one has the right to silence them.
And even sports stars have the same right not to be smeared with legacy media hatchet-jobs as anyone else.
Jelena Djokovic has landed herself in hot water with Instagram after sharing a video containing a widely debunked conspiracy theory about coronavirus.
What “widely debunked conspiracy theory”? Unfortunately, we’re prevented from ever knowing or being allowed to judge for ourselves, because our Silicon Valley overlords have taken it upon themselves to think for us.
Just days after Novak Djokovic revealed his anti-vaccination stance, his wife was hit with a ‘false information’ tag after posting a controversial video to her Instagram page.
“What are your coronavirus thoughts?” she wrote in the post to her 500,000 followers.
“Lots of videos going around these days debating the current situation with the #coronavirus, causes, cures, prevention.
“Whoever has time, please check this one out and let me know your thoughts.
[…]Instagram clearly took exception to Djokovic’s video after ‘independent fact checkers’ deleted it.
Would that be the same “independent fact checkers” who are in fact tied to the Wuhan lab?
With regard to Novak’s “anti-vaccination stance”, he has stated that he is against compulsory vaccination. Whilst I assiduously get my annual vaccination shots, I would resolutely opposed being forced to do so. ‘My body, my choice,’ after all. So, while I heartily detest genuine anti-vaxxers, it goes against every tenet of a free, liberal democracy to enforce medical procedures on sovereign individuals – indeed, medical ethics is very clear on informed consent.
Ignoring that, though, consider what has happened in Jelena Djokovic’s case:
Someone posted a video and merely asked what others’ opinions were. She didn’t assert that it was true or false – she asked to “know your thoughts”.
But no one can offer an informed opinion on the video, because a 100 billion dollar corporation has summarily ruled that we’re not allowed to see it.
This is a textbook example of what J S Mill called “the peculiar evil” of silencing even one person’s opinion.
If that person’s opinion is wrong, Mill observed, that offers us “the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error”. If we are only allowed to hear opinions we already agree with, how can we ever judge their truth?
That is the reason totalitarian societies like China ruthlessly suppress dissenting opinions.
We are fast descending into a totalitarian plutocracy where global mega-corporations impose a single world-view as ruthlessly as the Chinese regime.
Helped along by desperate media beat-ups.
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