Gandhi, porn and censorship
Gandhi, porn and censorship in the modern age
By Hamilton Steele © 2024
Gandhi, porn and censorship seem like 3 very unlikely topics to be linked together. However, Mahatma Gandhi once said, « There are unjust laws, just as there are unjust men ». When it comes to censorship, the number of unjust men grows exponentially and they create unjust laws to benefit themselves. Normally, these tyrants worked directly through the channels of traditional political power. Then, knowing who your enemy was made relatively easy. But today, big tech and the media are the perpetrators of tyranny and they take a devious path to exercise control over others.
Power is simply the ability to control others, cannibalizing other's lives for personal gain and benefit. In the era of slavery, someone could buy another human being, and fully force them to do their bidding, under the threat of beatings, even death. The more people one controls, the more powerful one is perceived to be ; creating an illusion of a deity-like status for their ego. Since whipping or beating someone creates hatred and fans the flames of rebellion, modern power seekers are after your minds. Control someone's thoughts and they'll do everything they're asked to without questioning.
There are two ways to enslave ; with violence or threat thereof, or by gaining control of the mind.
Who you are as an individual is purely a creation of your mind and when anyone can influence your thoughts, they're assaulting you. As Gandhi put it, « A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes. » For the diligent they can see the assault for what it is and resist being mentally raped. But unfortunately for most, their internet interactions are an ongoing assault that chips away at individual thoughts and beliefs, molding the masses into a conformed and indoctrinated mob to be corralled at will.
Censorship is practiced to avoid dissension, to keep people from sharing their personal truths and to keep other's from learning those truths. Labeling people who dissent as liars, or spreaders of « misinformation » is used to justify the need for this censorship, it is only when both sides are allowed to freely express their points of view that the facts and truth can be ascertained. Gandhi adds words of wisdom to this matter, « Truth never damages a cause that is just ». Which can be taken to mean that if their reasoning for silencing others were justified, the truth would stand out on it's own, and the censorship would not be needed. Or reversed, they must silence the truth because their cause, agenda, etc is NOT just.
Censorship is itself a form of violence.
The overwhelming vast majority of people will believe what the media tells them, and with the Internet, it's no longer a passive endeavor. The Internet is a form of brainwashing that entices the individual to participate in their own mental corruption. Gandhi understood the process and warned us, « Carefully watch your thoughts, for they become your words. Manage and watch your words, for they will become your actions. Consider and judge your actions, for they have become your habits. Acknowledge and watch your habits, for they shall become your values. Understand and embrace your values, for they become your destiny. » The effects of mind control via the Internet have proven to be almost permanent and extremely difficult to undo.
The masses are ignorant; they rely on others to tell them what is important. When censorship is practiced, that message is one sided, coercing the general public to form an authoritarian society. Numerous events during the Covid Pandemic and Nazi Germany's Holocaust of the Jews, prove beyond any doubt, that the average person can easily become a sanctimonious and cold hearted killer against their friends and even family. It's always been your next door neighbor who will betray you to law enforcement and it's the police officer who is « only doing his job. » Any moral dilemma they might have is washed away with a propaganda message of being told that they're noble and acting for the greater good.
Censorship effects more than the porn consumer. Porn is just an easy target. Recently Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM,) a global initiative to control media, was found to have been colluding with advertisers to boycott certain platforms and outspoken individuals. Their anti-trust violations essentially allowed big tech to dictate what information would be available to the public, while penalizing those who didn't play along. It is already common practice that advertisers will not associate with anything that qualifies as « adult product », be it porn, kink or gambling. But this hearing brings to light the insidious overreach of GARM in it's attack against the platforms Spotify and Twitter (now X), as well as against Joe Rogan for his podcast.
Pornography is more about exercising the right to freedom of speech than it is about sex
In porn, the right of freedom of speech is paramount, the industry grew by challenging obscenity laws. Because without freedom of speech, all manner of graphic sexual material is worthless because it can't be shared (sold) to anyone. The old school pornographers and pornstars of the 1970s/80s were more than sexual deviants, they were rebellious freedom fighters. Their values can be summed as, they fought for the right to create the offensive content and to give others the right to view it. The way to put an end to the tyranny is to directly challenge it by loudly expressing those things that you're not allowed to.
Unfortunately, with the rise of big tech, the Internet and content creators, those infamous rebels have become an almost extinct species. Ironically, big tech via the internet brought about the demise of many of the porn companies, by making porn available to people for free. For those under 40, this free access equated to underage access.
Now that they have a generation of consumers under their control, they are rolling back the access, and increasing the censorship. The complaint here is not that minors will have a harder time accessing porn, it is an attack on the hypocrisy. No one should trust those who built their dominance in an industry, by breaking all common sense rules to become the so called righteous dictators ?
By giving in and validating their sanctimonious claims to moral superiority, we’re about to get more than the death of dissension. As they turn up their controls, you too, as a consumer are under their watchful eye. The government is starting to require that users upload their ID with biometric data, to access adult sites. The adult sites never actually verify your personal data, instead it is shared with a 3rd party who specializes in this service. Your digitized profile, now available to be targeted by hackers and accessed liberally by government agencies. You are not merely showing that you are over the age of 18, you are providing a database with the knowledge of who you are, where you live, what you look like and what your particular sexual proclivities are.
Gandhi taught us about civil disobedience, and he emphasized the importance of unity and cooperation. He believed that by fostering a sense of collective responsibility and working together towards a common goal, people could achieve lasting social and political change (Gandhi, 1927). The industry pornographers were once operating was like that; they self-policed. Troublemakers were scorned to the outside, and the matter usually took care of itself. In porn, there was once a saying, « no one fails in porn » but the truth is many did. Charlie Biggs, Ron Jeremy and Inyko Volt Hwang are just a few who failed.
The industry who unknowingly did the most to keep society free, are also the most maligned and hated, so few will heed this warning. Big Tech already exerts enormous control over the government, by controlling the media. Now with the death of the legacy porn business, unfortunately, the responsibility to fight back, rests in the public’s hands. For the porn consumers wanting to fight back, there are a handful of physical stores left, and more will come if demand increases. Also there are still smaller sites for whom your credit card suffices, as proof of age of majority (these sites don't accept prepaid gift cards). And hopefully more options will be come available if some of today's content producers decide to take making porn seriously.
But this is more than just about porn ; it's about being able to decide for yourself what you can see and hear, what you can share and what you can learn. Porn is just the tool by which new technologies become accepted. So above everything else, with this AI controlled communications interface, we need to talk to real people. To seek out alternative information sources, which challenge the status quo. To read actual studies and reports, so we can draw our own conclusions.
If all that is over your head, find people you trust. Those who have the experience to evaluate things and have them explain what you don't understand. If they start with feelings instead of facts, find someone else. It's not going to be easy to turn back the clock on this mind control. But the payoffs are numerous, personal autonomy, interpersonal connections and protection from future manipulations. What sort of a world do you want to live in ? One filled with tyrannical controls or one with personal freedoms and brotherhood, as Gandhi envision ?
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ATTENTION PORNOGRAPHERS
It goes without saying that from a legacy pornographers perspective, we should have never left the video store. However, we too can still push back. First by creating professional websites, independent of fan platforms and tube sites, hosted outside of the American sphere of influence. The 2nd is to drop the dependency on Visa and MasterCard, and embrace a pay-per-video using crypto currency. The 3rd is to push the envelop by creating videos that are in demand, but would get a content creator or webcam model demonetized or banned. No one is saying to use underage talent, but if for example, urination videos are considered obscene, then it’s time to make them !
Above all else do not engage in business with anyone who is not willing to take a stand against censorship. Unfortunately, it has become a you’re with us or against us situation. Because if they are not standing with you; they are against you. They will betray you without hesitation, to suck up to whomever is calling the shots.
One last point:
ONLY CLICK THIS LINK IF YOU’RE WILLING TO FIGHT CENSORSHIP
(( Substack would not allow me to upload the above graphic))
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References:
Gandhi, M. K. (1908). Hind Swaraj. Madras: S. Ganesan.
Gandhi, M. K. (1927). The Story of Satyagraha in South Africa. In S. Radhakrishnan (Ed.), Mahatma Gandhi: Essential Writings (pp. 93-124). New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Pornography and Censorship, Stanford.edu : (2004); substantive revision 2022
The psychological causes and societal consequences of authoritarianism, Nature Reviews Psychology volume 2, pages 220–232 (2023)
Big tech and censorship, The Economist (2021) https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/01/16/big-tech-and-censorship
GARM’S HARM, Committee on the Judiciary U.S. House of Representatives (2024) : https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2024-07-10%20GARMs%20Harm%20-%20How%20the%20Worlds%20Biggest%20Brands%20Seek%20to%20Control%20Online%20Speech.pdf