Bilderberg, WEF abandoning the globe for the West

Considering the agendas listed for their most recent meeting, it is noticeable that the Bilderberg forum is focusing less on the supposedly empathy-driven management of world human welfare and much more on the survival of the West. The West, meaning the narrow portion of the world whose most influential people attend these very meetings.

The new focus on ongoing conflicts like Ukraine's reveals that this group is not focused on managing the world’s economic wellbeing but the group’s own members’ desires and insecurities.

Shifting agendas away from world human welfare

If you look at the agendas from 2010 onwards, there is a certain shift from more scientific global concerns to increasingly narrow political ones, driven by a craving by the Western liberal attendees for victory and conquest over other countries and ideologies they personally disapprove of. Notice, in particular, the disappearance of the importance of climate change, formerly a key pressing issue in globalisation and a real basis for global cooperation, now abandoned by these supposedly caring leaders and experts for their preservation of their own political influence. Fear is the motive of their discussions - their own fear, not society's.

Some will begin to ask, was climate change ever real for those people? And, if it is no longer real for them, why should any of their current concerns be taken seriously outside their club? It seems that the most pressing global issues are less interesting to them than what they personally fancy or caters to their personal interests.

The same pattern is apparent at the World Economic Forum, which prioritised talking about the conflict in Ukraine, highlighting global fractures and amplifying conflict rather than maintaining the false liberal tenet of global cooperation. It is striking that the ideological principals guiding Western society just fluctuate depending on what would be satisfying to its richest and most influential individuals at the moment, getting us to scratch their itches. Globalisation and harmony one minute, national power and domination the next. Free markers one minute, state intervention the next.

'Me, me, me'

What we see here is that these forums for bigwigs, experts and public figure seem to be losing their pretence of being caring and responsible managers over global welfare, indicating this was never authentic in the first place. They are out for themselves.

What has happened can be compared with Bill Gates’ apparent obsession with conspiracy theories about himself (also see that one of the Bilderberg agendas is again "disinformation") and his need to save himself from campaigns against his character. Rather than acting like the bewildered but well-meaning philanthropist he claimed to be, and removing himself from a controversial situation, he is increasingly obsessed with defeating a political enemy, even coming into conflict with Elon Musk.

What happened to the experts who focused on the bigger picture of global society and health? Why should we care about their terror at conspiracy theorists in their own society and apparent geopolitical threats from Russia and China to their influence?

Eventually, we will begin to ask: what need do we have for a conference among individuals whose main interest is just their own avoidance of being hanged by the people? Is saving some self-important pencil necks we know very little about, from being snapped, really necessary for the public good and urgent for society to pursue?

Liberalism without prosperity?

The basic appeal of liberalism, and more so the neoliberal economic policy that dominated the world for decades, is meant to be the prosperity it optimises (or at least prevents the loss of). Unfortunately, faced with acute conflict in the world, proponents of this ideology may be increasingly instead turning to sacrifice and austerity in the name of 'civilisation', promoting a geopolitical struggle against competing poles of power like Russia and China. This puts liberalism in the position of, in the future, not presiding over a prospering people but a starved and hobbled people who wonder what it is all for.

Without offering prosperity, liberal democratic states offer nothing. By trying to convince people to enter a global confrontation with opposing continents, and forget about global welfare and even food supplies, the liberal regimes will throw away the only thing they were meant to be about. What hope is there, then, for their survival?

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Weaponising everything and everyone

In a way, accusing the other side of weaponising all sorts of things is itself an attempt to weaponise those things. By saying others are weaponising information, for example, as the Guardian does, you are basically turning information sources into targets for military action.

Or, you are telling people to close their ears to other sources and listen instead to you. You are taking the war to the information sphere and telling your audience to fight for you by only listening to you, thereby unnecessarily militarising and weaponising this sphere. You were the one who adopted the idea that making people hold specific beliefs is a military objective you want met, and declared this view publicly. Others may just have welcomed a healthy debate, with every point, from the most banal to the most diabolic, open for consideration. So, who really weaponised something?

Pandemic of censorship

In a 2020 exchange of ideas, the Mont Order information-sharing society agreed that “The way content related to the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been controlled is a potential gateway to increasingly aggressive censorship by Western governments”. This referred to the handling of medical disinformation, which can indeed be fatal, but later, disputed political information was increasingly being dealt with in the same way.

The Mont Order prediction seemed to come true later, when all dissenting sources on the Ukraine conflict were being treated as enemy operators rather than legitimate participants in a debate. Virtually every statement critical of the West and NATO was also suddenly treated as the statement of none other than Russian President Vladimir Putin, himself. The accepted idea became that everyone must promote a single narrative on any controversial issue, and all dissent must be dealt with like enemy shellfire, and silenced immediately.

Attention given to the idea of Russia spreading propaganda, and a lack of grasp of what propaganda is (other than that it is enemy information and therefore bad), has likely made many people in the West incapable of spotting a lot of very obvious and shoddy propaganda from the West itself. The cliché that the other side only produces propaganda and its claims can all be dismissed (even if true) is a huge accomplishment in propaganda. Inconvenient information is to be dismissed without consideration and even any source dismissed as an enemy agent, regardless of where it is located or its prior reputation. Everything becomes ad hominem attacks and shooting the messenger (in Ukraine itself, that probably is happening literally).

Being right doesn't mean being correct

Control of all publicly-consumed information works well for winning information wars where the goal is to convince the people of something, but it does not create informed experts. It is not hard to guess that Western journalists and politicians are themselves consuming dubious information, confusing a sense of righteousness for accuracy (the word "right" being the same word used to describe things that are morally encouraged or factually correct is a source of confusion, maybe). A rational person, meanwhile, concedes that our own regimes and the small, narrow blob of familiar corporate sponsors in the West could be motivated to spread their own fakes and propaganda.

In some ways, the discouragement of anything contrary to the single supreme narrative on a given controversy makes the West every bit as vulnerable to mindless propaganda as the most totalitarian societies in history. At worst, it means the very foundations of our supposed Western civilisation are just fakes and falsehoods, devoid of substance. We do not enjoy liberty, and lack access to the truth.

Weaponisation of TikTokers and YouTubers

The Biden administration actually intervened to convince TikTok creators to help it convince users of its position on the fighting in Ukraine. To the US government, everything is a weapon, and its foreign policy goals need to be achieved using every ethical and unethical method it can find.

It can seem as if genuine grassroots voices are rising up to support Ukraine's apparently morally just cause on YouTube, unanimously siding with the West and the supposed universal decency it represents when it comes to conflicts. The reality, though, is that even this behaviour is explained more by these people's reliance on a single platform aligned with the West and the sanctions it uses to control content creators. Creators want to stay in good standing with the platform, and this has more to do with what they say than any genuine moral stance on anything.

The sanctioned point of view

If we focus on YouTube's weaponisation, it is not hard to notice that content (even from entertainers) praising Ukraine or NATO in the ongoing conflict in Europe retains its monetisation (ads still play), in addition to which pro-Ukraine ads are allowed all over the site itself, despite this cause being ethically dirty and politically aligned in a violent conflict (revenue is blocked for video content on other conflicts). This tells us two things. First, that YouTube's management are guided by agents of the US government when it comes to foreign policy (certainly, Google is). Second, that the users creating the content had some kind of advance knowledge of the measures in place to reward or punish people depending on what conclusions their videos endorsed regarding the Ukraine conflict. With such factors in force, how likely is a content creator to arrive at balanced conclusions on the war in Ukraine? Basically, they have been given financial incentives to promote a specific view in their videos.

Clearly, the same narrow group of people who have sway over Western regimes and are able to treat politicians to all kinds of carrots and sticks are doing the same with even small content creators online. Consequently, what appears to be mass support popping up for a cause is always more likely to just be financially motivated and originating from a very narrow source.

To display a Ukrainian flag at one's church, or on one's car or social media profile, is not an autonomous action by people. Nobody was really moved by what they saw in Ukraine or in any other foreign conflict, but by sanctions, i.e. a cycle of reward and punishment by the powerful, which is the basis of all Western policy and morality. The resulting activity supporting the state's policies is subtly state-controlled. One way or another, incentives are created by the state and influence operations take place, in an effort to weaponise everything and everyone to sanitise and prop up an otherwise dubious and dirty policy of inflaming a foreign conflict.

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Bill Gates needs to get what he deserves

Bill Gates seems to have developed an obsession with the conspiracy theories about him, while doing nothing to address them. His own obsession now goes far enough that everyone can be forgiven for taking an interest in those theories, too.

Back at the start of this month, Gates objected to Elon Musk’s desire to ease the moderation policies on Twitter. He seemed to be specifically pleading for his own protection from conspiracy theorists who propagate claims regarding his bizarre continuous attempts to involve himself in health policy, with which this billionaire software designer has no expertise.

Bill Gates' conspiracy theory obsession

Bill Gates asked of Musk, “How does he feel about something that says ‘vaccines kill people’ or that ‘Bill Gates is tracking people?’”, which is telling. This reveals that Gates’ main concern about medical disinformation and malpractice is all about himself. For him, it is not about whether members of the public have access to the accurate and diverse sources of information they deserve or their understanding of science is boosted. He has shown no interest in that issue.

On Saturday, a very unfavourable hashtag was trending on Twitter about Bill Gates.

As an entrepreneur, Bill Gates should take note. Now, as always, he is at the mercy of consumers. Demanding harsh control over what opinions those consumers can express among themselves, when the entire capitalist model depends on them making choices, is folly for one whose career success was based on the consumer's whims.

Bill Gates' scientism

To be on the wrong side of millions of people is dangerous. To cultishly repeat that being on the side of science is best, in the face of millions of worried people, is a disservice to science. It creates the impression that the natural sciences have carved in stone unchanging answers fundamental questions, and have now developed some social role to compel society into obedience, which is hardly a service to scientific inquiry or the public perception of science. Scientists are not parental figures and nannies, and no credible scientist ever assigned himself such a role. They do not compel the public to do anything, as society only ever consented to give them the role of investigators and sources of counsel. Right now, scientists are aware of many things that compromise people's health, and they do nothing about them, because that is not their purpose, which is only to inform.

Bill Gates’ condescending attitude puts him at risk of the millions of unscientific people he feels it is safe to mock, and who may eventually take worse action than yelling at him. Conspiracy theorists may seem like a laughing matter to those who know better than them, but the ones doing the mocking should take a look at what conspiracy theorists have actually done throughout history. It is not a pretty thing, to be in their sights.

Conspiracy theories are no laughing matter

Conspiracy theories are not new, or an internet phenomenon. Before the internet, they were conveyed in pamphlets. Historically, they are linked to eventual justifications for massacres and the rise of extreme ideologies, as most genocides and civil wars feature them as a key part in the formation of the prerequisite extreme views. They are possibly the single most radicalising phenomenon, not just in modern extremism but in history's most extreme revolutionary violence and massacres. As such, the current approach of denigrating conspiracy theorists and dismissing them as incompetent, even as they come to encompass half the population in places like the United States, presents a grave danger. 

Most people would be very worried for their safety if they were accused of the diabolical things that Bill Gates is being accused of. However, this man seems to expect so little initiative from the people who accuse him of murder, that he is completely unconcerned.

Gates' persistent mockery of the fears of a growing number of people across the world, and continued involvement in health policy despite unnerving so many people, actually suggests he has a personality that is bizarre and maybe sociopathic (unable to empathise with or understand the fear he creates). This is a factor that likely only increases many people’s discomfort with him. Many people likely sense stench about him, and it is why they buy into paranoid claims about him.

If conspiracy theorists are mistaken, Bill Gates' best way of correcting the problem is still to withdraw from all his involvement or interest in health policy, as a way to reassure people, and apologise for the fears he created. This would actually do more to encourage vaccines than all his previous involvement in promoting them to date.

How Bill Gates can help

Bill Gates’ story is one of success with consumers. He should take note of his benefactors, and be aware that upsetting them and provoking them can have consequences just as as significant for his life as creating products for them.

Eventually, the crowds must be placated rather than dismissed, even if it means diminishing the authority of capable meritocrats and their role in society. Otherwise, uncontrollable and murderous crowds are inevitable.

Part of the role of leaders is to actually have the trust of society. If half the population really begins to believe Bill Gates is a murderer and a monster, this means that his most stabilising role in society is actually to keep his mouth shut and fade from public view, as would suit public safety and his own safety.

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Elon Musk scandal timing suggests smear campaign

Popular billionaire tycoon Elon Musk has been the target of sexual harassment allegations reminiscent of those against Donald Trump, including the familiar claim of paying for an individual’s silence.

Such claims against Musk are carried by journalists, and occurred at a time when he was clashing with the very same journalistic community about freedom of speech. This indicates that what is happening is a smear campaign, likely by elements associated with the Democratic Party in the United States

Journalists lie

Journalists and mainstream media outlets cannot be trusted. They are able to lie, and then later retract their claims and apologise when the damage is done, thereby continuing to maintain their supposed reputation for journalistic integrity. This 'oops' model of disinformation means that none of the current headlines can be taken seriously, since every point they make may simply be retracted quietly later.

It is entirely possible that some months after all the damage is done, it will quietly emerge that Elon Musk didn't do anything. One could point to Musk's ability to sue for defamation, but this can neither undo the damage to him, nor necessarily cause damage to the business of the offending publication or network.

It could alternatively be the case that Elon Musk’s transgressions are true, but that they are true of virtually all celebrities of similar status in the US. It may be that journalists just use this as a way of attacking the person if they become a political enemy. There seems to be virtually no high-profile individual, especially a political target, in the United States. who doesn't eventually get accused of something grave.

Non sequitur in the free speech debate

Finally, people should bear in mind that Elon Musk’s personal character has little to do with his disputes with journalists and management at Twitter after securing a deal to buy the company. It does nothing to discredit his views of journalistic and online freedoms, any more than spurious and eventually withdrawn rape allegations discredited Julian Assange's journalistic work.

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Upgrading from moderation to state censorship?

Elon Musk reached a deal to buy Twitter, even as the businessman listened to grievances about the social network's cavalier suppression of information. Within 48 hours of that news, the Democrat administration was creating a new body dedicated to handling the “disinformation” it finds troubling online.

And what the Biden administration finds most troubling is not necessarily the things that may do harm to Americans, but conversations that may undermine the administration's legitimacy and future electoral prospects (say, questioning the 2020 election result). In other words, the first reaction of Biden's tinpot regime to any resurgence of First Amendment rights was to worry about itself.

Censorship by any other name

One can suppose the new censorship board is meant to replace the apparently imperilled corporate censorship that was carried out by Twitter under regime pressure. The very suggestion of any reduction of such censorship got the mainstream media hot and bothered.

The seeming willingness of Democrats to turn to state censorship, if that is what we are seeing, is significant. Twitter being a private company rather than a state agency has been a defence of the company’s heavy-handed actions in suppression of information for years (I never bought this argument, although certain anti-statists did). Right libertarians will never accept a government censorship body, nor will the anti-statist left.

Cold Civil War to grow more visible?

Individual US states may resist the authority of this federal body. As such, the stupid move of the people who seemingly resent the First Amendment more than anything else will contribute to the Cold Civil War. It may result in content being hidden in some US states (namely the Democrat-controlled states, which will be ever more fearful of the free circulation of information), while in other states all content will be available.

The events just further expose the fantastical lack of ability to maintain any principles at the Democrat-controlled White House. This failing is equally true of regime apologists, who believe everything it does is somehow automatically conducive to liberty and other American values even when it clearly is not.

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Trudeau's war on peaceful protesters

Seemingly violating the law in his own country and certainly violating his own pledge to support peaceful protesters, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a hypocrite.

Events in Canada reveal the despair of many people living under anti-populism and misanthropy. In such a regime, the energy and funding of the politically educated goes into denigrating normal people, discrediting popular pleas and local interests, and revolving instead around highbrow condescension.

Strangely, the anti-popular impulse of Trudeau, like the Democrats in the United States, is referred to usually under the lie of safeguarding democracy or democratic institutions, when in fact it is aimed at suppressing the will of an irritated and uncomfortable population.

Filtering out the lies

It should be noted that so-called journalists are equally involved in the state's misanthropy and crowd control, with their part in the tag team being to loyally defend the government, ridicule any kind of popular demands, and present themselves as pedantic teachers on what ideas and causes are permissible. They also conduct "fact-checks" whereby they miraculously find that every popular demand against the misanthropes is based on disinformation or linked somehow to Russia, because some tall forehead at an intelligence agency said so in a patronising voice.

You may not be aware of it, but if you rely on mainstream media, it probably means the approved agendas spelled out at gloomy board meetings and gatherings of dirty sponsors are the only political causes you recognise or tolerate. The passion and colour in the things the mainstream corporate media have to say and what dissident cause they show as trendy (for example, BLM) is as artificial and false as what gets injected into grey food matter in a factory. Fact-checkers are also appointed by the same dirty method and are equally useless and uninterested in facts, instead representing the interests of the sponsors.

That being said, plenty of non-mainstream media are also full of fakes and equally driven by profit. One needs to subject all big claims to the tools of scepticism: find expert consensus from opposing interest groups or undisputed video or other raw source material, to determine if a claim can be accepted.

A people trampled

Crowd control is a reasonable way to describe the anti-populism in places like Canada and the United States. Crowd control, of the misanthropic kind that recently occurred when Canadian mounted police trampled a crowd and were rumoured to have killed someone, although they deny it. The fatality is unlikely to be real at this moment, given that it cannot be verified, but one only need watch video of it to see that those who ordered this were deliberately endangering lives.

The perilous threshold I warned of in this very blog, at which government employees cease to be protective of the population and begin instead risk outright violence and chaos with lethal consequences on a scale potentially worse than the virus they hope to contain, could get close. In the Arab world, we have seen how widespread protests, when met by dismissive and condescending responses by the state, can reach boiling point.

Widespread protests can give rise to protracted crises with significant potential for violence, not to mention a substantial drain on the state's capability to provide for the population. Ultimately, the decision to fight the people rather than listen to them may eventually undermine the state's own ability to respond to the pandemic, making Trudeau himself a threat to health and wellbeing in Canada. Trudeau could waste the government's resources on quashing dissent, resulting in more deaths from the pandemic than would result from simply cancelling the vaccine mandate and opting for a more polite response.

Hypocrisy at many levels

Is it worth risking grievous injury and death to citizens, as shown in the horse incident, for the sake of health policy? Is such a heavy-handed response by a state indeed aimed at health, or at protecting the condescending political circles the state evidently represents?

While describing protests as illegal, Trudeau himself illegally invoked his country's Emergencies Act prematurely as an excuse to begin clobbering his people. If he had indeed waited for the event when protests might turn violent, rather than making a very highbrow and strange academic argument about the "inherent violence" of the racist symbols he falsely claims protesters are brandishing everywhere, his use of the measures could be defended. As it stands, his actions are unsupportable and extreme and suggest what Trudeau did was an outburst of personal hatred against the protesters.

Trudeau has made pledges never to support anything like this, even abroad, yet he supports this on the streets of his own country. When farmers rightly protested peacefully in India, Trudeau said “Canada will always be ready to defend the right to peaceful protest.” Now, he is evidently okay with taking the risk of even killing protesters, rather than so much as acknowledging the widely heard popular demands that he change course on Covid vaccine mandates.

What is worse than an authoritarian is someone who pretended to be something else and can't follow his own pronouncements. If Justin Trudeau can adhere neither to his own pledge of support for peaceful protesters, nor his pledges to health that are the very justification for his violence, there is no telling what he might do.

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Medical disinformation can be akin to murder

With all kinds of disinformation circulating on social media since the start of the pandemic, it is important that people do not believe reposting it is devoid of consequences. In fact, it is very much like killing people.

I will start by saying that I do not oppose alternative medicine or even faith-healing, provided that the patient also has access to every form of conventional and science-based medicine too. I also believe in freedom to choose to refuse a medical treatment, but I do not necessarily believe in freedom to misinform, and that is the subject here.

Delay and doubt can be fatal

Distrust in the medical authorities leads to delays, and can be fatal. Without going into specifics, I will say that this has affected my own life. In that case, there was hesitancy by certain parents at letting doctors operate on a child, due to the parents succumbing to some disinformation and paranoia about medical safety. It almost caused a child to die, and the delay might have led to permanent damage.

The opponents of medical authority are absurd because we literally have no alternative other than the medical services to turn to for help in case of illness or injury. Even these idiots will in fact limp to the same hospitals they would have condemned, if they are injured.

Even if medical science is absolutely ineffective, it is probably still your only hope. To try to threaten medical workers and researchers and accuse them of malicious intent literally is the same as inciting people to leave others to die and delay or prevent treatment that is urgently needed.

We know, on the authority of everyone, the vaccines are safe

In the case of vaccines, I cannot analyse them from a medical standpoint as I know nothing of medicine. However, I do know International Relations (IR) quite well and can confirm the vaccines are safe from my own disciplinary background.

We have almost every responsible international actor on the face of the Earth - even the Taliban - accepting that the coronavirus is dangerous and pleading for vaccines to help combat it. Donald Trump is another example, much to the dismay of some of his fringe anti-vaccine supporters who can't accept facts.

If people so diverse all agree that vaccines are necessary, and the only thing they have in common is that they were or are in positions of power and responsibility and had access to the best information, a rational person will concede that taking the vaccines is the best-informed choice. Similarly, all the world's scientific bodies devoted to studying viruses attest to the existence of the virus and the effectiveness of vaccines in combating it. The only people asserting the contrary (anti-vaxxers) are fringe individuals and groups that are tasked with giving no essential aid or counsel to anyone, and are accountable to no-one for whether their information is right or wrong. The latter point is best illustrated by the fact anti-vaxxers can't even agree with each other on what the problem is (e.g. whether the germ theory of disease is even valid, or if viruses exist), other than that they all hate the vaccines and those administering them. In contrast, the world's governments all agree about vaccines, even if they have severe disagreements on almost every other issue.

Governments could lose patience with disinformation

The more medical disinformation complicates the work of healthcare authorities, the more likely it will eventually be eliminated by government intervention (currently only very mild), possibly with consequences for all online publishing freedom. People spreading false medical advice or paranoia are therefore hindering, not improving, the work of any political opposition and dissidents.

Because harmful people exploited the ease of achieving online influence, we are likely to see a significant decrease in the ease of any and all dissidents achieving such influence in future, if the decrease has not happened already. The well may have been irreversibly poisoned by medical pseudoscience and we may be faced with the ever-declining reach of alternative media, as the state acts legitimately against it to protect public health.

Health services such as the UK's National Health Service (NHS) should not be fair game for criticism by those whose interests are solely political and not medical, especially if these medically unqualified dissidents are going to try to provide uncertified and illegal medical advice. In fact, there should be dire consequences for such interlopers who try to complicate the ability of medical workers to provide accurate information to potential patients.

It is the job of the state to safeguard the population's health, even if it means overriding the freedom of individuals the state deems to be a significant threat to the health of the population. The state has significant power over life and death, and it ought only to tolerate freedom insofar as it contributes to the health and wellbeing of the population.

Liberty misunderstood

Freedom for freedom's sake is absolutely unacceptable. If people are making use of their freedoms to harm others and cause injury and death, their freedoms should be curtailed through any means including completely pulling the plug on something like the internet and denying all press freedom. Hopefully, such a step will only be very rarely needed, but it may be necessary to save the lives of the afflicted and the children whose parents succumbed to fatal irrationality.

Rampant anti-authority sentiment of the American variety is based on misreading and misunderstanding the nature of liberty. What is advocated in this post may seem like extreme statism, and be opposed by anti-statists, but they should remember that what the proponents of unlimited liberty advocate is even more extreme punishment for medical quacks. In a stateless society, medical quacks who caused the death of a child or relative would be at risk of not just being silenced by the restrained authorities, but being killed under the slow tortures of an unrestrained angry mob.

That's right. The peddlers of medical disinformation should, rather than accusing any authority of suppressing freedom, thank those same authorities for preventing the mob from seeking justice against them for the harm they do. If you have a hand in killing someone's child because you were blabbering paranoid and ignorant thoughts about doctors in a published form online and it created hesitancy among readers, think not of your curtailed freedom and just thank the state that you don't have some parent's hands around your neck.

Liberty, which is solely an exercise of the state or the incumbent power's restraint and generosity rather than an inalienable right of man, is fatal when misunderstood to mean the right to cause rampant harm without repercussions. Liberty is good only insofar as it forms part of the life and flourishing of the public, and those who jeopardise either of those things deserve none.

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YouTube commits to bringing you bad videos

YouTube's decision to hide dislike counts on all videos is absurd and seems more like the result of a child's tantrum than an informed team decision. I say this as one of the first users of YouTube in the days when few had heard of it, who uploaded content and withstood heavy dislikes. Those were barbaric times, when the scary dislike bar was red with blood.

Without being able to see the number of dislikes on videos, the dislike button itself becomes redundant. Pushing it will do nothing for viewers except indicate to the person who pressed it, that they pressed it. It will serve no purpose, and might as well be removed too.

What will the new system even look like?

Without being able to see the dislikes on videos, being able to see the likes on videos is also of no consequence. YouTube did not explain how it would display the now-meaningless likes on a video while they compete against nothing. Yes, we are used to the competing like and dislike bars, formerly coloured before they were reduced to thin lines to look less impactful, and eventually turned grey as if to reduce the crimson stain of being disliked too much. Will there now simply be a grey line representing likes, always the same on every video, that doesn't indicate anything?

This might be an example of inclusivity and inoffensiveness reaching an extreme at which it undermines inclusivity itself - a point where the desire to value every voice comes full circle and instead excludes every voice. Moreover, if people are excluded from expressing their dislike of something, they still won't like the thing and their resentment may only be more intense, perhaps moving to an ever more offensive comments section.

Failure to fight disinformation

As well as causing other problems, YouTube's decision to remove the public dislike count may undermine its own fight against disinformation on the platform. A significant amount of false information, such as bogus science, proliferates on YouTube and is combated by a sensible and balanced community who dislike, flag and debunk such content. Removing the dislike button on such videos will remove an obvious sign that might have prevented people from falling for scams and disinformation. In short, YouTube's decision to help bad videos look good, to safeguard the feelings of bad creators, will probably allow internet conmen to take their game further and claim more victims.

Who is vandalising YouTube?

At the end of the day, the site and all the changes it makes are up to Google, and YouTube will continue to remain a very popular service despite this change. However, such a change points to a lack of talent or creativity.

YouTube complains that mobs are exploiting their system. However, if YouTube's hands only deface and destroy services and features, they are vandalising their own website rather than improving it. They won't make people more feel safer or more respected.

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