The Final Straw Ken Rigsby is being watched by the Online Thought Police
This issue Ken Rigsby is running scared of the. . .
You know what the biggest problem with penning an opinion column is these days? It’s certainly not having the opinions. That bit’s easy, and we all have them. Why, only yesterday I thought: I bet I’ll regret writing this particular opinion column.
But let’s take a step back. In his famous allegorical novel Animal Farm, George Orwell imagined that pigs might one day elevate themselves to the very highest levels of government — and ex-prime minister David Cameron’s alleged porcine adventures suggest that Orwell’s fantasy wasn’t all that far-fetched. But Orwell also wrote of another world that at the time seemed similarly outlandish. In Nineteen Eighty-four the novelist envisioned a terrifying dystopian future, which included the Thinkpol — or Thought Police. In the book, the Thought Police were charged with uncovering and punishing “thoughtcrime”.
What was a thoughtcrime? It was the act of having even the slightest doubt about the legitimacy or efficacy of the ruling party of Oceania, the novel’s mythical superstate. Oceania’s citizens didn’t even have to say the bad thing: they just had to think it. Omnipresent ‘telescreens’ were the surveillance tools of Orwell’s Thought Police, detecting thoughtcrime if someone so much as blinked the wrong way.
Well, thank heavens Nineteen Eighty-four was just a novel! Imagine if you had to be concerned that everything you said might be misinterpreted by someone you don’t know. Imagine if you didn’t even realise your thoughts were being constantly monitored and judged. And imagine if you could get into trouble simply for saying what everyone else was thinking
That’s all too often what it feels like to voice an opinion nowadays, particularly online. Because if anyone - even someone you don’t know - considers your opinion to be wrong, it’s no longer enough for them simply to disagree with you. In fact, these days, if someone disagrees with your opinion - and let’s face it, that almost always means someone on Twitter or Facebook - then their indignant self-righteousness generally won’t diminish until you’ve apologised. Or failing that, until you’ve been hounded off the internet and then been forced to watch while every last one of your family and friends is disembowelled before your eyes, and then burned at the stake. Just to make sure you’re really, really sorry.
So remember this next time you venture online to make a joke about something that happened on Coronation Street or The Great British Bake Off: if you’re not privy to that moment’s Thought Police laws, then you risk being suddenly elevated to the status of Public Enemy Number One. The Online Thought Police are there, just ready and waiting, to take you down.
Think this sounds a bit paranoid? Then consider that over the next two years Scotland Yard will plough nearly £2m of your taxes into setting up a division specifically to investigate online content deemed to be “hate speech”. That’s an ostensibly laudable aim. But who decides what constitutes hate speech? According to the successful funding submission made by Sophie Linden, London’s deputy mayor for policing and crime, it’ll be an unpaid force of “community volunteers”. So, any reactionary Tom, Dick or Twitter user, basically.
Nineteen Eighty-four was more than a novel – it was a warning. Sadly we didn’t listen, and today the Online Thought Police are all too real. They’re now actively encouraged and amply funded by the real police, and we’re all paying for it – in more ways than one.
The Online Thought Police could be your friends or family, your neighbours or work colleagues. It could be anyone you interact with online, or even someone you’ve never encountered, because it takes just one retweet or Facebook share to put your opinion on their telescreens. And if they decide you’ve committed a thoughtcrime, good luck – even if you were only saying what everyone else was thinking.
Nineteeneighty-four was more than a novel – it was a warning. Sadly we didn’t listen