We are reading chapter 4 of George Orwell’s 1984, which describes Winston’s job as a censor. His daily task is to “rectify” the news in order that it correlate to the previous statements of Big Brother and the party.
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Winston has become so good at this that he can create people and lives that never existed and imagine how they lived the totality of their existence in service to the state.
Obviously, Orwell could not have imagined the internet. But he did assume that television — still in its infancy when 1984 was written — would become the paramount means of propaganda and control in the future. But it is not difficult to see how the principle of “vaporizing” people who are out of favour with the party has been applied to the internet age. In Canada and the U.S. governments are not literally vaporizing opponents — not yet. But they and big tech do ensure that independent voices are silenced, and people b…
