Another useful tactic is to archive news and commentary (left and right) about current political events, both for accountability and perhaps, to prevent the rewriting of history in the era of "alternative facts".
News media won't even mention your so-called 'real facts', facebook and twitter might not let others see them. Before you know it you'll be denounced by your neighbours, work colleagues and friends as a traitor, a madman. You'll lose your job, or your partner will. There may be a show trial and public denunciation. This has all happened before: the USSR, McCarthy.
If you don't want that you need an alternate means of distributing real facts, and countering fake ones. It has to be hosted so deeply in our tech infrastructure that it can't be firewalled or jammed. It needs to be accessible covertly. And it needs to record all the alternative facts too, because they like to change their facts.
Let's call it Samizdat.
There's a portion of the population who's wanted to deny climate change for a long time and I believe they'll accept the alt-facts to justify their position. But I'm skeptical about the efficacy of successfully silencing existing news groups and the majority of scientists.
Has anything like that ever been successful in the connected world? That being said, we do absolutely need to make protect our internet from censorship.
Example: a few years back a uk submarine was stuck high aground. As the tide went out the prop was exposed. I and a billion other people saw it live on bbc news. (Blue poly fins, at least 10 inside a housing). Good luck trying to find that image now. It has been sucessfully removed. The internet isnt the great memory well we all want it to be. With effort, facts can be changed, events scrubbed.
Change and censorship aren't synonymous and I have no expectation that anything will last forever. But it's easier to ignore and forget about something like a television show than something like global climate change.
My post was in relation to the mass censorship required to create a world like the parent post described.
As for your submarine, that's interesting. Was it this one? http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-116053... I'm not doubting the ability to censor things, especially before they become widespread, but climate change will be much harder because it's already a part of our vocabulary.
1: http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/the-british-data-cruncher...
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica
3: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/04/google-de...
The Trump campaign paid this group millions of dollars beginning in the summer of 2016.
Second result for me when searching Google Image Search for "bbc uk stuck submarine."
The full story involves a dilema between forcing the boat off the ground, and risk stripping its super-secret rubber coatings that might then be collected by russian agents, or letting the tide go out and expose the prop to the media.
But you're right, censorship happens. How do we prevent it?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_Kin...
I'd be interested to see if anyone can drag up an archive of that video.
EDIT: Might be this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgX4OYIFl-c but doesn't contain any view of the propellor.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astute-class_submarine#Propuls...
[2] http://www.shipwrecklog.com/log/2010/10/h-m-s-astute-aground...
Propulsion tech was part of the accident because, i believe, these subs do not have rudders. They vector thrust like a jetski and therefore have issues when moving slowly.
The chilling effect can be very real, and I think you'd be surprised how quickly it can take hold. And Harper was an absolute pussycat compared to Trump.
> There was once "broad consensus" that the world was flat. I am not at all comfortable when there is so much consensus. There needs to be debate, disagreement, and healthy skepticism at all times.
The key point is that the flat earthers kept believing (and angrily counter-attacking) despite the solid evidence to the contrary. Post-positivism is not claiming that everything is subjective and bias is insurmountable. You're not being sceptical, just delusional.
EFF, or some organization with more longevity than a single consultant should build something similar.
It timestamps to Bitcoin, and you don't need to own any Bitcoin for it to work.
BBC does this, and it's freaking annoying.