Polish Government to Breitbart: Big Tech's 'Cancel Culture' Is Bolshevik, Not Democratic
“Cancel culture aims to make people afraid to express their opinions” and Big Tech is working with the far left to promote this environment which has more in common with the methods of Soviet Russia than modern democracies, a Polish government minister has told Breitbart London.
Sebastian Kaleta is Poland’s deputy minister for justice and the man tasked with shepherding a new law meant to give protections to Polish citizens from censorious and over-powerful Silicon Valley big-tech firms. He told Breitbart London that Poland has real concerns about cancel culture and is legislating against it.
Kaleta said that while the worst excesses of political correctness has yet to be felt in socially conservative Poland, his government was watching developments elsewhere — including where political correctness had developed into a full hard-left culture — with concern.
When other countries moved to regulate social media, it was to force networks to delete content. Poland is turning that concept on its head, legislating to protect freedom of speech on online platforms https://t.co/F1Y3o8aaNo
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 28, 2021
Kaleta made clear that Poland’s 50 years of living under Soviet communist occupation and then rule had left the nation cautious about modern developments in censorship — something he said other nations which had never suffered under communism appeared to be blind to. He said: “The pressure from the far left has developed from soft political correctness into a much harsher phase, that of cancel culture… [it is] very worrying, and is more reminiscent of bolshevik standards than democratic ones.”
Observing the dangerous path that many Western countries are now walking, Kaleta offered a lesson from Poland’s recent past when “reeducation camps” were the norm for deviants and those who criticised the prevailing orthodoxy. He continued: “Cancel culture aims to make people afraid to express their opinions.
“The signals from the left are clear — if you do not agree with us and you criticise us, the ‘system’ we have created will not only get you fired, but it will also limit your access to certain services and products.”
Ultimately, Kaleta said, the “neo-Marxists” calling the shots within cultural institutions like the mainstream media and Silicon Valley were using “methods which are closer to those of Soviet Russia than social democracy”. He cited the case of now-cancelled, but until recently the most successful author on earth, J.K. Rowling, as an example of the power of that cancel culture, noting simply: “Slowly but surely, the revolution devours its own children.”
The comments to Breitbart London come as Kaleta and the Polish government introduce a new law to protect Polish citizens from censorship at the hands of a remote Silicon Valley elite. Under the new plan, Poles who found their accounts and posts blocked, deleted, or limited for messages which offended Big Tech morals but which did not fall foul of Polish law could appeal for redress.
Poland’s prospective parliament-appointed free speech board could demand social media networks reinstate the accounts of wronged Poles. Poland could levy fines of up to 50 million zloty ($14 million) per offence in cases where they refused to comply. Ultimately, he explained: “Freedom of speech needs to be defended from censorship.”
Poland Urges U.S. to Regulate Big Tech, ‘Every Citizen Must Be Protected’ from Censorship https://t.co/p3MU3VvXIp
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 25, 2021
