David Vance SubstackRead More
The term literally means “to encourage the others” and it was used in Voltaire’s Candide (1759) in reference to the execution of Admiral John Byng. You see if there is ONE GUARANTEED WAY to get the attention of a group of people and to then cower them into submission to your will, it’s to do something horrible to a prominent member of that group.
And THAT is exactly what happened to a lady named Bernadette Spofforth on X/Twitter. Bernie had posted a factually incorrect post in the aftermath of the Southport killings which she had prefaced with the “If this is true..” disclaimer which attributed the murders to a cross-channel Muslim migrant. Many others also had copy pasted this fake information. It did appear that the rumour had originated in Pakistan, believe it or not, but the media didn’t care about things like facts.
On the 8th August, the Police arrived at Bernie’s house and she was detained in a prison cell for 36 hours. The outrageous suggestion was that it was HER POST that had inflamed the subsequent protests/riots. Bernie was demonised in the mainstream media and the character assassination was off the scale. A little over 10 days ago, the Police dropped all charges against Bernie. You can watch her talk about it here.
The point I want to make is that this arrest and bullying of Bernie was in fact aimed at all us who have prominence on Social Media. This was the State saying “you better watch it or you will be next”! It was making an example of one of us in order to mute the rest of us. It is truly Orwellian yet it was one of the first acts of this wicked Labour Government.
Bernie’s alleged crime was to sent out a tweet that had contained false information. She had simply copy/pasted the erroneous information. It happens. I would suggest that each day MILLIONS of social media posts contain false information. Will we arrest millions of people? No, of course not, and that isn’t the game being played here. The Government itself regularly spreads false information and yet there is no penalty considered against it. Bernie was punished as a warning. She won’t be the last.
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