Photo credit: Thom Hartmann Program

Whereas Mr Ray Kurzweil predicted in his 2005 book ‘the singularity is near’ that the moment where the combined intelligence of machinery overtakes the combined intelligence of mankind would soon come, the events of this week lead me to believe that perhaps mankind is making it quite easy for the machines to do so.

The algorithmic collusion of Silicon Valley’s big tech companies Facebook, Spotify, Youtube and Apple to eradicate a critical voice and conspiracy theorist, Mr Alex Jones this week was nothing less but a significant warning that anyone who becomes too critical, can be taken out in a matter of days.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Time for the reign of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Qanon?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Qanon</a> to end.<br>Time for everyone to realize that Q is NOT an <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Anon?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Anon</a>.<br>Q, time's up.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WarOnQAnon?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WarOnQAnon</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OpQAnon?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#OpQAnon</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OpQ?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#OpQ</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OpFuhQ?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#OpFuhQ</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Anonymous?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Anonymous</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AnonFamily?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AnonFamily</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AnonsUnited?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AnonsUnited</a> <a href="https://t.co/ehsRD0R6Eq">pic.twitter.com/ehsRD0R6Eq</a></p>— C (@NgiNeThemba27) <a href="https://twitter.com/NgiNeThemba27/status/1026318475139198977?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 6, 2018</a></blockquote>

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There is no legal precedent that Mr Jones or his Infowars organisation can count upon and as Google and Facebook are clear monopolies with a large back pocket, a political solution also seems far off.

Furthermore, the demand by Democratic senators at a recent Facebook and Google hearing to ‘shut down’ Mr Jones was a certain ‘quid pro quo’ moment which will get Big Tech a ‘get out of jail free card’ in the event of any future privacy scandal (as we assume will undoubtedly follow).

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">What if <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/QAnon?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#QAnon</a> was a CIA operation that was trying to infiltrate Russian intel but systematically brainwashed low level IQ American citizens? 🤔<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OpQ?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#OpQ</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OpQAnon?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#OpQAnon</a></p>— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/YourAnonNews/status/1026230908804898816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 5, 2018</a></blockquote>

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1984, the dystopian novel by George Orwell, was supposed to be a warning, not a building block for society as California’s richest envisioned it. The loss of personal privacy coupled with constant and omnipresent surveillance was first highlighted by Mr Edward Snowden, but to no great worrying follow-up from the general public.

There has, however, another figure risen, the mysterious QAnon, who has left a trail of “breadcrumbs“ for his followers.

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But danger lurks in the background for him now as the hacker collective known only as Anonymous launched a video earlier this week vowing to take down QAnon in their typical fashion blaming conspiracy theorists for anything wrong with the world today.

One tiny detail thus becomes peculiar: Anonymous spoke of Mr Jones in the video, which was launched exactly one day before Big Tech eradicated Mr Jones.

Will QAnon be the next domino to drop?