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[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Broke: Using an AI to arbitrarily blacklist books based on a black box algorithm.

Woke: Banning 1984 because it's capitalist propaganda written and published by war criminals.

[-] epicshepich@programming.dev 17 points 1 month ago

When I read it, I was frustrated that it was a socialist dystopia, but I think it holds up as a valid critique of surveillance-state authoritarianism, regardless of the x-coordinate on the political compass.

[-] Stamau123@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

Specifically Stalinist dystopia

Orwell was a socialist

[-] MrShankles@reddthat.com 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Got any sources for that? I'm not sure I understand your viewpoint

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The Life and Times of Reading Toxic Men #14 | George Orwell: The Colonial Cop and the Cynic of Power

Incidentally, Orwell never got to see his books truly take off. He died of tuberculosis at age 46. However, his more explicitly anti-communist works were picked up by Allen Dulles, at the CIA and turned into children's cartoons.

In 1950, after Orwell’s death, the CIA arranged for an animated film to be made based on the book. However, it pushed several changes. It transformed Orwell’s generally positive depiction of Snowball (Leon Trotsky), emphasized that the animals on some neighboring farms were perfectly content with their treatment by the human farmers, and changed the ending to show the other animals rising up to overthrow the pigs. The adaptation was unpopular in theaters, but it was widely shown in US and UK classrooms and was translated and distributed in other countries.

In an ironic twist, the books about state manufactured propaganda and national indoctrination became tools of state manufactured propaganda and national indoctrination.

Real "Don't Build The Torment Nexus" moment.

[-] MrShankles@reddthat.com 2 points 1 month ago

Huh, never knew that, thanks. That quote is about Animal Farm though. In the second source you linked, it literally says at the end that 1984 was propagandized, but that it unwittingly gave people a lexicon for criticizing the US. So it was proagandized, but backfired? Idk, I'll have to read into that more, but TIL!

[-] 7rokhym@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 month ago

And this is why everything goes to hell when we let the deranged left or right run anything.

this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2026
706 points (100.0% liked)

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