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COVID was not the real threat, censorship was.

by Author Bill Farley

Every year that passes, more information quietly surfaces.

 

Memos are released. Policies are revised. Statements are clarified. And yet, the most important lesson from COVID still feels largely unspoken not because it is complicated, but because it is uncomfortable.

 

The greatest threat we faced during the pandemic was not just a virus.

 

It was how quickly fear made censorship feel acceptable and how easily questioning became a punishable offense.

This is not about relitigating the science, the vaccines, or partisan politics. It is about examining how propaganda works in modern societies, especially during moments of crisis, and what happens when institutions decide certain questions are no longer allowed.

 

 

What Propaganda Actually Looks Like

 

Propaganda does not always come wrapped in lies. More often, it works by narrowing the range of acceptable truths. During COVID, the signs of a controlled narrative were unmistakable.

• Dissent was punished immediately
• Approved beliefs were aggressively amplified
• Algorithms quietly buried opposing views
• Questioners were branded dangerous, anti science, or irresponsible

 

This is how propaganda operates in practice not through cartoonish villains, but through institutions convinced they are beyond questioning.

 

Once an authorized narrative takes hold, anything outside it becomes a threat. Not because it is wrong, but because it challenges authority.

 

 

The Culture of Silencing

 

In the early months, people were not asking radical or reckless questions.

 

They were asking reasonable ones:

Are there long term effects we do not know yet?
Should children be treated differently from adults?
Was this process rushed?
What data supports these decisions?

 

These were not fringe concerns. They were basic scientific questions. And yet, instead of debate or transparency, the response was blunt. Sit down. Shut up. Do not ask.

 

Parents, doctors, scientists, and everyday citizens were all treated the same. If your question did not align with the approved script, you became the problem. That is not how science works. Science requires debate. Propaganda demands obedience.

 

We experienced far more of the latter than most people are willing to admit.

 

 

Speed, Certainty, and Distrust

 

The vaccines were developed at record speed. That is not a criticism. It is a fact. Under normal circumstances, medical development involves years of trials, long term data collection, and open public discussion. During COVID, everything was compressed into months due to the scale of the crisis.

 

Acceleration alone was not the mistake.

 

Pretending that acceleration should not raise questions was.

 

When authorities insist on absolute trust while forbidding curiosity, they do not inspire confidence. They manufacture suspicion. People do not distrust institutions because they ask questions. They distrust them because questions are treated as disobedience.

Fear plus silence is the perfect breeding ground for propaganda.

 

 

How Fear Became a Tool

 

Fear is the most effective mechanism of control ever discovered.

 

Keep people afraid long enough, and they will accept almost anything. Mandates. Censorship. Punishment for dissent. Restrictions that contradict one another.

 

Now consider the perspective of a parent during that time.

 

Every headline implied danger. Every broadcast suggested urgency. Every authority figure framed hesitation as moral failure.

Parents did not act out of malice.

They acted out of love.

 

That is what makes propaganda so powerful. It does not have to deceive your intellect. It only has to hijack your instincts.

 

 

The Cost of Censorship

 

When discussion is shut down, errors go unchallenged.

Censorship does not eliminate bad ideas. It eliminates feedback. It removes the self correcting mechanism that allows systems to improve.

 

Consider how many official positions were later reversed or revised.

• Masks
• School closures
• Transmission assumptions
• Booster recommendations
• Risk assessments by age
   

If open debate had been encouraged from the beginning, how many mistakes could have been caught sooner? How much public trust could have been preserved?

 

A society that silences debate cannot adapt and cannot learn.

 

 

The Aftermath We Are Living With

 

Years later, many of the same institutions that once demanded unquestioning obedience now quietly acknowledge mistakes, release new data, and adjust their positions.

 

But trust does not reset so easily.

 

When blind faith is demanded today and reversed tomorrow, credibility does not just fade. It fractures. And once institutional trust is broken, it is incredibly difficult to restore.

 

That is the true long term damage of propaganda.

 

It controls people in the moment, but it corrodes belief for generations.

 

 

The Real Lesson

 

COVID revealed something deeper than a public health vulnerability.

It exposed how fragile open discourse really is.

 

Propaganda does not always look like slogans or posters. Sometimes it looks like silence. Sometimes it looks like suppressed questions. Sometimes it looks like social punishment for independent thought. A free society depends on the right to ask honest questions.

It depends on debate.

It depends on transparency even when the truth is messy or inconvenient. Because once questioning becomes forbidden, once fear replaces discussion, once obedience replaces thought; You are no longer dealing with public health. You are dealing with propaganda.

 

Think for yourself.

 

Question everything.

 

Demand transparency.

 

Stay curious. Stay skeptical. And above all stay free.
 

- Author Bill Farley 

 

FULL VIDEO:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz6_6uXi0_4&t=1s