Honestly feels like we got the worst of both options. The petty censorship, puritanism and lies of 1984 mixed with the lesser and trivial entertainments of Brave New World.
I feel like especially in the last few years at least the part of the left that was so concerned with certain issues with problematic media and addressing issues with overly sexualizing women has joined in some unholy union with the prudish and moralists on the right to spawn a general censorship of a vast swath of concepts backed up by both the lefts moral high ground and the rights religious teachings.
Where before there was the nuance to recognize that women were too often presented as sexual objects in popular media, as well as the fact that we shouldn’t kink shame consenting adults or the sex workers providing what should be seen as legitimate service. Now that nuance is lost in favor of simple discrimination and censorship, only disguised in the original movements language.
I’ve spent an astronomical amount of effort trying to remove as much depressing and outrage content from my feeds as possible. It’s a sisyphian task with new things constantly slipping through the cracks. Which has made me mostly check out of all but a very small list of online spaces (and even then ads and other impossible to turn off ‘recommendations’ show up).
Outrage and depressing content fuels the web and it’s best to recognize that. I’ve been a lot happier in my ignorance so far and would recommend it to anyone who’s privileged enough to get away with it. It’s not like being informed and engaged did fuck all for me in the last decade except give me a variety of mental issues.