The Cathedral freaked the fuck out after 2016-17 proved the internet could get its enemies elected and has been working nonstop ever since to make all platforms and popular online figures kneel to its rule https://twitter.com/mountofconflict/status/1361029240091795460

What it showed was that the internet and social media weren't as firmly under its control as it might have thought, and was in fact unclaimed space

When unclaimed spaces aren't moderated, they're famous for revolting against the Cathedral

This, obviously, had to be stopped

You see the same process playing out on Silicon Valley as a whole: they (obviously) represent a giant new power bloc, a lot of whose leaders aren't orthodox thinkers

Hence why NYT reporters are now spying on SV figures for any slip that lets them go full Body Snatchers

Since this specific behavior/mode of attack on dissenters *is* new, it's basically full confirmation that there hasn't been any meaningful territory outside of the Cathedral's control for decades

I.e. we've been under full ideological capture for decades

One question is whether the specific illiberal underpinnings of Wokeness that needed to exist in order to turn journalists into persecutors of free speech arose *in response* to the opening of the new frontier or were already there but didn't need to be deployed until it opened

Either way, the funniest part of the Cathedral drinking its own Kool-Aid about "diversity and conclusion" is you wind up in a situation where, in its effort to conquer the frontier, the person it assigns to spy on SV billionaires is...

Taylor Lorenz, the ultimate faildaughter

Being such a gross incompetent, an abysmal journalist even by the barrel-bottom standards of 2021 journalism, rather than effectively cowing her extremely powerful targets, Lorenz is much more likely to provoke them from "has a few questions" to "actively hostile to her masters"

Scott Alexander vs NYT is a great case study for the wider recent feeling of acceleration:

The Cathedral's waging a new war, the first war it's had to fight in longer than most of us have been alive—

And meanwhile, it's filled its ranks with the worst soldiers it's ever fielded

Post-script:

https://www.cjr.org/public_editor/washington-post-tesla-trump-power.php

(fedora-tip to @Outsideness)