James Bovard on CISA and censorship

Hegelian notions of “Government = Truth” propelled censorship here in recent years. Three years ago, Americans learned they lived under a Disinformation Governance Board with a ditzy Disinformation Czar who boasted of graduating from Bryn Mawr University. A public backlash led to the board’s termination but federal censors quickly and secretly resumed their sway over the internet. 

Though American censors rarely invoke Hegel, their schemes tacitly presume that political power is divine, if not in origin, at least in its effect. The Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), created in 2018, has relied on “censorship by surrogate,” subcontracting the destruction of freedom. CISA partnered with federal grantees to form the Election Integrity Partnership a hundred days before the 2020 presidential election. That project, along with the efforts of other federal agencies, created an “unrelenting pressure” with “the intended result of suppressing millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens,” according to a 2023 ruling by Federal Judge Terry Doughty. 

What standard did CISA use to determine whether Americans should be muzzled? CISA settled controversies by contacting government employees and “apparently always assumed the government official was a reliable source,” Judge Doughty noted. Any assertion by officialdom could suffice to justify suppression of comments or posts by private citizens. But when did government I.D. badges become the Oracle of Delphi? 

During the 2020 presidential election campaign, CISA established a “Rumor Control” webpage to deal with threats to the election—including rumors that the feds were censoring Americans. CISA targeted for suppression assertions by Americans such as “mail-in voting is insecure”—despite the long history of absentee ballot fraud. Biden won the presidency in part thanks to Democrats exploiting the covid pandemic to open the floodgates to unverified mail-in ballots. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) declared, “Twitter was basically an FBI subsidiary before Elon Musk took it over.”

~ James Bovard, "Sacrificing Truth on Leviathan’s Altar," Mises Wire, February 19, 2025

The Brownstone Institute on the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA)

The most powerful companies in the world have united against free speech, and they’ve deployed your tax dollars to fund their mission. 

Last week, the House Judiciary Committee released a report on the little-known Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) and its pernicious promotion of censorship.  GARM is a branch of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), a global association representing over 150 of the world’s biggest brands, including Adidas, British Petroleum, Nike, Mastercard, McDonald’s, Walmart, and Visa. 

The WFA represents 90% of global advertising spending, accounting for almost $1 trillion per year.  But instead of helping its clients reach the broadest market share possible, the WFA has appointed itself a supranational force for censorship.

~ Brownstown Institute, "Censorship and the Corruption of Advertising," July 18, 2024

Dylan Saba on censorship of pro-Palestinian positions

I work for Palestine Legal.  We're a legal non-profit representing folks who speak out, Palestinian rights, and we were founded in 2014 and we've never seen anything remotely like this.  We've had hundreds of requests for legal assistance over the past several weeks, completely eclipsing the total number of intake requests we've had for the entirety of all of last year.

So it's an exponential surge.  It's reaching students, employees, professors, folks in all different industries.  We've seen a wave of retaliatory firings for posts made on private social media accounts supporting Palestinian rights.  We've seen student groups surveilled, suppessed from levels ranging from the federal government to state government to individual campus administrations.  We've seen professors had classes cancelled, being locked out of emails.  The range of political expression that is being targeted is wide from very banal calls to a ceasefire to more radical statements, and it is widespread.

I think it's important to note a couple of things.  One is that this is a response to a massive upsurge in pro-Palestinian support in the United States, that the [Palestine solidarity] movement has made major gains...  And more and more you have folks who are willing to speak out for Palestinian freedom.  Now, of course, this is met with suppression that this growing movement is a threat to the Israel lobby, it's a threat to Israel advocacy organizations, and folks who have the interests of the U.S. government and U.S. imperial interests, who share those interests as well.

I think that the comparison to the post-9/11 era, though I was only a child then, is probably apt.  We have been describing this as a McCarthyite level of suppression.  But I do want to raise a key distinction here.  This is now happening in the era of social media and that has particular concerns and implications for regular individuals who may not be famous or notable names, and that's the introduction of doxxing as a particularly heinous tactic, and you mentioned this with reference to the trucks on campuses.  What we're seeing is college students, individuals who are speaking out or even for an action as benign as removing a poster are being filmed.  That footage is being sent then to major media outlets like Fox News, and you have folks on the internet who are digging into it, finding out who these students are, publicizing their names, releasing their names, and then those individuals are being hit with a torrent of disciminatory comments, threatening texts, emails, phone calls, dealth threats, heinous remarks, and are basically being bullied into silence.  

This is a widespread tactic that we're seeing and it has the negative consequence of chilling speech.  Folks are scared to speak out because they worry that they're going to be smeared, that they're going to lose their job or future employment offer.  The doxxing tactic is something that the Israel groups have been using for a while.  Folks are probably familiar with Canary Mission, stopantisemitism.org, which are some online blacklists that have really honed in on this tactic of online smears and doxxing, but we are seeing it at an unprecedented level right now.

~ Dylan Saba, lawyer for Palestine Legal, "Zionist anti-Palestine censorship is surging," The Chris Hedges Report, 4:45 mark, November 24, 2023

Efrat Fenigson on Israeli censorship of those raising questions about October 7 Hamas attack

I watched Mike Benz explaining really well in his recent video how he follows internet censorship as detecting lead indicators to finding answers about things.  If you want to get some clues about what’s happening here, right now there is a clear attempt in the Israeli mainstream media to silence any voices which are asking “how come something like this has happened?”  They’re calling any questions, like the ones I’m asking, fake news.  This part of the propaganda is starting.  For me, this is a clue.  They don’t want us to ask the questions.

~ Efrat Fenigson, "The Israel Attacks: Beyond the Obvious with Efrat Fenigson," interview with Bret Weinstein, DarkHorse Podcast, 45:25 mark, October 10, 2023

Rand Paul on Big Tech censorship

When the CEO of Twitter said the First Amendment doesn’t apply to them, he’s right.  But that doesn’t make him a laudable person or someone I want to associate with.  These are people who are narrow-minded and not ‘liberal’ in any way.  The impulse to censor people’s speech is actually illiberal.

~ Senator Rand Paul, "Interview: Rand Paul Slams Big Tech’s Crackdown on COVID ‘Misinformation’—And Offers His Solution," FEE.org, January 5, 2022

Roger McNamee on Facebook furthering authoritarianism

At some point we have to decide "Where do we want to live?" because the Facebook papers, among other things, have shown that Facebook in fact has - because of the design of its products - really furthered things like authoritarianism...  When you put 3 billion people on one network with no walls and then construct a business model that's designed to amplify the most extreme emotions of society, you're going to bring a lot of dangerous ideas from the fringes into the mainstream: white supremacy, anti-vax and the like.  And we're now seeing the cost of that.  And the question for investors is "Is it time to move on to something else?" because this company has shown that it is not going to take the public interest seriously.  And I think candidly that's a problem throughout Big Tech.

~ Roger McNamee, CNBC interview, 1:55 mark, October 25, 2021

The New York Times: YouTube suppressing "inaccurate claims about climate change"

Google said it would no longer display advertisements on YouTube videos and other content that promotes inaccurate claims about climate change.

[...]

The policy applies to content that refers to climate change as a hoax or scams that deny the long-term trend that the climate is warming, or denies that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity is contributing to climate change.

~ The New York Times, October 8, 2021

JFK addresses the media about the Cold War

On many earlier occasions, I have said—and your newspapers have constantly said— that these are times that appeal to every citizen’s sense of sacrifice and self-discipline.  They call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the common good.  I cannot now believe that those citizens who serve in the newspaper business consider themselves exempt from that appeal. 

I have no intention of establishing a new Office of War Information to govern the flow of news.  I am not suggesting any new forms of censorship or new types of security classifications.  I have no easy answer to the dilemma that I have posed, and would not seek to impose it if I had one.  But I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country to reexamine their own responsibilities—to consider the degree and the nature of the present danger—and to heed the duty of self-restraint which that danger imposes upon us all.

~ President John F. Kennedy, “ADDRESS: THE PRESIDENT AND THE PRESS,” April 27, 1961

Doug Casey on speaking out and how H.L. Mencken avoided persecution during WWI and the Roosevelt years

If you believe in thinking for yourself, or if you believe in free minds and free markets, you’re in the minority.  You better be careful. 

H.L. Mencken, undoubtedly one of the greatest public intellectuals in American history and the best journalist in our history, is a cautionary example.  During World War I and throughout the Roosevelt years, he basically stopped writing or saying anything controversial because he might’ve been singled out and persecuted.

~ Doug Casey, "Doug Casey on the Dangers of the Growing “Snitch Culture” in the US," International Man, March 10, 2021

Markose Chenthitta on Big Tech censorship

As difficult as it is a pill to swallow, I find comfort in the actions of the censors because, let's face it, they must be afraid of the truth. In other words, we're winning. Censorship is a losing game. We know that from history. So it is just a matter of time before this all explodes in Facebook, Google, Apple's and Twitter's faces.

~ Markose Chenthitta, Facebook post, January 14, 2021

The Economist on Big Tech censorship

The first reaction of many people was one of relief.  On January 6th, with 14 days remaining of his term, the social-media president was suspended from Twitter after years of pumping abuse, lies and nonsense into the public sphere.  Soon after, many of his cronies and supporters were shut down online by Silicon Valley, too.  The end of their cacophony was blissful.  But the peace belies a limiting of free speech that is chilling for America—and all democracies.

~ The Economist, "Big tech and censorship," The Economist, January 16, 2021

Jim Grant on free speech being under threat in America

[T]here’s a cyclicality, there’s an episodic quality to our politics.  I don’t think these are end times politically.  I think it’s worrying, for example, that freedom of speech seems to be back on its heels as much as it has ever been.   I think freedom of speech, in America, was not quite so endangered even in the ’30s as it is now.  That is genuinely frightening.  I’m frightened by it.

~ Jim Grant, "Living Economic History: Q&A with Jim Grant," The Coffee Can Portfolio, December 10, 2020

Jeff Deist on the future of free, decentralized communications

The underlying ideology, the impulse towards freedom which includes free communications and speech, is not so easily quashed.  And for that reason, I'm actually quite optimistic about a highly decentralized future where we don't have these huge gatekeepers like Google search, or Amazon Web Services, or Facebook and Twitter and Instagram as the only big 800 lb. gorillas in social media.  So I'm actually quite optimistic.

~ Jeff Deist, "Dealing With Big Tech Censorship - With Jeff Deist," 22:30 mark, Ron Paul Liberty Report, January 14, 2021

Stephan Kinsella on regulating Big Tech over political censorship

No, the evil state should not be unleashed on the tech giants just because they are air headed liberal idiots.  No, they should not be subject to antitrust law.  No, they are not "part of the state."  No, their CDA §230 and DMCA copyright safe harbors should not be abolished... 

It's pathetic that these companies are acting so... illiberally.  They probably have more market power than they otherwise would, but for state interventions (like IP law).  But the only just solution is to shame them and build alternatives.

~ Stephan Kinsella, Facebook post, January 14, 2021

Ron Paul on how Big Tech helped the U.S. government fight the War on Terror

Those who continue to argue that the social media companies are purely private ventures acting independent of US government interests are ignoring reality.  The corporatist merger of “private” US social media companies with US government foreign policy goals has a long history and is deeply steeped in the hyper-interventionism of the Obama/Biden era. 

“Big Tech” long ago partnered with the Obama/Biden/Clinton State Department to lend their tools to US “soft power” goals overseas.  Whether it was ongoing regime change attempts against Iran, the 2009 coup in Honduras, the disastrous US-led coup in Ukraine, “Arab Spring,” the destruction of Syria and Libya, and so many more, the big US tech firms were happy to partner up with the State Department and US intelligence to provide the tools to empower those the US wanted to seize power and to silence those out of favor. 

In short, US government elites have been partnering with “Big Tech” overseas for years to decide who has the right to speak and who must be silenced. What has changed now is that this deployment of “soft power” in the service of Washington’s hard power has come home to roost.

~ Ron Paul, "The 'War on Terror' Comes Home," LewRockwell.com, January 12, 2021

Ron Paul on Big Tech censorship

Last week’s massive social media purges – starting with President Trump’s permanent ban from Twitter and other outlets – was shocking and chilling, particularly to those of us who value free expression and the free exchange of ideas.  The justifications given for the silencing of wide swaths of public opinion made no sense and the process was anything but transparent.  Nowhere in President Trump’s two “offending”  Tweets, for example, was a call for violence expressed explicitly or implicitly.  It was a classic example of sentence first, verdict later.

~ Ron Paul, "The 'War on Terror' Comes Home," LewRockwell.com, January 12, 2021

Kevin Duffy: Could Big Tech censorship pop the everything bubble?

We’ve gone full Orwell.  Twitter, Facebook and Google stocks -6.4%, -4.0% and -2.3% respectively today after their Kristallnacht of weekend censorship.  Investors are whistling past a graveyard.  These companies will destroy themselves from within, starting the great unwind.  T-bonds are another pin to the everything bubble. 

This is starting to feel like Nazi Germany, except the Nazis went after less than 1% of the population.   Their American counterparts on the Left have targeted at least one-third of the population for extinction.

~ Kevin Duffy, January 11, 2021

George Orwell anticipates politically correct speech codes

Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?  In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.

~ George Orwell, 1984

George R.R. Martin on censorship

When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar; you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.

~ George R.R. Martin

John Stuart Mill on the suppression of truth

... The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes.  History teems with instances of truth put down by persecution.  If not suppressed forever, it may be thrown back for centuries.

~ John Stuart Mill, On Liberty