Tag: censorship

German State Public Radio and TV Broadcaster NDR Suppresses Explosive Documentary Exposing OCCRP Election Meddling and Secret U.S. Funding

Germany’s taxpayer-funded state broadcaster NDR is desperately trying to bury its own investigative documentary that exposes the shady journalist network OCCRP. The reason? The film caught OCCRP chief Drew Sullivan on camera bragging that his organization was “responsible for overthrowing five or six governments.”

The revelations are devastating. NDR reporters uncovered that OCCRP—whose media partners include Der Spiegeland Die Zeit—was secretly bankrolled from the United States for decades. When the documentary turned out to be critical instead of a love letter, Sullivan reportedly pressured NDR to kill the project. The state broadcaster complied, scrapping the documentary before it aired and cutting ties with OCCRP in 2023. The scandal finally leaked in December 2024 through the French platform Mediapart.

Censorship and Threats Against an Elected Official

Now, as OCCRP is embroiled in a massive EU funding scandal, the suppressed film has resurfaced. MEP Petr Bystron (AfD) revealed through an inquiry that OCCRP received €600,000 from EU coffers immediately after the European elections—right after the network ran smear campaigns against conservative candidates, including Bystron himself.

Despite this interference, Bystron won his seat and published the hidden film online. That’s when NDR struck back, issuing him a cease-and-desist order and threatening fines of up to €50,000. The state broadcaster appears terrified that Sullivan’s own words might reach the public.

OCCRP in Panic Mode

Sullivan and OCCRP reacted furiously on X, dismissing the leaked documentary as “attacks” on their organization. But Sullivan offered no explanation as to how quoting his own on-camera admissions could be an “attack.” OCCRP also dodged questions from the Berliner Zeitung about its EU payments, merely insisting it was still “independent.”

Sullivan’s radical views are also on display elsewhere. After the brutal murder of American conservative Charlie Kirk, the OCCRP boss gloated: “A moment of silence is not appropriate. He was no hero. […] He was a racist, an anti-democratic liar.”

U.S. Fallout

The scandal is reverberating across the Atlantic. President Donald Trump already cut OCCRP’s lifeline by halting its funding via USAID. And now, U.S. media like Gateway Pundit and InfoWars are exposing how this so-called “investigative” network has been weaponized to manipulate elections and topple governments worldwide.

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Georgetown, Knight Foundation Include FBI Russiagate Lawyer James Baker on Board of Censorship Organization

James Baker, the FBI’s top lawyer during Russiagate and later a key operative inside Twitter’s pre-Musk  censorship apparatus, has resurfaced on the board of a fresh institutional effort to lock down online speech.

As revealed in a new report from the Foundation for Freedom Online, Baker is seated on the board of the Knight-Georgetown Institute (KGI), a relatively new addition to the maze of “counter-disinformation” organizations that sprung up after Donald Trump’s first election victory in 2016.

Founded in 2024, KGI is a “counter-disinformation” hub co-founded by the Knight Foundation and Georgetown University. A top priority is state lawmaking – it is currently shopping a “toolkit” to state-level legislators, aimed at guiding the regulation of social media feeds.

As well as Baker, KGI’s board includes Alondra Nelson, Joe Biden’s acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, who oversaw a whole-of-government disinformation crackdown spanning 26 agencies, 14 universities, and 20+ NGOs. Another member is Nahiba Syed, a lawyer who defended the Steele Dossier in court.

In March 2025, KGI published its flagship manifesto, Better Feeds, supplying three suggested changes to social media feeds:

  1. Bridging – algorithms should favor “positive dialogue” over raw engagement, in effect suppressing content deemed too conflictual.
  2. Surveys – platforms should constantly poll users about what kinds of content they want to see, subtly nudging behavior.
  3. Quality metrics – content flagged as “toxic” or low quality should be downgraded, while exalted “award-winning” journalism or high-status outlets are boosted.

The “quality” standard is elastic — and subjective by design. Baker and his colleagues also openly praise censorship tools like NewsGuard and Google Jigsaw’s Perspective AI, both already weaponized to suppress conservative voices. NewsGuard, for instance, has blacklisted well-known conservative publications such as Breitbart News, Newsmax, and The Federalist.

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Critics Accuse YouTube of Dragging Out Return Process for Banned Channels

YouTube is being criticized for what many see as backpedaling on its commitment to free speech, after pledging to restore banned accounts, only to continue removing new channels created by previously banned figures.

The initial assurance came in a letter dated September 23, 2025, addressed to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan.

In that communication, YouTube acknowledged its past enforcement actions, which included terminating channels over election-related and COVID-19 content under policies that have since changed. The company claimed that its current guidelines permit more room for such topics and asserted:

“Reflecting the Company’s commitment to free expression, YouTube will provide an opportunity for all creators to rejoin the platform if the Company terminated their channels for repeated violations of COVID-19 and elections integrity policies that are no longer in effect.”

The same day, YouTube posted a message on X describing a “limited pilot project” that would provide “a pathway back to YouTube for some terminated creators to set up a new channel.”

However, the platform immediately added that this option would only apply to a “subset” of creators.

The vagueness of the commitment raised suspicion, which intensified when two prominent figures, Infowars founder Alex Jones and “America First” host Nick Fuentes, launched new channels that were almost immediately taken down.

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FCC Threats Against Jimmy Kimmel Echo a Century of Speech Control

Days after the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Jimmy Kimmel joked on his show that the “MAGA gang [was] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” This prompted Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr to threaten network broadcasting licenses, alleging that Kimmel’s show violates “public interest, convenience or necessity,” and to tell ABC that this could be resolved “the easy way or the hard way.” The following day, ABC announced the indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel LIVE!—a decision it reversed on Monday after public outcry. 

Many conservatives, trying to remember where they put their keys and their beefs about cancel culture, see this as the way the cookie crumbles. Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas), however, believes that Carr was wrong and called this “mafioso” behavior “dangerous.” The dispute highlights a century-old tension: political control over broadcast licenses and the power to shave free speech.

Broadcast TV and radio authorizations—held by stations in the ABC network—state that private companies cannot claim ownership of the radio spectrum. Access to airwaves is a privilege, not a right. This dates to the 1927 Radio Act, proposed by then–Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover and signed by President Calvin Coolidge. Its rules were repeated virtually verbatim in the 1934 Communications Act, amended in the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and constitute today’s law of the land.

The greatest problem with censorship is the ease with which subtle demands by politicians slant the news, particularly in the choice (or rejection) of controversial topics. But it is the law backing up the government’s powerful authority that makes that influence work. Fred Friendly’s fascinating book The Good Guys, the Bad Guys, and the First Amendment, describes one of the sensational cases where a permit to speak was actually cancelled. In the WXUR case, a Philadelphia station was operated by the highly opinionated Rev. Carl McIntire, a “suspended” Presbyterian minister. Although his organization raised $5,000 to support Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967, McIntire was considered an antisemite by the National Council of Churches, the Urban League, and the B’nai B’rith. They objected to his “intemperate attacks on other religious denominations…and political officials.” The organizations called for McIntire’s broadcast license to be revoked (denied for renewal) by the FCC because its programs “help[ed] create a climate of fear, prejudice and distrust of democratic institutions.” 

McIntire lost WXUR in 1973—the only time such a right was extinguished under the so-called Fairness Doctrine. But legions of speakers have been cowed and hushed. As early as 1929, the left-wing stations WEVD (named for Eugene V. Debs) and WCFL (owned by the Chicago Federation of Labor) were warned about espousing their radical views. WEVD was accused in a 1929 renewal at the Federal Radio Commission of being “the mouthpiece of the Socialist Party.” WCFL was branded a “propaganda” outlet. Both enterprises read the room and backed away from their edgy politics and full-time line-ups. WCFL merged into the NBC conglomerate, while WEVD—cadging donations to stay alive—limped along by sharing most of the week’s broadcast time with commercial outlets. 

One of the great 20th century judicial liberals, D.C. Senior Court of Appeals judge David Bazelon, originally supported the FCC’s attack on McIntire’s ownership of WXUR. His First Amendment rights were compromised, under the 1943 NBC Supreme Court verdict, based on the “physical scarcity” doctrine. This posits that there are only a limited number of frequencies—a limit imposed by nature, not the government—and so the regulator has to select the best content to fill those slots. It was an uncompelling argument at the time: Resources in limited supply are sold to bidders every day without FCC (or other) administrative assignment. There are actually unlimited spectral slots, not just counting what technology might deliver (tell me the top limit on satellite radio channels or Internet radio stations), but in divvying the old AM dial into finer slices. 

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No, Senator Van Hollen: Stations Choosing Not To Air Kimmel Isn’t Censorship

It’s very clear that the Democratic Party has no idea what the First Amendment means and what free speech is.

They have spent the past week telling us there’s a Constitutional right to have a high-paying late-night talk show, calling the short-lived suspension of Jimmy Kimmel “censorship.” It’s not. It was a business decision by ABC/Disney and stations like Sinclair and Nexstar to not air a show after the host made inflammatory comments about Charlie Kirk.

Even with Kimmel’s return to his show, several Sinclair stations have opted to not broadcast his show.

That, of course, is their right.

But Democrats like California State Senator Scott Wiener vowed to break up Sinclair for not airing Kimmel, and now Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) is calling Sinclair’s decision not to air Kimmel “censorship” too.

While FCC Chair Brendan Carr did comment on the situation and talk about possible consequences for ABC/Disney and Kimmel, the FCC did not demand the suspension of Kimmel’s show. That decision came from the network after Kimmel refused to tone down the rhetoric (and the future of Kimmel’s show has long been in doubt anyway).

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Popular South Korean Pastor Sits Behind Bars for Speaking Out – Radical Left in South Korea Is Using Democrat Party Tactics to Crush the Opposition

A Pastor Sits Behind Bars for Speaking Out

In a shocking development, South Korean authorities have dismissed a legality review request filed by Pastor Hyunbo Son, keeping him behind bars on allegations of “election law violations.”

On September 24, the Busan District Court rejected Pastor Son’s request for release, citing “flight risk.” Pastor Son’s alleged offense was posting a video of a conversation with a candidate on social media, expressing support for one candidate while criticizing another during an election period.

In South Korea, election law violations are almost always punished with fines.

Detention is nearly unheard of. Yet Pastor Son — who led the “Save Korea” movement and organized mass rallies against the impeachment of President Yoon — is now imprisoned as if he were a dangerous criminal.

Political Persecution Disguised as Law

Observers note that the case goes far beyond technical election law issues. Pastor Son is not an ordinary church leader; he is a conservative Christian figure who mobilized thousands against the left-wing government’s political purge of President Yoon. His imprisonment is widely seen as an attempt to weaken conservative unity and intimidate the Christian community.

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US Cancer Patient Calls UK Police Visit a “Bullying Tactic” to Force Self-Censorship

A US citizen undergoing cancer treatment in Britain says she was left feeling like a criminal after being confronted at her home by police over a social media post.

Deborah Anderson, who has lived in the UK for years and is a member of the Free Speech Union, believes the encounter was not about enforcing the law but about silencing dissent through intimidation.

As we reported, Anderson was visited by Thames Valley Police after someone filed a complaint about a Facebook post they found offensive.

The officer who turned up at her door, she said, made it clear the incident wasn’t criminal and no arrest would be made. Yet, she was encouraged to apologize for the post, despite the fact that even the officer couldn’t recall what the alleged offense was when questioned months later.

“I’ve never been arrested in my life. I live a very quiet life,” Anderson said, in an interview with Harry Cole. “I think it’s a bullying tactic to just get us to go, oh, gee, I’m an old woman. I’m no harm to anybody.”

The incident comes during an uptick in so-called “offense policing” in the UK, where complaints over online expression have increasingly led to home visits from law enforcement.

One high-profile case involved the arrest of writer Graham Linehan at Heathrow Airport after he expressed views on transgender issues online.

Anderson’s account points to deeper concerns about vague and selectively enforced speech standards.

The officer, she said, arrived unannounced early one morning and spoke to her about “malicious communication.” Initially thinking it was a delivery, she was shocked to be confronted by police over something she posted online, though no one would later be able to tell her exactly what the complaint was about.

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A Weakened United Nations Plans Medical Censorship and Surveillance

The United Nations is going into its 80th annual conference as an organization in decline. Nevertheless, this week, world leaders will meet in New York to discuss how they can exploit the world’s problems for their globalist ends.

Under the guise of reducing disease, combating mental illness, and dealing with the next pandemic, the UN plans to use its waning power to surveil and censor people.

Since its creation, the UN has sought to exploit legitimate societal threats and problems for their ultimate goal, installing a world government. They don’t hide their true intentions. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said last year during his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the “only way” to address the world’s needs is through “strong multilateral institutions and frameworks and effective mechanisms of global governance.”

In 2015, just after the UN revealed its Agenda 2030 plan, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Wu Hongbo cited a long list of problems that only “global governance” can solve. It’s quite the speech. To soothe concerns of so much power in the hands of so few, he even claimed the UN is just, fair, and transparent. “We need a global governance that encompasses a much broader range of development facets and provides long-term solutions for them,” Wu said, adding that “the United Nations can become a locus for such global governance.”

And back in 1962, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, and former State Department official Lincoln P. Bloomfield wrote a report for the U.S. State Department in which he said:

A world effectively controlled by the United Nations is one in which “world government” would come about through the establishment of supranational institutions, characterized by mandatory universal membership.

Exploiting Health Concerns

A draft laying out one of the discussions happening this week indicates the globalists seek more control over how nations respond to disease, mental illness, and the next health “crisis.” In the “political declaration,” they claim they want to reduce death from noncommunicable diseases by 30 percent, make treatment for hypertension and mental illness more accessible, and reduce smoking, all supposedly part of a larger goal to reduce poverty and inequality.

The way they intend to accomplish these goals is by bringing “together governments, civil society and the private sector” — also known as public-private partnerships. That includes funding and empowering the UN’s public health arm, the World Health Organization (WHO). They also plan to “enact within national and, where relevant, regional contexts legislation and regulation.” And they want to develop and implement “multisectoral national plans and, where appropriate, subnational plans.” This is all just a fancy way of saying they want control over sovereign nations’ governments.

The declaration says that accomplishing all this will require censorship and surveillance. The censorship is euphemistically defended as necessary to “counter misinformation and disinformation around the prevention and treatment of noncommunicable diseases and mental health conditions.”

It also mentions their intent to “regulate digital environments.”

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Google Says Users Removed Over COVID-19 Views Can Rejoin YouTube

YouTube creators who were removed over their views concerning COVID-19 or the 2020 election can rejoin the service, Google and its parent company, Alphabet, said in a Sept. 23 letter.

Rules in place prohibiting some discussion of COVID-19 and the election were lifted in 2023 or 2024, Google said through its lawyers.

“Today, YouTube’s Community Guidelines allow for a wider range of content regarding COVID-19 and elections integrity,” it stated. “Reflecting the Company’s commitment to free expression, YouTube will provide an opportunity for all creators to rejoin the platform if the Company terminated their channels for repeated violations of COVID-19 and elections integrity policies that are no longer in effect.”

People whose channels were suspended or taken down included Dan Bongino, the current deputy director of the FBI.

The company said it values conservative content creators and recognizes they regularly land compelling interviewers with politicians, business leaders, and others.

Google described the COVID-19 pandemic as an unprecedented time that forced online platforms to “balance freedom of expression” with moderation of content “that could result in real-world harm.” The situation was complicated by top officials in the Biden administration pressuring the company to take action against certain COVID-19 content “that did not violate its policies,” it said.

“It is unacceptable and wrong when any government, including the Biden Administration, attempts to dictate how the Company moderates content, and the Company has consistently fought against those efforts on First Amendment grounds,” the company stated.

YouTube’s medical content policies evolved throughout the pandemic, as health authorities changed their guidance, the company said. The company is now allowing a wide range of content on COVID-19 and elections.

“In contrast to other large platforms, YouTube has not operated a fact-checking program that identifies and compensates fact-checking partners to produce content to support moderation,” the letter states. “YouTube has not and will not empower fact-checkers to take action on or label content across the Company’s services.”

The letter was sent to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.

“Whether you were an established YouTube presence with a massive following like Dan Bongino or just were starting out to express political views there, YOU will have an opportunity to come back onto the platform if you were censored for engaging in political speech,” Jordan wrote on X. “This is another victory in the fight against censorship.”

Google did not respond to a request for comment.

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Google Admits Biden White House Pressured Content Removal, Promises to Restore Banned YouTube Accounts

After years of denying bias, Google now concedes that it gave in to pressure from the Biden White House to remove content that did not breach its own rules.

The admission comes alongside a promise to restore access to YouTube accounts permanently removed for political speech related to COVID-19 and elections, topics where government officials had applied behind-the-scenes pressure to control the narrative.

This move follows sustained scrutiny from the House Judiciary Committee, which Reclaim The Net covered extensively, led by Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), who issued a subpoena and spearheaded an investigation that revealed the extent of government influence on content moderation decisions at Google.

In a letter from its legal representative, Google confirmed that it faced pressure from the federal government to suppress lawful speech.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

Google revealed that it had been contacted multiple times by top federal officials regarding content on its platforms, even when that content did not break any rules.

The company stated that “Senior Biden Administration officials, including White House officials, conducted repeated and sustained outreach to Alphabet and pressed the Company regarding certain user-generated content related to the COVID-19 pandemic that did not violate its policies.”

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