Tag: censorship

State Department is Sued for Withholding Records on Censorship Efforts

The Functional Government Initiative (FGI), a government watchdog, has filed a lawsuit against the State Department, seeking critical documents related to its controversial censorship activities. At the heart of the case is the now-disbanded Global Engagement Center (GEC), an agency accused of using taxpayer dollars to suppress free speech and support efforts to blacklist media outlets.

We obtained a copy of the complaint for you here.

FGI’s legal action follows months of non-compliance from the State Department regarding Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests that aimed to uncover communications about censorship grants issued during the Biden administration.

FGI’s FOIA requests sought records from several State Department divisions, including:

The Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy: The request focused on discussions related to the European Union’s Digital Services Act and communications with the White House. FGI alleges the records would shed light on whether US officials were involved in discussions about EU censorship policies.

The Global Engagement Center: Similar to the first request, this inquiry sought records about the Digital Services Act, involving specific officials and communications with external organizations.

Internal Press Guidance: FGI requested records related to a New York Post article published on September 13, 2024. The article reportedly referenced internal press guidance, and FGI sought to uncover records detailing its preparation, implementation, and related communications involving key officials.

The lawsuit alleges that despite acknowledging receipt of the FOIA requests, the State Department failed to produce any records or claim exemptions. “Defendant has failed to comply with the time limit set forth…” the complaint states, adding that FGI has exhausted all administrative remedies.

The nonprofit argues that the requested documents could provide critical insights into State Department activities, including its approach to EU regulations and responses to media inquiries. “FGI is being irreparably harmed by reason of Defendant’s unlawful withholding of requested records,” the complaint asserts.

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NewsGuard Criticizes FCC’s Brendan Carr for Questioning Its Role in Alleged “Censorship Cartel”

NewsGuard, a company that provides a rating system for sites that can then facilitate flagging “misinformation,” is reported to have in the past been recommended to its members by the now disbanded Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) – as they allegedly banded together to demonetize social platforms and some news sites.

In November, member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Brendan Carr – who President-elect Donald Trump has nominated to head the agency – sent a letter to major tech companies, asking for information about their work with NewsGuard.

The company, set up in 2018, is now accusing Carr of potentially violating the First Amendment by posing these questions, and claims that its work “does not involve censorship.”

However, that can be seen as a technicality, given that its browser add-ons that rate sites for “credibility” provide a tool for those who do end up carrying out censorship, which was the focus of Carr’s interest in the role of NewsGuard in the broader “censorship cartel.”

NewsGuard responded to Carr’s letter with its own in early December, stating the company was “surprised” to learn about the commissioner’s inquiries from the media.

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U.K.’s Advanced Censorship Laws Force Small Websites To Shut Down!

The United Kingdom’s rulers created an online censorship law that has now advanced to the point where small websites are being shut down. The authoritarians who authored the U.K.’s “Online Safety Act” are citing disproportionate liability and risk under the new law when it comes to these smaller web pages.

The new legislative landscape in the country, which is supposed to go into effect in full force in March is already claiming victims, according to a report by Reclaim the Net. The law is not providing any kind of safety for hundreds of small websites, including non-profit forums, that will be forced to shut down because they are unable to comply with the act.  Specifically, the websites are faced with what reports refer to as “disproportionate personal liability.”

The massive global censorship campaign has not slowed down as we inch our way to 2025. Much of it is still done, but it’s become a behind-the-scenes issue as those reporting on it have been more focused on who will rule over the United States for the next four years instead.

The fines for not complying with the U.K.’s new law go up to the equivalent of $25 million U.S. dollars, while the law also introduces new criminal offenses.

Ofcom, who is responsible for enforcing this act, has published dozens of measures that online services are supposed to implement by March 16th, 2025. Some of these measures include naming a person responsible and accountable for making sure a website or an online platform complies with the ruling class’s edicts.

The law is presented as a new way to efficiently tackle illegal content, and in particular, provide new ways to ensure the safety of children online, including by age verification (“age checking”), but many have pointed out it is just another way to censor things that those in charge don’t want others focused on.

Microcosm has already fallen victim to this new law, as it will be unable to comply by monitoring encrypted messages on the site. U.K. press reports have already been declaring this as one of the first examples of the harm this law will cause. The non-profit free hosting service Microcosm and its 300 sites, among them community hubs and forums dedicated to topics like cycling and tech, will all go down in March, unable to live up to the “disproportionately high personal liability.”

“It’s too vague and too broad and I don’t want to take that personal risk,” Microcosm’s Dee Kitchen is quoted. The fines alone just for disobeying could be enough to destroy the life of one single person who is to be “accountable” to the ruling class.

Ofcom has made it clear that “very small micro businesses” are also subject to the legislation, according to Reclaim the Net. 

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UN General Assembly Adopts Controversial Cybercrime Treaty Amid Criticism Over Censorship and Surveillance Risks

As we expected, even though opponents have been warning that the United Nations Convention Against Cybercrime needed to have a narrower scope, strong human rights safeguard and be more clearly defined in order to avoid abuse – the UN General Assembly has just adopted the documents, after five years of wrangling between various stakeholders.

It is now up to UN-member states to first sign, and then ratify the treaty that will come into force three months after the 40th country does that.

The UN bureaucracy is pleased with the development, hailing the convention as a “landmark” and “historic” global treaty that will improve cross-border cooperation against cybercrime and digital threats.

But critics have been saying that speech and human rights might fall victim to the treaty since various UN members treat human rights and privacy in vastly different ways – while the treaty now in a way “standardizes” law enforcement agencies’ investigative powers across borders.

Considerable emphasis has been put by some on how “authoritarian” countries might abuse this new tool meant to tackle online crime – but in reality, this concern applies to any country that ends up ratifying the treaty.

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The Return of Free Speech

Lying, exaggerating, or just being stupid is not new. These sins existed before the internet, and they will always exist. No one deemed them a national security threat until recently.

As a point of comparison, 9/11 was the deadliest attack in the history of our country, exceeding the death toll of Pearl Harbor. Nearly 3,000 innocent people lost their lives. The event led to a mobilization of military and government power that rivaled the Cold War buildup.

Public opinion largely supported a campaign of retaliation, but there were some disagreements and dissenters.

No One Censored the 9/11 Truthers

Among the critics, there was an enormous proliferation of “9/11 Truthers.” These were generally conspiracy theorists of middling intelligence who opined about structural engineering and other things they didn’t understand. They said it was an inside job or was known in advance, and some denied that commercial airliners were used in the attacks at all, even though there were millions of eyewitnesses and hours of footage showing exactly that.

Most people ignored the 9/11 Truthers because most of what they said was ridiculous. There was almost no effort to censor these people. No one said they should be “deplatformed” from the internet, removed from Google search results, or banished from college campuses. The idea that “platforming” meant tacit endorsement or that “deplatforming” was the right solution to bad thoughts had not been invented yet.

There was significant controversy when dyed-in-the-wool leftists like Ward Churchill said the victims deserved it, but even he was allowed to speak on campus.

Obama and the Public-Private Censorship Complex

The supposed scourge of misinformation appeared later, during the latter part of the Obama administration. It was made out to be a big national problem in order to justify hand-in-glove coordination between government agencies and private institutions in order to manipulate public opinion. Without acting directly to avoid violating the First Amendment, government officers persuaded and pressured tech monopolies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter to censor materials that officials did not want to be distributed.

They did all of this to advance a very narrow set of approved beliefs. The architects of this censorship regime labeled the system’s consensus Our Democracy™. Simultaneously, critics and skeptics of that consensus were defamed as election deniers, anti-vaxxers, bigots, terrorists, Nazis, Russian “assets,” and otherwise declared anathema.

This strategy did not come out of nowhere. We saw signs of coordinated messaging involving the mainstream media as early as 2008 when they did almost nothing to look into Barack Obama’s background as a radical, left-wing activist during his first presidential run.

Things then kicked into high gear in 2016. By that time, social media had eclipsed the importance of legacy media, the Brexit vote demonstrated a trend of populist rejection of elite opinion, and, in the United States, Donald Trump became the Republican nominee. These events worried the various players in the censorship game, and they correctly recognized Trump as a threat to business as usual.

Intelligence agencies and federal law enforcement worked closely with both legacy and social media companies to stop him. In the process, the media companies abandoned any pretense of neutrality, and this coordination continues through the present.

Fundamentally, all of this activity is premised on the idea that ordinary people need to be saved from themselves because they are too gullible, prejudiced, or prone to mass hysteria. The establishment believes it has the right to manipulate public opinion—through spying, censorship, criminal prosecutions, and lawfare—to counterbalance the populace’s self-destructive tendencies.

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Elon Musk’s AfD Endorsement Triggers EU Push for Stricter Censorship Under Digital Services Act

Elon Musk’s endorsement of Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has sparked significant controversy, particularly among European political figures concerned about the potential for what they call “foreign interference” in Germany’s upcoming elections.

Musk, the CEO of X, voiced his support for some of AfD’s policies following a deadly terror attack in Germany. His comments have raised alarm among EU officials, prompting calls for increased scrutiny of the X app and its compliance with the EU’s stringent censorship laws.

Thierry Breton, the European Union’s former Commissioner, took to X to express his outrage over Musk’s support for AfD. In a tweet posted on December 21, Breton accused Musk of being involved in “foreign interference” in Germany’s electoral process, especially given the timing of his comments around the tragic attack in Magdeburg.

Breton, who has been an advocate for strict censorship of social media platforms, and even threatened Elon Musk for over his interview with President Donald Trump, also called for the immediate application of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) to combat what he described as “double standards” when it comes to regulating speech online.

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How The Left Will Defend Its Censorship Regime Against Trump

The reelection of President Donald Trump could serve as a historic turning point for free speech in America. President Trump has said he will investigate censorship practices by the federal government, end the rampant disrespect for First Amendment rights on our college campuses, and take on Big Tech’s Orwellian policing of speech on the Internet. If successful, these efforts would make the First Amendment stronger than ever before.

Yet President Trump’s opponents will not simply stand by and watch as he dismantles their carefully crafted censorship machine. Controlling who gets to speak and what can be said is essential to the left’s dominance over our institutions. They will not give up such an important source of their power without a fight.

To ensure the success of Trump’s free speech agenda, the right must anticipate and prepare for the left’s inevitable attacks. Fortunately, their methods are not hard to predict. In fact, Democrats tipped their hand during the campaign.

Back when the party’s out-of-touch leadership thought Kamala Harris would propel them to victory, they set about making plans to silence opposition to their agenda once in office. At the Democratic National Convention, Sen. Chuck Schumer promised sweeping changes to elections, voting, and campaign finance if Democrats won control of Congress and the White House. All of these efforts would slant the political playing field further in the left’s favor.

Among the bills was legislation that would strip Americans of their privacy when supporting nonprofit groups that speak out on hot button issues like abortion, crime, the border, or extreme gender politics. The importance of this provision should not be underestimated.

The left calls it “transparency” when they publicly expose a private citizen’s personal information, including their name and home address, but Americans know it better as doxxing. They also know the purpose is not good government, but power politics. Exposing donors allows the left to build enemies’ lists and harass anyone who backs the “wrong” cause.

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WHO Expands “Misinformation Management” Efforts with “Social Listening”

The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) is not the only entity engaging globally (the Gates Foundation comes to mind as another) that likes to turn to developing, or small and often functionally dependent states to “test” or “check” some of the key elements of its policies.

The pandemic put the WHO center-stage, and in many ways influenced the UN’s clear change of trajectory from its true purpose to assisting governments globally in policing speech and surveilling their populations.

The WHO is comfortable in conflating health-focused issues (its actual mandate), with what it presents as threats linked to “disinformation” and “AI.”

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Documents Show CISA Monitored and Influenced Domestic Speech on COVID-19 Through Private Sector Partners

America First Legal (AFL) has revealed new information from a document it has been able to obtain through the lawsuit filed against the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

CISA is part of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has a “foreign disinformation” unit, the Countering Foreign Influence Task Force (CFITF).

However, as early as mid-February 2020, CISA (via CFITF) had already started to monitor domestic speech about Covid – nearly a month before the pandemic was officially declared by the UN’s WHO, and before orders started to be issued to shut down schools and businesses in the US.

Even though several layers deep, CFITF was still a government entity, and in order to circumvent constitutional issues related to censorship of online speech, the document indicates that the unit turned to what AFL brands “the censorship industrial complex” – specifically, its private sector component.

These were “fact checkers,” “bias raters” and similar that keep cropping up in revelations about the Covid-era censorship: Atlantic Council DFR Lab, Media Matters, Stanford Internet Observatory, Alliance for Securing Democracy, Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) (a UK-based group, which now passes as “British-American”), Global Disinformation Index (GDI), and even an openly foreign government project, EU’s “EU vs. Disinfo.”

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“They’d Rather Shut it Down to Fight for Their Global Censorship Bullsh*t” – JD Vance Slams Democrats for Voting Against CR

JD Vance tore into Democrats after they almost unanimously voted against the government funding bill dubbed the American Relief Act of 2024, which President Trump endorsed Thursday.

The bill came to the floor after a disastrous 1,547-page continuing resolution was rejected by the MAGA base, and House Speaker Mike Johnson was called out for negotiating an America Last funding bill.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, President Trump endorsed the new government funding bill, saying it’s “VITAL to the America First Agenda,” and called on all members of Congress to vote in favor.

However, 38 Republicans voted in opposition Thursday night.

Many of the Republicans who came out in opposition to the bill had reasonable explanations for their votes, expressing concern over continued spending at Biden levels and its removal of the debt ceiling for two years. “As of today, we’re spending a $2.23 trillion rate. That is not sustainable, and we will end up collapsing the entire country as a result of this spending,” Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) told The Gateway Pundit in an exclusive interview after he voted no on the CR. “We need to get President Trump’s agenda to succeed, and we need to do that responsibly.”

President Trump, however, sought to rally Republican lawmakers, emphasizing the long-term benefits of the plan. In a Truth Social post Thursday evening, he promised significant spending cuts through reconciliation next year, stating, “The United States will cut Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in spending next year through Reconciliation!”

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