Censorship today is fundamentally different from what we are used to in the Western world. First, it’s not about prosecuting porn. It’s about covertly suppressing information or ideas that government figures do not want us to have — largely irrespective of truth or falsehood. Second, media, old and new, co-operate with censorship in ways they rarely used to.

Many breathed a sigh of relief when the U.S. government abruptly shuttered its plans for a Disinformation Governance Board in 2022. But perhaps they failed to read the signs correctly. The DGB was far too Soviet, too subject to earned ridicule. Perhaps even to an obscene response from a figure like Elon Musk…

The way censorship works today, you don’t even know about it. It’s a big, complex topic so for now I will just focus on three minor incidents that give a sense of the range of what’s happening. There is more to follow, to be sure.

Compiling government dossiers on journalists

Journalist Lee Fang was recently asked to testify before the House Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. That’s because Fang, who covers public policy, has been following the firms that have sprung up to help government censor the internet. Recently, he has been researching British firm Logically.AI, one of whose executives is Brian Murphy, an ex-U.S. security official. Of him, he writes:

Murphy, who made headlines late in the Trump administration for improperly building dossiers on journalists, has spent the last few years trying to help the government find ways to suppress and censor speech it doesn’t like without being so “out in front” that it runs afoul of the Constitution. He has proposed that law enforcement and intelligence agencies formalize the process of sharing tips with private sector actors – a “hybrid constellation” including the press, academia, researchers, non-partisan organizations, and social media companies – to dismantle “misinformation” campaigns before they take hold.

Lee Fang, “Logically.AI of Britain and the Expanding Global Reach of Censorship” RealClearInvestigations & LeeFang.com, January 25, 2024

“Improperly building dossiers on journalists”? Yes, and — as a New York Times article from 2020 details — he was a busy little bee in other ways, managing the news for people who were not asking him to.

Small beer, you say? What about this one then?

Another British censorship lobby, the Center for Countering Digital Hate is upfront about its goals: “Harmful individuals and negligent platforms are creating a toxic online environment of hate and disinformation. Be part of the movement to stop hate and lies – join CCDH.”

Of the CCDH, journalist Matt Taibbi of Twitter files fame, reports,

CCDH reports and correspondence are distinguished by a unique tone of fevered indignation, as if members were consumed with rage at a world that hadn’t yet deleted disfavored accounts. Their methods, issuing bullhorn demands for total social defenestration through a vast and cleverly courted network of mainstream press allies, represent a perfected template for the modern “anti-disinformation” organization: moral absolutists unafraid to use accusations of bigotry as a political weapon.

Matt Taibbi, “UK Files” Reports Show: Both Left and Right Can Be Targets of Censors,” Racket News, 14 NOV 2023

Taibbi published British investigative journalist Paul Holden’s exposé of the group: “What you’re about to read is correspondence between British political operatives who discuss how to use fake news to destroy opponents, while hiding behind a disguise as an operation supposedly fighting fake news.” Taibbi notes that CCDH’s success depends in part on “Close coordination with dependably incurious mainstream media organizations.”

Incurious? Yes, Taibbi says; the group is typically referred to as an “‘online hate watchdog’ (CNN), ‘anti-hate group’ (The Verge, Fortune), an ‘online group that tracks hate speech’ (The New York Times) or even just ‘disinformation researchers’ (NPR)” when it is “in fact the partisan project of a think-tank called Labour Together.” The failing, increasingly understaffed MSM probably don’t even want to know more. Knowing would just create more work. Thus, in recent years, more informative stories are increasingly broken by independent journalists.

DHS covertly censors a New York Times reporter during the 2020 election

During the 2020 election, the Department of Homeland Security censored Reid J. Epstein in connection with a (correct) observation that a ballot printing machine in closely contested Wisconsin had run out of ink. Acting on mistaken information that no such machine used ink, DHS worked with (then) Twitter to “shadow ban” Epstein’s tweet:

After receiving significant attention, the Epstein tweet disappeared for most users. The tweet became invisible for those who had quote-tweeted it and users could no longer reply to it. The public metrics of the tweet, with over 1,000 retweets and 3,180 ‘likes,’ as well as all reply tweets, vanished. Any user attempting to view the Times reporter’s tweet via direct link was greeted by a warning label that it might contain misinformation.

Lee Fang, “Homeland Security Cited Inaccurate Allegation to Censor New York Times Journalist” RealClearInvestigations and LeeFang.com, February 5, 2024

The tweet bears a “misinformation” note to this day (November 8, 2024), even though the information was admitted to be correct.

A minor matter, you say? Not if you look at the size and strength of the apparatus instantly employed against Epstein. As we shall see in later posts, it doesn’t stop there.