Subtopics on this or other pages:

Censorship on social media
Abuse of Power
The Road to Tyranny is All Downhill From Here
The incident at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021
USA Patriot Act
The 2020 Coronavirus
Domestic surveillance
The Invasion of the Food Police

Douglass Mackey.  Today [7/9/2025], the second circuit court of appeals finally overturns one of the most ridiculous Obama/Biden dystopian lawfare cases against the first amendment.  Defendant Douglass Mackey wins his appeal and the case is dismissed[.]  [Exhibit]  The ridiculous case was against Douglass Mackey, aka Twitter user Ricky Vaughn, who posted a silly meme against Hillary Clinton in 2016.  The Biden DOJ prosecuted Mackey saying he was part of a conspiracy to rob Clinton of the election, by posting memes of disinformation around the election.  Mackey was tried and convicted in New York; however, finally an appeals court looked at the stupidity of it and ruled in his favor, sending the case back to the lower court for dismissal.  Literally all the guy did was post snarky memes poking fun of democrats and Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election[.]  However, the United States government claimed:  "the defendant exploited a social media platform to infringe one the of most basic and sacred rights guaranteed by the Constitution:  the right to vote."

Meme Maker's Conviction Thrown Out in Free Speech Win.  A man whom the Biden administration prosecuted over a satirical meme online just won a victory in court, as his outrageous and anti-constitutional conviction was thrown out.  [Advertisement]  Douglass Mackey announced on X on July 9, "BREAKING: THE SECOND CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS HAS THROWN OUT MY CONVICTION FOR LACK OF EVIDENCE[.] THE CASE HAS BEEN REMANDED TO THE DISTRICT COURT WITH ORDERS TO IMMEDIATELY DISMISS[.] HALLELUJAH!"  This is not only a victory for Mackey personally but for the First Amendment and all those who believe in the right to free speech.  [Tweet]

Have We Reached Late-Stage Climate Hysteria?  A United Nation's report issued last month calls for the criminalization of spreading "disinformation and misinformation" about global warming.  Is it the desperate act of a dying crusade — or business as usual for the climate fanatics?  While our hope is the former, it's more likely the latter.  According to Elisa Morgera, the U.N. special rapporteur on climate change, governments should "criminalize misinformation and misrepresentation (greenwashing) by the fossil fuel industry" as well as "criminalize media and advertising firms for amplifying disinformation and misinformation by fossil fuel companies."  This is disturbing.  Who gets to decide what is "disinformation and misinformation"? We've already seen, thanks to COVID-19, that the meaning of those words is determined exploitatively by the ruling class and the loudest voices, not by any objective means.

California Judge Stops Trump Administration From Firing Internet Speech Police.  Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared in April that the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference hub (R-FIMI) was dead.  But, because of legal interference, it turns out that for now, R-FIMI, formerly called the Global Engagement Center (GEC), is only mostly dead.  Through the miraculous powers of an activist judge, San Francisco's Senior District Judge Susan Illston ordered Friday that the Trump Administration must not dismantle R-FIMI, the creepy censorship arm within the Department of State that curtails free speech.  [Advertisement]  [Tweet]  The argument continues over whether the president has the authority to reorganize the federal workplace and trim excess employees or if only unelected local judges have that authority for the entire nation.  In her June 13 order, Illston said the State Department's planned employee separations from R-FIMI are prohibited by a previous injunction, and if the State Department plans any other similar actions, it better check with Judge Illston first.

Hawaii [is being] Sued by the Babylon Bee and Other Groups Over Speech Crimes.  We have previously discussed laws that seek to criminalize "materially deceptive" political content worldwide, including memes and parodies.  A civil law was blocked in California, where satirists and comedians opposed a Democratic law barring parodies and other expressions considered misleading.  Now, legislators in Hawaii are trying again with a new law (S 2687) that criminalizes "recklessly" distributing "materially deceptive media."  It is clearly unconstitutional and is only the latest such effort to chip away at free speech protections in the United States.  Gov. Josh Green (who is up for re-election) signed S 2687 into law in July 2024.  It prohibits the distribution of "materially deceptive media" that portrays politicians in a way that risks harming "the reputation or electoral prospects of a candidate."  It also forces distributors of satirical content to post large disclaimers on the satirical nature of the content, which the litigants argue negates the satirical intent.  Violators face jail time, large fines, and lawsuits.

Marco Rubio declares war on the global censors.  Europe has faced no consequences for its aggressive efforts at transnational censorship.  Indeed, this should not be a fight for the administration alone.  Congress should explore reciprocal penalties for foreign governments targeting American companies or citizens for engaging in protected speech.  After Vance spoke in Munich, I spoke in Berlin at the World Forum, where European leaders gathered in one of the most strikingly anti-free speech conferences I have attended.  This year's forum embraced the slogan "A New World Order with European Values."  That "new world order" is based on an aggressive anti-free speech platform that has been enforced for years by the European Union.  At the heart of this effort is the Digital Services Act, a draconian law that allows for sweeping censorship and speech prosecutions.  Most importantly, it has been used by the EU to threaten American corporations for their failure to censor Americans and others on social media sites.

US To Deny Visas To Foreign Officials Who Try To Censor US Social Media Platforms.  Since taking office, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has taken a series of actions to push back against growing foreign government demands to censor American citizens and American technology companies like Google, Meta, and X.  In April, Rubio shut down the State Department's Global Engagement Center (GEC), which had funded censorship advocacy by the Global Disinformation Index, a UK-based NGO with ties to the Intelligence Community.  Last week, Rubio said the administration was considering sanctions under the Magnitsky Act against Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes for his sweeping censorship edicts.  And on Monday, senior State Department officials traveled to France to raise their concerns about the lawfare against presidential front-runner, Marine Le Pen, and to Ireland to raise their concerns with the "Digital Services Act," (DSA), the law that allows the EU to censor American citizens and American companies.

Key group in government censorship project boasted of suppressing Trump message, defunding newsrooms.  A nonprofit that received federal funding to develop censorship strategies boasted in progress reports to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) that early tactics had suppressed the reach of Donald Trump's messaging and reduced advertising by $100 million to news outlets it deemed to be "disinformation" spreaders, according to newly disclosed memos.  The Global Disinformation Index (GDI) was awarded grants through its U.S.-based affiliate, AN Foundation, from NED, a congressionally chartered and taxpayer-funded agency in Washington.  The grants were paid to develop strategies on how to fight perceived disinformation in foreign countries.  But GDI's quarterly progress reports often explicitly boasted about the impact of censorship efforts on American targets and audiences.  For instance, it touted to the NED that it had created a report called "Bankrolling Bigotry:  An Overview of the Online Funding Strategies of American Hate Groups" that relied heavily on research from the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center to warn that "hatred is surging across the United States, threatening the safety, security and wellbeing of minority communities."

Gavin Newsom Forced to Delete Ad Touting CA's Economy After Viewers Realize Video Was From Ukraine.  Less than 48 hours after rolling out a fact-checking website designed to target "right-wing misinformation," California Governor Gavin Newsom was caught using stock footage from Ukraine and Estonia in an ad promoting his state's economy.  [Advertisement]  The ad, released initially on X and set to run on "Fox and Friends" this weekend, criticizes President Donald Trump's tariffs while touting California's supposed economic strength.  An overly excited Newsom, however, shared it with his followers on X first.  Viewers quickly pointed out that the ad, meant to show the greatness of the Golden State, contained stock footage from a pair of European countries.  "If you're going to brag about California, you may want to start by not using footage from Ukraine and Estonia," an X user responded.  Fox News notes that a simple internet search reveals that Ukrainian photographer Artie Medvedev took the warehouse footage in Ukraine.  The office footage was created by a company called Gorodenkoff Productions, which is based in Estonia.

The Era of Great Pretending Looks Wobbly.  [Scroll down]  I've heard too many people screaming at the top of their lungs that something is unquestionably correct only to hear many of those same people later screaming at the top of their lungs that what they once regarded as laughably false is now demonstrably true.  As a rule of thumb, whenever a government or similarly powerful institution says that something is true, it is best to assume the exact opposite until the facts of the matter are firmly hammered down.  "Conspiracy theories" frequently prove to be partially or wholly accurate in the long run.  People who dissent from popular "narratives" tend to be months — or even years — ahead of the corporate news talking heads when it comes to "breaking news."  Because "conspiracy theorists" are often far ahead of the news cycle, some people rightly refer to them as "Fact Hoarders" (hat tip to Chuck L. for that beauty!).  Don't be afraid to hoard facts.

These are the same people who were so loudly concerned about "disinformation" a few years ago.
Rachel Maddow, Stephen Colbert Spread Conspiracies About Republicans Wanting to Get Rid of Elections.  MSNBC host Rachel Maddow and CBS host Stephen Colbert claimed on Tuesday's broadcast of The Late Show that the Republican Party wants to put an end to elections.  The duo both stated that the GOP wants to end elections, though they did not offer much by way of evidence.  [Advertisement]  [Excerpts]  [Video clip]  [Advertisement]  Maddow claimed that Trump "doesn't think there should be elections."  [Advertisement]  She then insisted, "they are consolidating power, they're disempowering Congress, ignoring Congress, defunding agencies or closing agencies.  That's Congress's job, that's not the president's job.  When they are defying court orders, that's them saying the courts don't have authority over the president, that's consolidating all the power in one man, that's authoritarianism, and that's what you do when you don't ever want to have an election because you want to stay in power for life, and that is what they are trying."

Marco Rubio Announces He Has Located Dossiers Created by Biden Regime to Censor Americans Including Trump Officials.  Secretary of State Marco Rubio dropped a bombshell today that should frighten every conservative nationwide.  As The Gateway Pundit's Jordan Conradson reported, President Trump and his team held a cabinet meeting Wednesday.  Team Trump spent a good portion of the meeting touting the president's impressive record on issues ranging from immigration to the economy.  But amid the celebration, Rubio mentioned some disturbing information.  He revealed that Biden's Department of State had created dossiers with the full intention of spying on the content and censoring Americans' free speech rights.  'We had an office in the Department of State whose job it was to censor Americans," Rubio said.

Free Speech Under Direct Attack in Texas.  The Republican-led Texas House has officially caved to the radical Left's war on free speech — and shockingly, it's being spearheaded by none other than the state's own scandal-plagued former House Speaker Dade Phelan.  On Tuesday, House Bill 366 passed with bipartisan support, making it a potential crime in the state of Texas to share or distribute AI-generated and "altered media" — including political memes — without a government-approved disclaimer on political ads. [...] Texas Republicans — yes, Republicans — are now trying to police memes.  The bill makes it a Class A misdemeanor for candidates, officeholders, or political committees to knowingly distribute political ads that use manipulated images, audio, or video — especially if created with generative AI — without an explicit disclosure that the content did not occur in reality.  The law applies to any group spending over $100 on such materials and seeks to curb misleading media that could influence elections.

Biden-Era Disinfo Czar Nina Jankowicz Urges European Union to Resist Trump Administration.  The Biden era's infamous "disinformation" czar is urging the European Union to resist the Trump administration's agenda on online censorship and other key issues.  Jankowicz testified before the European Parliament earlier this week at a hearing about Russian hybrid threats and painted a gloomy picture of the Trump administration's opposition to online speech suppression and advocacy for U.S. tech companies.  "The United States has now become the largest lobbyist for these multibillion dollar [tech] corporations and is harassing any nation or body that aims to conduct oversight or require transparency of them.  Neither Washington nor the social media platforms it has captured are interested in preserving democracy.  They are interested in preserving their power and hoarding profits," Jankowicz said.  With that landscape in mind, Jankowicz called upon the European Union to hold firm with its tech regulation package, the Digital Services Act, that strongly pressures social media companies into restricting speech under the guise of "hate speech" and "disinformation."

Nina Jankowicz Creates New Disinfo Organization to Rally Europe to Attack American Free Speech.  Nina Jankowicz, the former head of the dismantled Department of Homeland Security's "Disinformation Governance Board," is like a bad case of poison oak:  she gets more contagious and looks more ulcerous with every appearance.  When last we heard from Jankowicz, her defamation lawsuit against Fox News had been tossed, and as my colleague Brad Slager reported, Jankowicz registered as a foreign agent and created the deceptively named "American Sunlight Project." [...] What she calls the protection of democracy and free speech, we call government encroachment and infringement on civil liberties.  In April, Jankowicz testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the "Censorship Industrial Complex," saying it was her patriotic duty to do so, and claimed the entire concept of government censorship under the Biden administration was "a fiction."

Rubio: To Protect Free Speech, The Censorship-Industrial Complex Must Be Dismantled.  Everything this administration has done since then has been laser-focused on fulfilling the promises made during that campaign.  Today, it is my pleasure to announce the State Department is taking a crucial step toward keeping the president's promise to liberate American speech by abolishing forever the body formerly known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC).  GEC was supposed to be dead already.  But, as many have learned the hard way, in Washington, D.C., few things ever truly die.  When Republicans in Congress sunset GEC's funding at the end of last year, the Biden State Department simply slapped on a new name.  The GEC became the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R-FIMI) office, with the same roster of employees.  With this new name, they hoped to survive the transition to the new administration.  Today, we are putting that to an end.  Whatever name it goes by, GEC is dead.  It will not return.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio Shuts Down State Dept Censorship Apparatus, Eliminating Global Engagement Center Residual Agency.  The State Dept.  Global Engagement Center was the epicenter of the Dept of State operation to control speech on social media platforms.  Following revelations from within the Twitter Files, and facing increasing scrutiny, the GEC operation was shut down — but the remnants of the operation remained active within the State Dept.  The terms "disinformation, misinformation and malinformation" were weaponized by the State Dept to define speech against their interests and block, deplatform and remove any voices, including in the U.S., they determined were against the interests of the U.S. government.  The COVID-19 and vaccine narrative were both examples of speech targeted by the GEC and later the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office (R-FIMI).  Today, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Acting Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy, Darren Beattie, delivered notice to congress the speech and platform control operation has been shut down.

A Huge Win for Free Speech:  Rubio Shuts Down Controversial State Department Office.  Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Wednesday that he's going above and beyond to continue protecting the free speech of every citizen in the United States — something that State Department wasn't doing previously.  As a matter of fact, the State Department's Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI) had "actively silenced and censored the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving" — particularly conservatives — and we were paying at least $50 million per year for it to do so.  But Rubio has now shut it down, placing 30 full-time staff members on leave, eliminating all 50 full-time staff positions, and letting Congress know that it no longer exists, so there's no need to keep pumping taxpayer dollars into it.  According to the MIT Technology Review, "...employees at R/FIMI received an email, inviting them to an 11:15 AM meeting with [Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Darren] Beattie, where employees were told that the office and their jobs have been eliminated."

Globalist Conquistadors Are Here to Colonize Us.  Globalism is a religion of buzzwords.  It claims to protect free speech — so long as that speech is free of "mis-," "mal-," or "dis-information."  It claims to protect public debate and political dissent — so long as citizens say nothing that globalists deem "hateful."  It claims to protect freedom of thought and freedom of religion — so long as those thoughts and prayers aren't too "extreme."  It claims to protect women — so long as delusional men wearing lipstick are considered "women," too.  It claims to protect democracy — so long as "democracy" is understood as the permanent E.U., U.K., and U.S. bureaucracies doing whatever they want with total disregard for the will of the voters they purportedly "serve." [...] What Western globalists learned from WWII is straightforward:  if you want to expand the power of government and reduce the people to timid serfs, fighting a war is unnecessary and expensive.  It is much cheaper just to relabel totalitarianism as "democracy."  With the right buzzword and enough propagandists in the press, globalists can con the people into demanding their own oppression.

EU 'prepares to hit Elon Musk with potential $1 billion fine for breaking disinformation laws'.  European Union regulators are preparing to hit Elon Musk's X platform with a huge fine which could surpass $1billion for breaking disinformation laws, insiders have reportedly revealed.  The move would likely to ratchet up tensions between the EU and United States, with tech billionaire Musk a close adviser to President Trump.  The social media platform could also face forced product changes for failing to abide by the landmark law to combat illicit content and disinformation, sources told the New York Times.  The penalties are expected to be announced this summer, the sources said, and will be the first to be issued under the new EU law which aims to force social media companies to police their services.

Senate Dems Claim Censorship Industrial Complex Never Happened — And If It Did It Was A Good Thing.  Democrats had a tough time at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing yesterday on the censorship industrial complex.  They had to argue there was never any censorship during the Biden administration (including during Covid!) and that free speech and freedom of the press were never threatened by the partnership of government agencies with private institutions to combat "disinformation."  After all, the government was just trying to catch foreign disinformation operations, they argued, so any censorship that did happen was necessary and proper.  Put another way, the censorship industrial complex never happened — and if it did it was a good thing and the targets deserved it.

The Global Censorship Cancer.  Even as American voters decisively returned free speech advocates to the Presidency, Senate and House of Representatives — the European Parliament passed and the EU has expeditiously implemented troubling censorship laws such as the Digital Services Act (DSA).  The DSA has been billed by its authors as a badly needed legal tool that will finally make it possible to render order out of the chaos that allegedly characterizes the digital sphere.  Inevitably, like many censorship projects launched in the U.S. by the Obama and Biden administrations, the DSA's ostensible purpose is to "protect our democracy" from the omnipresent menace of disinformation, misinformation, malinformation and of course hate speech.  Moreover, it can and does indirectly contrive to coerce its draconian censorship regimen on the U.S. by demanding that large American-owned corporations such as Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and X — abide by its absurdly nebulous terms.

America First Legal Exposes Censorship Scheme by USAID and Global Engagement Center.  Today, America First Legal (AFL) released explosive new documents obtained through ongoing litigation against the U.S. Department of State's Global Engagement Center (GEC), exposing a vast, government-backed censorship operation to silence Americans under the guise of "misinformation," "disinformation," and "malinformation."  The documents reveal a disturbing alliance between the GEC, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the British Foreign, Commonwealth, Development Office (FCDO), and media censorship organizations, all working in lock-step to manipulate public discourse, control media narratives, and suppress free speech.

USAID Coordinated With Censorship Agency, Documents Show.  The U.S. Agency for International Development coordinated closely with a State Department program to block what it considered "misinformation," "disinformation," and "malinformation," according to newly released government documents.  America First Legal, a conservative legal group, obtained more than 200 pages from the State Department through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit about the Global Engagement Center, or GEC.  The documents also show the controversial Global Engagement Center — which a congressional report concluded was federally-funded censorship — has cooperated with private journalism organizations.  During the COVID-19 pandemic, spanning the last year of the first Trump administration and early years of the Biden administration, the GEC and USAID worked together to stop what the agencies deemed "COVID-19 misinformation" and oppose "COVID-19 propaganda," the records show.

40 AI-Driven Censorship Techniques to Control Narratives and Suppress Dissent.  The censorship and content manipulation we see today did not emerge organically — it was the result of government-directed psychological operations (PsyOps) repurposed for domestic control.  What was once used in foreign influence campaigns to destabilize adversarial regimes or control narratives abroad was turned inward — against the American people.  The Twitter Files, exposed by investigative journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger, provided irrefutable evidence that U.S. government agencies used taxpayer dollars to coordinate censorship efforts across social media, tech platforms, and AI systems.  These revelations showed that multiple federal agencies, originally tasked with foreign intelligence and counter-disinformation efforts, actively colluded with Big Tech to suppress, distort, and manipulate public discourse in the U.S.

In Defense of Conspiracy Theorists.  A conspiracy is simply two or more people or organizations working in tandem to perpetrate a nefarious crime or fraud... or conceal or cover up activities that, if exposed, would harm certain people and organizations.  In my recent article, I attempted to summarize the views of my Brownstone colleague Debbie Lerman, who I believe is correct when she opines that the main conspiracy of "Covid" was to get most of the world population inoculated with a new unsafe mRNA non-vaccine.  Debbie also argues that elements of the Department of Defense and the "Military Industrial and Intelligence Complex" took control of the important elements of the Covid response.  In my opinion, Debbie uses credible and salient evidence to support these views.  Writers who've performed copious research should be commended for trying to "set the record straight."  I also tried to highlight another vital element of this conspiracy — the ramp-up of the Censorship Industrial Complex and the propaganda programs that created the mass fear that made most citizens eager to comply with the "guidance," lockdowns, and vaccines promoted by the world's establishment classes.  This "conspiracy," which worked spectacularly, made millions of people afraid to challenge false or dubious narratives.  The example of the "control" or "placebo" nation of Sweden should have shown the world that the conspiracy to create mass fear was bogus, nonsensical, and irrational.

Top 20 Deep State Revelations from Mike Benz.  You've heard about USAID paying for terrorism and war.  But here are 20 of the most startling revelations exposing our DC elites as losers, criminals or something altogether worse. [...] [#3] 2014 Ukraine Coup:  The Censorship Beta Test.  The 2014 Ukraine coup wasn't just about geopolitics; it was a dry run for domestic censorship.  Benz explains how the tools used to control narratives abroad were turned inward.  Who knew the First Amendment could be collateral damage in a proxy war? [...] [#6] CISA: The Real Ministry of Truth.  The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) isn't just about cyber threats — it's the nerve center of domestic censorship.  Benz reveals it's the de facto Ministry of Truth.  Reassuring that a DHS agency is policing speech under the guise of "security." [...] [#9] COVID-19: Censorship's Proof of Concept.  Rogan and Benz agree that COVID-19 was a trial run for full-scale censorship.  The narrative of "vaccine deniers" justified silencing dissent.  A public health crisis doubled as a Bill of Rights stress test — and we failed.

NewsGuard just got exposed and now Microsoft is running for cover.  Well, well, well — looks like Revolver was right again.  While other conservative outlets turned a blind eye to NewsGuard or, some even played along with their "media literacy" scam, we were out in front, boldly calling them out for exactly what they were — a tool of the regime, designed to blacklist and silence conservative media under the phony guise of fact-checking.  So, how were we right?  Well, as we speak, Microsoft, one of their biggest backers, is now scrambling to distance itself from the fake fact-checking group.  Also, this probably won't come as a shock, but the infamous USAID was also backing NewsGuard.

My Statement to Congress.  Two years ago, when Michael and I first testified before your Weaponization of Government Subcommittee, Democratic members called us "so-called journalists," suggested we were bought-off "scribes," and questioned our ethics and loyalties.  When we tried to answer, we were told to shut up, take off our tinfoil hats, and remember two things:  one, there is no digital censorship, two, if there is digital censorship, it's for our own good.  I was shocked.  I thought the whole thing had to be a mistake.  No way the party I gave votes to all my life was now pro-censorship.  Then last year I listened to John Kerry, whom I voted for, talk to the World Economic Forum.  Speaking about disinformation, he said "our First Amendment stands as a major block" to our ability to "hammer it out of existence."  He complained that "it's really hard to govern" because "people self-select where they go for their news," which makes it "much harder to build consensus..."  I defended Kerry when people said he "looks French," but Marie Antoinette would have been embarrassed by this speech.  He was essentially complaining that the peasants are "self-selecting" their own media.  What's next, letting them make up their own minds?

Defund, Disrupt, Dismantle.  DHS's misconceived stepchild and sub-agency CISA (the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) needs to be dramatically culled, if not abolished outright.  CISA's sole objective is to censor truthful information that the federal government doesn't want the public to know about and to get rich while doing it. [...] CISA aims to safeguard our "cognitive infrastructure" by insisting, for example, that CISA does not censor and blacklist by proxy; that bogus FBI crime statistics are real; that inflation, budget deficits, and gasoline prices came down under Biden; that you are a Putin-lover and a Russian "asset" if you question the wisdom of America's deepening involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war; that the bioengineered COVID virus came not from a lab, but from nature; and that mRNA vaccines are safe and effective and have no side-effects (and you're a MAGA-loving racist who should be scrutinized by the FBI if you insinuate otherwise).  The irony is that if CISA truly lived up to its own declaration of intent, it would declare itself a reckless purveyor of disinformation and outright lies and would voluntarily shut down and disband.

Winning: DHS Dismantles 'Ministry of Truth' Advisory Boards.  The win this time came at the Department of Homeland Security, which is days away from getting newly appointed Secretary Kristi Noem installed.  Word has reached DHS that the new sheriff is in town anyway, and this one plans to put an end to government censorship via politicized "fact checks."  The acting DHS head has put an end to the last of the Ministry of Truth functions pushed by the Biden administration: [...] In fact, some may be surprised to hear that these advisory boards still operated at all.  Alejandro Mayorkas assured Congress that the Biden administration had ended its efforts to police speech through DHS, although Mark Zuckerberg would strenuously dispute that now.

This is Not Your Grandpa's Democrat Party.  The Biden Regime and rogue elements in the Federal Government worked with social media companies, or strong-armed social media companies, to suppress the Free Speech of Americans.  These issues are being litigated in a case called Missouri v. Biden, which I wrote about here.  The Federal Government engaged in a massive censorship program suppressing the speech of Americans and even outright de-platforming American citizens from social media accounts to stop the flow of information the government, media, big pharma and others opposed.  The government's censorship and suppression included the suppression of factually TRUE information like information surrounding the origins of COVID or the truth about the ineffectiveness of wearing masks to stop the spread of COVID.  The censorship campaigns also targeted all manner of conservative speech from securing the border, to pro-Second Amendment messages.

State Department Defies Congress, Revives Infamous Censorship Office in Absurd Prank.  Two weeks ago, a celebratory post nearly appeared in Racket after Gabe Kaminsky reported in RealClear Politics that the State Department's Global Engagement Center (GEC) had finally been shuttered.  GEC was "forced by Congress to close up shop," Gabe wrote, in a story that's been personal for us both, since documents emerged last year showing the agency strategized ways to discredit our work.  Before the New Year, a watchdog agency sued to obtain records about the episode, litigation still ongoing.  However, I skipped the touchdown celebration after the closure of one of the more notorious bureaucratic characters in the Twitter Files, because I feared exactly what since took place.  Just after the New Year, on January 2nd, Gabe reported in the Washington Examiner that as many as 51 GEC employees and tens of millions of dollars were moving in an effort to "realign" the office to a "hub" under a new name.

Supreme Court Chief Roberts Just Defended The Censorship-Industrial Complex.  Over the last decade, America's ruling class has used the threat of "mis-, dis-, and mal-information" to justify turning the awesome powers of the administrative state against domestic Wrongthinkers from elite orthodoxy.  The most insidious and far-reaching manifestation of this phenomenon has been seen in the Censorship-Industrial Complex, which has eroded our First Amendment, thereby imperiling the republic itself.  Alarmingly, a new report indicates that the Supreme Court — which refused to bring the censorship regime to justice — not only shares this regime's concerns about "disinformation," but likewise supports robust and widespread action to "combat" it.  The report comes from Chief Justice John Roberts himself.  Roberts took to his recently released annual review to elucidate what he sees as the key threats to the independence of his fellow justices, and thereby the rule of law itself.  He distinguishes between "strong and passionate reactions" to and "informed criticism" of the court on the one hand, and independence-threatening "illegitimate activity" on the other.

Court Filings Reveal More Government Lies About Censorship, Seek Deeper Investigation.  Government pressure on national communications monopolies to mute Americans' critiques of government began in Barack Obama's presidency and continues today, say court documents filed Dec. 23.  Federal documents uncovered by separate litigation on Dec. 19 also show censorship of public discussion about prudent Covid policies began at least by February 18, 2020, a month before unprecedented citizen lockdowns.  That contradicts Department of Homeland Security claims its censorship efforts began months later.  These documents also highlight that government employees deliberately violated transparency laws such as the Freedom of Information Act to hide their use of public offices.  The Dec. 23 filing from Missouri v. Biden plaintiffs cites a May New York Times article showing "some Defendants, particularly at NIH and NIAID, have intentionally misspelled words in order to avoid production pursuant to FOIA requests; deleted emails; and used private emails."  Given this, the plaintiffs asked the federal district court to expand discovery to include intentionally misspelled keywords.

Obama's 'Censorship' Office Goes Bankrupt.  The Global Engagement Center, an office housed within the State Department and aiming to thwart disinformation and misinformation, has been forced by Congress to close up shop.  It's no mystery why; the taxpayer-backed GEC violated its mandate to work only overseas and devolved into a partisan enabler of speech suppression in the United States. [...] The GEC, moreover, was involved with the Election Integrity Partnership, a consortium of left-wing nonprofit groups, universities, and federal agencies that pressured Twitter and Facebook to remove GOP-aligned content in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election.  The GEC also bankrolled New York-based company NewsGuard, a "misinformation" tracker that, along with the Global Disinformation Index, has found itself at the center of a lawsuit brought by the Federalist, the Daily Wire, and the State of Texas against the GEC for allegedly funding an unconstitutional "censorship scheme" that suppressed voices on the right.

Here's How Trump Admin Could Help Crush Censorship Industry.  The Trump administration has a major opportunity to deal a blow to the sprawling censorship industry, both inside the government and in the private sector. [...] Under the Biden administration, White House staff made explicit requests for platforms to restrict COVID-19 related speech.  Other agencies participated in speech suppression, with the Center for Disease Control (CDC) flagging posts for removal and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) forwarding misinformation reports from local election officials to platforms, a practice they called "switchboarding."  CISA likewise helped create of the Election Integrity Partnership in 2020, which the SIO played a key role in running, to monitor "misinformation" and report it to platforms during the 2020 election.  A federal judge declined last week to dismiss a lawsuit against the SIO, along with several other groups, over their alleged targeting of conservative speech.

State Department's Global Engagement Center shuts down.  The State Department's controversial Global Engagement Center (GEC) shut down this week after congressional lawmakers nixed reauthorizing the agency in spending legislation to keep the government open.  "The Global Engagement Center closed on December 23, 2024," read a message on the agency's website.  The GEC came under fire from House Republicans after journalist Matt Taibbi uncovered evidence that it pressured US social media platforms early in the COVID-19 pandemic to censor Americans online, purportedly to counter "disinformation," such as theories that the virus leaked out of a laboratory in China.  "We learned Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other companies developed a formal system for taking in moderation 'requests' from every corner of government:  the FBI, DHS, HHS, DOD, the Global Engagement Center at State, even the CIA," Taibbi testified to Congress in March 2023, shortly after his "Twitter Files" expose on the GEC.

The State Department's Domestic Censorship Group Goes Out of Business at Midnight But the Danger Remains.  After eight years of operation, the State Department's Global Engagement Center will cease operating as an entity at midnight on Monday [12/23/2024].  Like many government agencies, the GEC proved that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.  Established by Obama's Executive Order 13584 in 2011, its original purpose was to "recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations." [...] What developed was not a defense of public discourse but a poisonous brew of overreach by a federal agency combined with the fascistic tendencies of so many Silicon Valley staffers.  The natural tendency toward censorship would have been hard enough to avoid under the best of circumstances, but when combined with a polarizing Trump administration that arrived with Russia-gate dogging it and the equally polarizing COVID scamdemic, and a hotly fought 2020 presidential campaign, the Global Engagement Center became actively involved in "suggesting" topics for social media platforms to "moderate."

Top 20 Scandals From the Obama-Biden Weaponization Report.  The partisan abuse of federal agencies by the Obama and Biden administrations has been exposed in a massive, 17,000-page report by the House Weaponization Committee.  It outlines a widespread pattern of criminality that almost defies description.  [For example,]
  [#8]   Investigation into the "Censorship-Industrial Complex":  Claims of a network involving government, academia, and tech firms aimed at controlling information online, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  [#13]   Government Influence on Media:  Accusations that government officials influenced media narratives, especially around sensitive political topics like the Hunter Biden laptop and the origins of the COVID-19.
  [#19]   Manipulation of Public Health Information:  During the COVID-19 response, there are claims of government agencies influencing what information was disseminated by health organizations, possibly to fit political narratives.

Taxpayer Funded Censorship:  How Government is Using Your Tax Dollars to Silence Your Voice.  Campaign season brought with it a steady stream of accusations that various parties and platforms were spreading misinformation and disinformation.  Most recently, the scandals at FEMA over avoiding homes with Trump signs was quickly slapped with a "misinformation" label... until FEMA itself admitted it had happened.  MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki suggested "laws have to change" to combat the scourge.  With the misinformation category being weaponized across the political spectrum, we took a look at how invested government has become in studying and "combatting" it using your tax dollars.  That research can provide the intellectual ammunition to censor people online.  Since 2021, the Biden-Harris administration has spent $267 million on research grants with the term "misinformation" in the proposal.

$267 million spent on fighting 'misinformation'.  Misinformation spending soared in 2021 as the government worked with social media companies to restrict the views of those questioning federal Covid-19 policies online.  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has since admitted it was "wrong" to censor varying opinions on vaccines, mask-wearing and social distancing.  The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government later accused the National Science Foundation of creating "AI-powered censorship and propaganda tools" at a cost of $13 million.  Another $200,000 was awarded to George Washington University to study how populist leaders spread misinformation.  Researchers used government funds to analyze politicians who allegedly divided society during the pandemic, focusing on Donald Trump and three other world leaders.  In total, $127 million of the misinformation grants were related to Covid-19.

Department Of Homeland Security Illegally Targeted Covid Dissent, New Documents Suggest.  The idea that intelligence and security agencies like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and others have been involved in the surveillance and censorship of the American people is a conspiracy theory, according to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other media outlets.  Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH), was not a victim of government censorship, says NBC News.  There was simply no "Censorship Industrial Complex" or government-coordinated activity that targeted American citizens' speech and violated the First Amendment, mainstream journalists and commentators agree.  But there was and is a Censorship Industrial Complex.  The Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) of DHS expanded its mandate in January 2017, during the final days of Barack Obama's presidency, to cover election infrastructure as critical infrastructure.  This would eventually entail protecting "cognitive security" by combating mis- and disinformation.  DHS asked four government-funded think tanks to flag "misinformation," which was often simply political speech that Democrats didn't like, and together with DHS urge social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to delete, suppress, or censor it in some other way.  In 2020 and 2021, the four government contractors worked hand-in-glove with DHS and other government agencies to pressure social media platforms to engage in political censorship.

The Cult of Credentialism.  [Scroll down]  When citizens are discouraged (or prohibited) from thinking for themselves, freedom cannot exist.  In its place, a class system arises in which some people's opinions matter more than others.  Dr. Fauci tells us to stand six feet apart, and, stripped of our prerogative to reason, we are expected to obey.  State licensing boards punish doctors for COVID "misinformation" and lawyers for election "misinformation," and neither group of professionals has any recourse.  The Federal Reserve manipulates the value of the U.S. dollar, and there is nothing Americans can do.  Ivy League faculties promote "white supremacy," anthropogenic "global warming," modern monetary theory, and Marxist socialism, and students are expected to accept falsehoods as truths.  Obedience to authority figures is a prerequisite for all forms of tyranny.

State Department Scrambles To Scuttle $100M Censorship Network Before Trump Takes Office.  The State Department revealed in a Monday filing that they are "substantially likely" to shut down their $100M Global Engagement Center (GEC), which was revealed in early 2023 to have been funding a "disinformation" tracking group which worked to pressure advertisers to demonetize outlets it accuses of spreading "disinformation."  Except, they're really just "realigning" the "Center's staff and funding to other Department offices and bureaus for foreign information manipulation."  [Tweets]  The move comes amid a lawsuit from Texas AG Ken Paxton and several conservative media outlets listed a GEC-funded "dynamic exclusion list" of websites it doesn't like, which it would then distribute to ad tech companies — such as Microsoft's Xandr — in order to try and "defund and downrank these worst offenders," and deprive said sites of ad revenue.  [Tweet with video clip]

Constant Demand For Censorship By Elites Shows Their Rule Depends Upon Disinformation.  Over the last two years, we have been reporting on the alarming rise of censorship by governments around the world and speaking out against it.  If you're an American, you might not think this should bother you.  But in every one of these nations, the people pushing for censorship made clear that they wanted to censor the entire Internet, not just in their own countries.  The picture you get is of nations working together to make censorship global not local.  Free speech advocates have won a number of important battles.  In the last few months, Senators in Ireland and Australia rejected censorship legislation, while the executive branch of the European Union forced its top censor to step down after he warned Elon Musk not to speak to Donald Trump on X.  We are more aware of the strategies that the Censorship Industrial Complex of politicians, government agencies, supposedly nongovernmental organizations, and the media use, around the world, to demand ever-more censorship by Internet and social media companies.

The Rise and Fall of the Surveillance State.  In a recent appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Mike Benz, a former U.S. Department of State official and current Executive Director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, delved into what he terms the "Censorship Industrial Complex."  This complex, according to Benz, involves a network of government agencies, NGOs, universities, and tech companies working together to control and censor information, particularly online. [...] Benz described how the U.S. government has increasingly leaned on tech companies like Google and Twitter to censor content deemed as misinformation or disinformation.  He traced the origins of this collaboration back to when tech companies were part of national security strategies, especially the post-2016 election period and the Russian Collusion hoax, to "combat foreign interference", which has since morphed into broader domestic censorship efforts.

Nothing Cool About Democrats' Woke Religion.  [Scroll down]  [T]here is absolutely nothing "cool" about being a Democrat these days.  If you want to get a stern lecture, you hang out with Democrats.  If you want to have a good time with other happy people, you go to a Trump rally.  If you scrutinize all jokes for their compliance with the tenets of "political correctness," then you vote Democrat.  If you make jokes without worrying about "triggering" somebody, then Democrat operatives are most likely censoring whatever you say online.  Nobody likes being censored.  And as shocking as this must be to Deep State Democrats, censorship isn't "cool."

Members of the Censorship Cartel Fear Donald Trump's Presidency.  Donald Trump's vow to dismantle the censorship cartel of "misinformation" researchers, media blacklisters like NewsGuard, and Big Tech has sent shivers through the academic community that has dedicated itself to censoring conservatives.  The Financial Times reports that since Donald Trump's election victory, researchers and academics who study alleged digital "misinformation" are growing increasingly worried that the new administration will follow through on campaign threats to crack down on their work.  During the campaign, Trump said he would seek to curb federal funding to universities found to have engaged in censorship activities like flagging conservative social media content for removal.

Australia has shown the way on free speech.  In what might be a world first, the Australian parliament has just dealt a death blow to counter-disinformation legislation that threatened to fundamentally reshape the country's free speech landscape.  The bill, which would have created a two-tier system of speech rights, was comprehensively rejected — and the story of its defeat reveals much about the evolving dynamics of political discourse in the post-pandemic world.  Originally initiated by the previous Conservative government and championed by the centre-left Labor Party, the legislation promised to be a watershed moment in Australian media regulation.  It proposed stringent controls on information sharing, with a curious twist: some, including legacy media and academics, would be exempt from the most restrictive provisions, while the hoi polloi would face intense scrutiny and potential censorship.

Free speech win Down Under as misinformation bill is binned for good.  In a win for free speech advocates, the Australian Government formally abandoned its misinformation bill over the weekend, after failing to secure support in the Senate.  The proposed laws would have forced social media companies to show that they were preventing the spread of misinformation and disinformation on their platforms, with fines of up to 5% of global revenue for non-compliance.  The controversial bill was opposed by the Coalition (conservative Liberal and National Parties) but after several amendments, it sailed through the House of Representatives earlier this month with the support of Labor (centre left) and the Teals (the Greens did not participate in the vote).

Australia's misinformation bill dead in the water.  In what looks set to be a win for free speech Down Under, critical support from independent senators for the Australian Government's controversial misinformation bill has collapsed completely.  The Labor Government needed votes from four out of seven independents to pass the bill, but as of today, every single one of the seven independent senators on the crossbench has declared their opposition to the bill.  Formerly undecided Senator Lidia Thorpe today stated her intention to vote against it, due to concerns that "white-dominated institutions" would regulate what constitutes truth, which would would "further erase, suppress and misrepresent First Nations narratives and activism."

The FCC is finally going after big tech censorship.  The one-two-three punches of the Russia Hoax, COVID, and the 2020 election gave the tech companies the excuse they needed to crack down on ideas with which they disagreed.  The magic word was "misinformation."  In addition to embracing it themselves, the tech companies were vulnerable to pressure from the Deep State and the Biden administration.  They told the tech companies that it was patriotic to use private corporations to do what the government couldn't do directly:  Censor political speech in America.  Using social media censorship and search engine manipulation to dry up traffic was one way to attack those who opposed the Democrat agenda.  However, even with decreased traffic from social media and search engine referrals, sites were still getting by, thanks to the ad revenue from those loyal to them.  Something more was needed.  The "something more" was "fact checkers" and "credibility" researchers.  In the latter category, the main organization was NewsGuard.

Canada's Censorship Crusade Targets Tech Giants in a Push for "Disinformation" Control.  Over the last four years, Canada's Liberal government headed by Justin Trudeau got itself heavily aligned with the neighbor to the south on several key but also very contentious issues — such as restrictive Covid measures, various forms of pressure on tech companies, and "disinformation" censorship.  A flurry of controversial bills in Canada, some of which became law, serve to cement this impression.  Now, as President Trump prepares to start his second term in office in the US, Canada's "orphaned" ruling class continues with the "disinformation" narrative — either as a sign of long-term commitment or looking for new "disinformation partners" elsewhere in the world — or simply as a sign of inertia.

Disinformation: The Dark Sword of Tyranny.  Disinformation is a powerful tool for wannabe tyrants.  Those who practice the disinformation dark arts wield a double-edged sword.  With one edge the government apparatus claims their critics and opponents are spreading harmful disinformation and use their considerable power to censor and eradicate dissent.  Much as the term "hate speech" opens the door to the suppression of free speech, "disinformation" is the skeleton key of modern domestic propaganda and censorship.  With it, the regime can target political movements, specific politicians, and prominent voices on the grounds that they are influenced by or in thrall to foreign "disinformation."  The goal is consensus.  Silencing all opposing views creates by default an apparent unity of thought.  The climate change crisis is a prime example of censorship creating false consensus.

Is Kamala Harris Bent on Killing Free Speech?  Signs Say 'Yes'.  Kamala Harris' Labour Party advisor's #1 priority is killing Twitter.  We can't let the proles speak.  Only the vanguard of the proletariat and their Pravda media propagandists can be allowed to have a say, lest the dirty dumb demos quit doing what they are told.  [Advertisement]  Matt Taibbi and Paul Thacker have the scoop, and it is just as scary as you think.  The campaign to destroy free speech is in full swing, and they are executing the plan.  [Tweet]  I have written a lot about censorship because, in the long run, it may present the greatest threat to our freedom.  If we have free speech, we can at least fight back.  We can make an appeal to reason.  The key to Democrat power has been control over the flow of information, and the left has a near monopoly on distributing information.  As much as the public now distrusts the media, we still need to be armed with facts.  Facebook is controlled.  TikTok is controlled.  The so-called "mainstream media" has turned into a brainwashing tool.  Twitter stands alone as a place where you and I can speak relatively freely.  That is why the European Union, the UK, Ireland, Brazil, China, and all the totalitarians in the world are hell-bent on killing it.

A strategy for countering dis-, mis-, mal-, non-, and non-trans information.  It is maddening that the most egregious examples of disinformation and its variants come from the MSM and the government accusing us of the same.  While alternative conservative media and internet sleuths have done an excellent job exposing their every malfeasance, somehow these entities are still mostly getting away with it, not changing their behavior, with low-information voters often unaware and still trusting mainstream media and government broadcasts and material.  A coherent strategy is needed.

Democrats Are a Major Threat to Free Speech; Trump Isn't.  The Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has threatened to sic the Justice Department on social media platforms that "profit off hate."  That was in 2019.  Her vice presidential running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, has said that "there's no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech."  That was in 2022.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has said that the government needs to figure out how to "rein in the media environment."  That was in 2021.  Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, has suggested that Americans who share misinformation should be criminally charged.  That was a month ago.  The former Secretary of State John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, has worried about the First Amendment being a "major block" to stopping "disinformation."  That was two weeks ago.

The Dems vs. Free Speech.  During the Covid-19 pandemic, the government ordered draconian lockdowns.  Regular people violating the lockdown were punished while those in power doing the same suffered no consequences.  Following state-ordered vaccine mandates, those refusing to take the untested vaccine were compelled to quit their jobs.  The Biden administration set up a 'Disinformation Governance Board' whose stated function was to ensure national security by combating "misinformation" and "disinformation" on social media.  The powers of this board weren't clearly stated but the principle was that the government would sit in judgment of its citizens and become the arbiter of what should and should not be allowed.

Disinformation Isn't the Problem.  Government Coverups and Censorship Are the Problem.  In a perfect example of the Nanny State mindset at work, Hillary Clinton insists that the powers-that-be need "total control" in order to make the internet a safer place for users and protect us harm.  Clinton is not alone in her distaste for unregulated, free speech online.  A bipartisan chorus that includes both presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump has long clamored to weaken or do away with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which essentially acts as a bulwark against online censorship.  It's a complicated legal issue that involves debates over immunity, liability, net neutrality and whether or not internet sites are publishers with editorial responsibility for the content posted to their sites, but really, it comes down to the tug-of-war over where censorship (corporate and government) begins and free speech ends.

Maricopa Elections Chief Enlisted Foreign Censorship Group In War On Disapproved Speech.  Maricopa County Recorder Steven Richer turned to the left-leaning States United Democracy Center and an overseas group bankrolled by the State Department to help his office target election speech that's disapproved of by the government, according to emails obtained by The Federalist.  Richer thanked States United for offering to let his office "piggy back" on the group's anti-speech operations, which he described as "deep scanning" the internet for "disinformation," a term often invoked to censor speech the government disagrees with.  States United is a left-wing election law group that consistently opposes Republican election integrity legislation like voter ID laws and supports Democrat attempts to diminish election security, according to InfluenceWatch.  The group has praised the weaponization of the justice system against Trump, and was described by The New York Times as part of a "coalition" preparing to "push back" against a potential Trump victory with "extraordinary pre-emptive actions."

Trust Me, We Would NEVER Do That, Says Mayorkas to Disbelieving Americans.  Alejandro Mayorkas, the impeached Department of Homeland Security Secretary, wants you to know that he's vewy, vewy angwy that people would dare say that the reason he, Border Czar Kamala Harris, and President Joe Biden have opened the borders to a marauding horde of millions of illegal aliens is to import new Democrat voters.  That's just "disinformation," he said on CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday morning, with just a tad too much-feigned disbelief in his voice.  Mayorkas told Margaret Brennan that these kinds of stories combined with the concerns over helping North Carolina hurricane victims vote this election have caused Americans to "lose confidence in the integrity of the election system, and we need people in positions of authority to actually communicate accurate information to the voting public."  Getting "accurate information" would be a refreshing change, wouldn't it?

Citing the Biden-Harris admin's own FEMA facts isn't misinformation.  In a perfect storm of Democratic nonsense, White House chief flack Karine Jean-Pierre blew off factual info around Federal Emergency Management Agency spending and foreign aid that her own employers released as "misinformation" before stomping off in a huff.  What more proof does America need that labels of mis- and disinformation have nothing to do with whether any statement is true or false, but only whether it's helpful or harmful to the political project of the left?  Fox News' Peter Doocy posed Jean-Pierre (Joe Biden's newest "senior adviser") a simple question:  Why does the Biden administration have close to $157 million ready to go for Lebanon aid but has to go hat in hand to Congress for extra funds for FEMA to deal with Hurricane Helene damage?

FEMA's Ridiculous New 'Hurricane Misinformation' Website Needs Some Serious Fact Checking.  How do you know when you're being lied to by the political left?  Well, yes, when their lips are moving, but also when they scream "Disinformation!"  Such is the case with Biden-Harris's FEMA, which has announced a new website to address what they're calling "hurricane disinformation."  The translation of that nonsense little phrase being that they were caught with their pants down after Hurricane Helene, whether accidentally or deliberately, and it's all the fault of disinformation. [...] Imagine how the people of storm-ravaged North Carolina will feel when, in the face of the disastrous response by the federal government, they hear that FEMA is wasting time and resources on a rumor website.  They know the truth about FEMA. Forget misinformation; we're dealing with criminally bad mismanagement here.

FEMA Says "Disinformation" is a Problem — What Disinformation?  The Disinformation About the Information.  Politico has written an article about FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, saying disinformation about the federal government response to Hurricane Helene, "is absolutely the worst I have ever seen," Criswell told reporters on a Tuesday morning call.  "It's creating distrust in the federal government, but also the state government, and we have so many first responders that have been working to go out and help these communities," she added.  However, if you go read the article fraught with pearl-clutching and protestation, you might curiously discover there is not a single citation for any claimed "disinformation."  It is very odd to see FEMA and by extension Politico in their defense, claiming that massive disinformation is running rampant, and yet they do not cite a single example of the disinformation they claim to exist.

FEMA sets up a 'rumor response' webpage to set the record straight after all the scrutiny of its response to Helene.  When enough of the public harbors such deep distrust for our federal government that our federal agencies feel compelled to establish official "rumor response" websites to try to convince the people that they're not corrupt and incompetent, I'd say it's game over, and there's no road to redemption.  You've blown it.  Obliterated everything.  Nuked your last shred of credibility.  In light of mounting accusations against FEMA as bumbling the response to Hurricane Helene beyond all comprehension, the disaster relief agency took it upon itself to create a fact-checking website, to battle the "rumor" mill — despite what those conspiracy theorist MAGA haters are saying, FEMA takes its mission seriously, and is adeptly handling the emergency response!

Like a Prayer.  You have also known for some time now, that Hillary is exactly the something wicked that has been coming this way for many years, to the siren song of the cable news harpies shrieking Trump Trump Trump... Putin Putin Putin at all hours, day and night, month after dreary month, and all the other avatars of ruin pretending to run the life of our nation.  But this utterance begs enough questions to keep Chat GDP vexed and perplexed for the rest of its unnatural life:  We lose total control...?  Yes, as matter of fact, you do.  This might be a book tour too far for Mrs. Clinton and her claque, now that her basket of deplorables shivers in the cold and dark out in Appalachia amid the stink of their kinfolks' uncollected corpses.

Did She Really Just Say That?: Hillary Clinton Lets the Cat Out of Bag on Dems and Controlling Speech.  One of the things that Elon Musk just warned about at former President Donald Trump's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, was the danger that the Democrats posed to free speech and how important it was to vote for Trump to preserve our Constitutional rights.  [Advertisement]  Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton let the cat out of the bag during an interview with CNN on Saturday, where she spoke about the need to control social media.  She said it should be "at the top" of every legislative agenda:  [Tweet with video clip, partial transcipt]  "We lose total control."  That's the real problem to them right there, that's why Democrats are so upset.  Yes, that's the point of the First Amendment — the government is not supposed to be in "control" of the speech of the people.  Sounds pretty fascistic to me.  People can now see and hear the truth without having it be filtered through liberal media organs.  We can now know when the media is lying to us.

Censorship Is THE Biggest Issue in This Election.  There is a lot at stake in this election cycle, as you all know.  But in my mind, the make-or-break issue is protecting the First Amendment and, by extension, the Constitution and our freedoms.  Yes, the border matters immensely.  Yes, the US is embroiled in wars abroad that should never have broken out.  But without freedom of speech and the ability to break the near monopoly on information distribution, our country will be gone.  We won't even have a fighting chance.  Before you say, "the Supreme Court will save us," recall that the Democrats have been agitating to expand the Court and pack it with leftists.

Hillary Clinton Calls for Stricter Online Censorship as Establishment Fears Losing "Total Control".  In an interview with CNN, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed her pressing need for social media companies to enhance censorship measures, suggesting that failure to do so would lead to the loss of "total control."  This declaration aligns with broader concerns expressed by figures within the Democratic Party regarding the control of information online.  [Video clip]  Clinton's remarks come in the wake of substantial changes in the space of online expression, notably influenced by Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter in 2022. Under Musk's stewardship, the platform, now rebranded as X, has championed a more laissez-faire approach to content moderation.  This stance has facilitated a pushback against what some perceive as misleading mainstream narratives, particularly evident in the recent coverage of FEMA's reported mishandling of hurricane relief efforts in North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee — a narrative that the government is calling "misinformation."

Vance is right.  Harris and Walz are a threat to Americans' free speech.  In the vice presidential debate Tuesday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz pulled the fire alarm.  His opponent, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, cited the massive system of censorship supported by Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate.  Walz proceeded to quote the line from a 1919 case in which Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said you do not have the right to falsely yell fire in a crowded theater.  It is the favorite mantra of the anti-free speech movement.  It also is fundamentally wrong.

US: In Danger of Losing Freedom of Speech, Replaced by Politburo.  Some politicians in the US are itching to take away your free speech rights and, given the chance, if they get enough votes, they will.  How do we know?  Because they tell us that they will.  Last week, at a World Economic Forum (WEF) panel on climate, former US Secretary of State and Biden-Harris administration climate envoy John Kerry complained that the First Amendment prevents the US government from shutting down what it deems to be "disinformation" on social media, which makes it more difficult to "hammer disinformation out of existence... particularly in democracies," he lamented.  What he does not mention of course is who decides what is "disinformation," or if it is just whatever the current government wants the public to think.  What comes immediately to mind are government narratives such as the Russia collusion hoax, that Covid-19 was transmitted by bats, or that Hinter Biden's laptop, according to no fewer than 51 former intelligence officials, was "disinformation."  All those allegations of disinformation, we now know, were themselves disinformation.

The left is going to war on the First Amendment.  In the last 48 hours, two extraordinary videos have arrived on X.  The first features John Kerry, the Democratic candidate for President in 2004.  The second is of Bill Gates, the world's fifth-richest man and, with George Soros, its top left-leaning charity funder.  Kerry's video runs a mere two minutes.  Gates's lasts barely 30 seconds.  And both should terrify anyone who believes in free speech.  Both reveal that the top of the American left now explicitly rejects the First Amendment.

Tim Walz Endorsed Censorship In Front Of Millions Of Americans And No One Cares.  The most important exchange in Tuesday's vice presidential debate has been almost entirely ignored by the corporate media.  Not surprisingly, that's because it makes Walz look like an authoritarian and a fool in one fell swoop:  [Transcript]  Ok, let's unpack what happened here.  Walz challenged Vance on Trump's questioning of the 2020 election results and Jan. 6, and Vance countered by saying that if Walz and his running mate, Kamala Harris, were so concerned about the fate of democracy they wouldn't be so adamantly pro-censorship.  Specifically, Walz has previously said, quite incorrectly from any legal or moral standpoint, that there's no First Amendment right to "misinformation."  Walz interjects to, near as I can tell, try and clarify that he was also talking about limiting "threatening" words or "hate speech."  Interestingly, I looked at multiple debate transcriptions, and none of them had this quite audible interjection included — though the first word or two is hard to discern, the part about "threatening or hate speech" is quite clear.  In any event, to the extent that Walz is trying to defend himself he's doing an awful job.

Why the [Australian] misinformation bill must be stopped.  The whole concept of "misinformation" is highly subjective.  This legislation would give the Australian Media and Communications Authority (ACMA), a government bureaucracy, sweeping powers to decide what is true and what is not true.  The elected parliament will not be able to intervene.  Digital platforms will be made to invent codes of practice to prevent "misinformation and disinformation" that satisfy ACMA.  They will then implement these codes to censor content that the ACMA deems is "not true" and might cause "serious harm". That means everything you can see, hear or say on the internet will be policed.

Disinformation vs. the First Amendment.  I came across this John Kerry diatribe lamenting the perils of free speech in my news feed this morning. [...] ["]If people only go to one source, and the source they go to is sick, and, you know, has an agenda and they're putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence.["]  I think it's safe to say that Kerry's idea of a "sick" source likely begins with Fox News and includes every other outlet that isn't part of the DNC propaganda machine.  And given his druthers, would love to "hammer it (and the rest of them) out of existence."  This should scare [...] every free-thinking American.  Not that Kerry has any political power, but the leadership of his party does and feels the same as he does on this subject.  Kill the filibuster, stack the Supreme Court, decree a Presidential nominee without a single primary vote.  The party that sees threats to democracy behind every tree desperately needs a mirror!

Just who can we trust in this election?  Just as the left has tried to hide the truth from the American people about Biden and Harris, they have had to replace those facts with a manufactured narrative about Trump.  Trump's entire political life has largely been shaped by lies from the left, from the Clinton campaign's dossier, to Russia collusion, all the way to the 'Kamalies,' with every gap between filled by the legacy media.  The biggest ironies are about mis- and disinformation, when they point to Trump, or someone else with a differing opinion than their own.  Hillary Clinton just suggested that Americans who interfere with elections by spreading propaganda should be criminally or civilly charged.  Which Americans do you think she was talking about?  Do you think it was anyone named Clinton, Obama, Biden, or Cheney?  What about any of the other prolific traffickers in falsehoods, like White House press secretaries, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, or ABC?

Idaho Secretary of State Partners With Federal Censors In The Name Of 'Election Security'.  Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane, a Republican, is partnering with the federal censorship office Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to talk about "election security."  McGrane held a press conference on Wednesday with CISA director Jen Easterly in the Idaho state capital, after which the Idaho Republican said he was "grateful for the partnership" in a post on X.  CISA is America's newest federal agency, established in 2018 in part to protect the American electrical grid and "critical infrastructure" from "cybersecurity threats."  In 2017, this included election infrastructure, which then-outgoing DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson designated as a "critical infrastructure subsector," as noted in a 2023 federal report.  The agency has also been working with Big Tech to silence Americans' speech and put its thumb on the scale of elections.

On State Department Censorship and Blacklisting.  Last Friday, Josh Christenson at the New York Post published "State Department tried to discredit reporters, Republican pol over conservative 'blacklist.'"  The article described an internal memo showing the State Department strategizing public relations responses to the Washington Examiner's Gabe Kaminsky, me, and Republican congressman Jim Banks.  The memo criticizes Banks in an extremely devious way.  The Indiana Republican last February was quoted by Gabe in the Examiner saying the Biden administration appeared to be "knee deep" in efforts to "crack down" on speech.  The State Department memo listed the Banks quote among its list of criticisms to answer.  However, the agency didn't quote the Examiner.  It claimed to be quoting the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti, giving the impression that Banks offered his criticism of Biden in Russian state media:  [Exhibit]  But Banks never spoke to RIA-Novosti, or any Russian agency.  His quotes only appear in wholesale Russian translations (read: thefts) of Gabe's Examiner article. [...] A miffed Banks just responded with a letter to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.  "The State Department, in defense of its domestic so-called 'disinformation' operation, purposefully spread disinformation about a U.S. lawmaker," he wrote, adding that "this is a sloppy and hypocritical lie and it is typical of the Biden-Harris State Department's repeated attacks on the First Amendment."

California Bans Election 'Deepfakes,' Celebrates Biological Ones.  California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) on Tuesday signed a law immediately banning the sharing of election-related "deepfake" videos, images, or audio, enforceable up to 120 days before an election and 60 days after an election.  He also signed two more laws, which take effect in January, requiring disclaimers on AI-generated political ads and requiring social media companies to remove deepfakes, or else courts will force them to do so. [...] The term "deepfake" describes electronic media that has been manipulated, altered, or entirely fabricated, but which is so true to life that it deceives people into thinking it is real. [...] My purpose here is not to litigate the debate between these two arguments, nor explore various compromises that could address the concerns of each.  Instead, I write to demonstrate the contrast between California's aggressive pursuit of one form of technological deepfake (electronic) and their unquestioning embrace of another form of technological deepfake (biological).  For that is what gender transition procedures are:  a biological deepfake.

Hillary Clinton, queen of disinformation, issues two-faced call for censorship.  Amidst all the shocks of the 2024 presidential race, who expected Hillary Clinton to ride in like Joan of Arc to rescue truth — or at least to call for the crushing of government critics?  On Monday, Hillary declared on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC talk show that the federal government should criminally prosecute Americans who share "propaganda" — which she made no effort to define.  Hillary has long been one of America's foremost censorship advocates.  In 2022, she wailed that "tech platforms have amplified disinformation and extremism with no accountability" and endorsed European Union legislation to obliterate free speech.  But as we've seen, "disinformation" is often simply the lag time between the government pronouncing something a falsehood and the government getting debunked.

The Dangers of Hillary's Duplicity.  Hillary Clinton orchestrated the most destructive misinformation campaign in history.  She cast the President of the United States as a Russian agent, thereby destabilizing not only the country but also the world.  If anyone should be jailed for spreading misinformation, it is Hillary Clinton.  [Video clip]

Hillary Clinton Wants To Jail Americans For 'Misinformation.'  Let's Start With Her.  Hillary Clinton went on MSNBC this week and told Rachel Maddow that she thinks Americans who spread "misinformation" and Russia propaganda should be prosecuted. [...] What she's describing is of course odious and totally incompatible with the First Amendment.  Americans are free to spread as much Russian propaganda as they want, whether they believe any of it or not. [...] But fine, for the sake of argument if Clinton wants to go down this road, let's go.  Let's say we're going to start criminally prosecuting American citizens for spreading Russia propaganda.  In that case, Clinton herself is first up.  No one has done more to interfere in our elections by spreading Russian propaganda than Hillary Clinton herself.  She is arguably the greatest spreader of Russian propaganda and lies in American history, so she can be first to stand trial under these insane new rules she's proposing.  After all, it was the Clinton campaign that created the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy, which hamstrung the incoming Trump administration and held the nation hostage for more than two years.  After 2,800 subpoenas, 500 witness interview, and nearly 300 wiretaps and pen registers, Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that there was zero evidence of collusion by Trump or his associates.

How Wikipedia Became a Propaganda Site.  When it was founded in 2001, Wikipedia had an idealistic mission: to provide all the world's information for free — gathered, updated, and fact-checked democratically by the people.  But in recent years, as our politics have become increasingly angry and divided, so too have the key editors of Wikipedia who engage openly in battles over "the truth."

A Note to the Temporary Oppressors.  [Scroll down]  Let me be clear, anyone in government, or otherwise coerced by it, who seek to silence or punish free speech, free thought or free association are guilty of 18 U.S. Code 241 Conspiracy against rights, which states:  [Text omitted for brevity.]  This is what I think of when I see videos of a sheriff's deputy standing behind two federal agents at a person's door wanting to talk to them about a social media post.  The very act of a police organization, federal, state or local inquiring about an exercise of free speech is by definition intimidation.  Any social media site who censor's an act of free speech is likewise a conspirator.  To me, the response should be to look at the deputy and inquire if he is part of the conspiracy or if he's going to take the offenders into custody as the crime was committed in his presence.  Get names, badge numbers and be willing to file charges on the spot.

Gavin Newsom Signs Bill Into Law Allowing The Government To Ban 'Deceptive' Social Media Posts.  CA Gov. Gavin Newsom signs bill into law that bans the distribution of "election communications that contain materially deceptive content."  According to his own statement, content from the Kamala Harris Campaign X account could be banned but most likely won't.  CNN recently released a report detailing all of the "deceptive" content coming from Kamala HQ.  "A social media account run by Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign has been repeatedly deceptive."  "[Kamala HQ] has made a habit of misleadingly clipping and inaccurately captioning video clips to attack former President Donald Trump."  In Newsom's own statement, "deceptive content," as CNN described, is now banned.  [Video clip]

Hillary Clinton Demands 'Criminal Penalties' for Americans to Deter 'Misinformation'.  It's 2016 all over again!  Eight years later, having learned nothing from the epic public humiliation she suffered when her fact-free Russiagate hoax collapsed into itself with the Mueller Report, Rachel Maddow is still asserting "election interference." Hillary Clinton is eager to assist her in her Red Scare propaganda efforts.  Ironically, Hillary is now demanding criminal prosecutions for her opponents' alleged propaganda — and not just foreign state actors, but explicitly "Americans," presumably private citizens who post loosely defined "misinformation" on social media.

Hillary Clinton Wants Anyone Who Posts 'Misinformation' On Social Media To Do Jailtime.  Hillary Clinton suggests jailing Americans for posting "misinformation."  "There needs to be deterrence."  [Video clip]

An Active X User Is Visited By The Feds Over Social Media Posts, They Refuse To Indentify Themselves Before Being Forced To Leave.  A man filmed two U.S. federal agents as they approached him to ask about posts he'd made on social media, leading to them being publicly shamed for targeting a First Amendment-protected activity.  In a viral video, X user Jeremy Kauffman filmed as two plain-clothes agents approached his front porch requesting he not film them, as the citizen asked for their full names while notifying them he intended to post the interaction online.  After appearing thoroughly embarrassed, the agents eventually departed while the man chided them, saying, "You know Americans that believe in the Constitution think you're laughable.  You go home and you think about what you did today.  Go home and think about it.  You coward."  It's unclear what social media post prompted the visit.  [Video clip]

French State Regulator Hits Broadcaster with €20,000 Fine for Climate 'Misinformation'.  Watched by a global audience, last month's opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris featured an obscene mockery of the Christian Last Supper.  Everyone is entitled to their view was a liberal response and some even suggested it was a 'celebration' of diverse religious belief.  Just days before, the French state fined the second largest rolling news channel CNews €20,000 (£17,000) for failing to question a contributor's view that human-caused global warming was a scam.  Welcome to free speech, French style.  It is fine and dandy to mock religious belief, or at least the Christian beliefs held by millions of citizens, but take a sceptical view of a hotly disputed and highly politicised science matter and the fines rain down.

Kamala Harris Is The Real Threat To Our Constitutional Republic.  Freedom of speech is so fundamental to our constitutional republic that the founding generation prohibited government infringement on that right in the First Amendment.  However, since Donald Trump's surprise victory in 2016 launched the censorship-industrial complex, the government has been moving aggressively to silence speech.  And the consequences of government censorship can be devastating, as Americans learned in the context of COVID, when our government hid or minimized the dangers of vaccines, and deprived citizens of a fulsome debate over mandatory masking and school closures.  Donald Trump has promised to end the federal government's efforts to censor speech, pledging last week to "sign an executive order banning any federal department or agency from colluding with any organization, business or person to censor, limit, categorize or impede the lawful speech of American citizens."  Trump further committed to "ban[ning] federal money from being used to label domestic speech as mis- or disinformation" and to firing federal bureaucrats responsible for domestic censorship activities.

Former Clinton Apparatchik Robert Reich:  Elon Musk Should Be Threatened With Arrest for 'Disinformation'.  The more I read about or hear about Elon Musk, the more I like the guy.  Oh, I don't agree with him on every issue, but then, if two people agree on everything, one of them isn't necessary.  But I like his tenaciousness, I like his grit, and I admire his First Amendment absolutism.  So, when Clinton creature Robert Reich, the former Labor Secretary (because of course he was), opines that Musk should be threatened with arrest by regulators for "disseminating lies and hate" — meaning anything Robert Reich doesn't agree with — well, I'm inclined to tell Robert Reich precisely where he can place that idea, [...]

The Last Election Before the War.  This election, if seen for what it is, is an expression of wills.  It's a choice of regular order or communist rule.  Since the pandemic, we've seen the private armies of the globalists, our police forces and sheriff's offices, impose rules and dictates sent down from on high.  These were not laws and they were not acting lawfully.  We have suffered the surveillance, the monitoring of our actions, the visits by the secret police concerning social media posts.  We have seen censorship for our views that were ultimately proven true, not the misguided, antigovernment screeds they were proclaimed by a biased and criminally negligent press.  We now see people going to prison here and elsewhere for things they've said, especially when true.  Pavel Durov, CEO of Instagram, has been arrested in France for things other people have said.  These are the dark days of communisms showing themselves in real time, across the globe, so there can be no doubt as to the future under Harris/Obama.

CIA and FBI Spread Disinformation and Interfered In 2020 Presidential Election.  Many people saw the letter that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sent to Rep. Jim Jordan earlier this week as old news.  In 2022, Zuckerberg told Joe Rogan that Facebook had limited the spread of the New York Post story about the Hunter Biden laptop in response to information from the FBI.  "The FBI basically came to us and was like, 'Hey, you should be on high alert.  We thought that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election; we have it on notice that basically, there's about to be some kind of dump that's similar to that.'"  In fact, Zuckerberg's letter went further than what he told Rogan in 2022 because he specifically mentioned Burisma, the Ukrainian natural gas company Hunter Biden worked for.  Zuckerberg wrote, "the FBI warned us about a potential Russian disinformation operation about the Biden family and Burisma in the lead up to the 2020 election."

DNC: Disinformation, Narcissism, & Coercion.  The DNC has long been pushing plans for "counter disinformation."  This is simply more outlandish inversion and it has nothing to do with fact checking.  They seek to create a whole ecosystem of wildly reactive tripwires whose aim is to cause instant "struck beehive" response to "any facts we don't like."  [Illustration, not shown here.]  This is a 2023 presentation from Tim Durigan, the DNC's "lead disinformation analyst."  This is, indeed, threat detection but the threats are "someone is out telling the truth" not "disinformation."  This is an actual no fooling around propaganda factory.  They are spewing tactics, talking points, and content with the express goal of "helping confused people/campaigns know how to react."  None of this is grass roots.  It's all astroturf.

Our rights are being wronged, starting from the First Amendment.  The government has effectively established leftism, meaning itself, as the official religion of the United States of America.  And that government [surely] prohibits the free exercise of Christianity.  As some who have prayed next to an abortion mill well know.  Government tells religious organizations what they can and can't do, tells the private owner of a small bakery that he or she must make a pro-LGBTQ (or transgender) cake or be run out of business, threatens priests and pastors who read "anti-gay" passages from the Bible, typically refuses to allow benign and nominally Christian-themed flags, such as "An Appeal To Heaven," to fly over public buildings ... but has no such compunctions regarding LGBTQ — or often even Palestinian — banners.  Freedom of speech?  Say or write something — anything — that goes against The Agenda, and prepare to be shamed, counseled, cancelled, or worse.  Increasingly, anything that doesn't completely comport with leftist dogma is simply branded "misinformation" and/or "hate speech."

Britain, Which Birthed American Ideas About Liberty, Has Embraced Despotism.  Seeking to curtail what it claims is misinformation and incitement, the government warned the British citizenry, "You may be committing a crime if you repost, repeat or amplify a message which is false, threatening, or stirs up racial / religious hatred."  They also warned potential anti-immigration protesters, "We're watching you."  So basically, the government decides what's false, threatening, or hate speech, and if you post anything about it online, you could end up in jail.  And if threatening Brits' freedom of speech wasn't enough, the government threatened online platforms (and Musk) if they allowed prohibited speech.  Nor did the government stop there.  It promised to extradite citizens of other countries if they engage in such prohibited online speech, even if not in Britain at the time.  And because there's not enough room in British jails to hold all of these anti-immigration "racists," the government plans to release 5,000 criminals from jail to make room for those guilty of "wrongthink."  While the Tories are responsible for the unfettered immigration over the last three decades, July's election, which put Labour in power, represented a leap in transforming Britain into a tyranny.  A free Britain, which took over 1,000 years to evolve, essentially became a Stalinist police state in less than two months.

Who's for the First Amendment — and Who Isn't.  "There's a lot of opposition to just hearing what President [Donald] Trump has to say," Elon Musk said at the beginning of his two-hour interview on X with the 45th and would-be 47th president.  Musk noted, "I got a letter from the EU Commission, like, saying to not have disinformation during this discussion we're having.  And there's a lot of attempts to do censorship and to force censorship even on Americans from other countries."  That's not quite right, but it's close.  The letter was not from the European Commission, but from EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, a French citizen and former CEO of France Telecom.  The letter purports to remind Musk of the European Union's Digital Services Act's requirements of "all proportionate and effective mitigation measures" regarding "detrimental effects on civic discourse and public security."  In other words, X must censor questions to and answers from an American presidential candidate and keep the EU informed of its censorship procedures.

The great disinformation panic.  The transatlantic campaign to stanch 'misinformation' burgeoned with the elites' revulsion at the outcome of the 2016 Brexit referendum in Britain and the election of Donald Trump, also in that year.  That campaign has intensified with the prospect of Trump's re-election in the US and in the wake of the recent riots in the UK, which were sparked by erroneous online reports that the person who fatally stabbed three children in Southport on 29 July was an asylum seeker.  In both countries, the right-on, smart take is to embrace, in the name of democracy and social justice, such doublethink as the Labour government's new enthusiasm for the policing of and crackdown on 'legal but harmful' online content.  The muddled nature and pernicious implications of this crusade are laid bare by dissecting what remains among the most widely praised of the establishment's examinations of the problem of disinformation — a three-day conference in 2022 titled titled 'Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy', co-hosted by the Atlantic and the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics.

Our Future.  Today it is not only the CIA, FBI, the State Department, and AIPAC who sponsor "fact-checkers" to protect their narratives from the truth, but also corporations and left-wing organizations.  The Constitution's guarantee of free speech notwithstanding, the easiest and most certain way to get into trouble in the US, Canada, UK, and Europe is to tell the truth.  Witness the current federal police state attacks on Tulsi Gabbard, Scott Ritter and Donald Trump.  If such high profile people can be threatened, anyone can.  Today there are so many governmental agencies, so many advertisers, so many employers that can bring troubles to people and publications that step on their feet.  Remember, the editors of the two most prestigious medical journals, The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet said that they had no confidence in the articles they published because 70% of them were written with Big Pharma research grants.  Displease your sponsor, and there go your research grants and career.

US government awards billions in contracts to censorship cartel.  The federal government has awarded billions of dollars in contracts to corporations that are part of a powerful censorship cartel, a report said Thursday.  The Gold Report reported last month how the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), which includes global corporations like IBM, Mastercard, PepsiCo, AB InBev, Nestlé, and L'Oréal, forces media and other corporations to embrace woke narratives and ideologies.  The WFA buys approximately 90% of the world's advertising, which translates to nearly $1 trillion in ad spending annually.  In 2019, the WFA created the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) to address "harmful content" and "misinformation."  GARM's steering committee includes Proctor & Gamble, Mars, Unilever, Diageo, and three trade associations.  This steering committee also acts as GARM's board of directors.

Yucky UK.  [Scroll down]  Native Brits are upset that foreign nationals are committing crimes, and domestic police officers are using their resources to incarcerate citizens for voicing their concerns.  Violent crime is okay, but denouncing violent crime is not.  How surreal is that? [...] One thing is certain: we are all being watched.  Among the various secret agencies monitoring online communications in the U.K., the National Security Online Information Team (formerly the Counter Disinformation Unit used to combat dissent during the Reign of COVID Terror) is on the lookout for "problematic" speech.  Although British censors (like their American cousins) claim to be "protecting" citizens from "hateful" words and inaccurate "disinformation," their job essentially boils down to targeting independent thinkers who express opinions at odds with official government orthodoxy.

We Will Get Fooled Again.  The recent move by British police to monitor online comments and even arrest people for improper retweets or Facebook postings is no surprise.  The basic premise of any Marxist/Socialist system is that the government knows best.  Though parents have been bringing up children for ages, Michelle Obama — in justifying her foray into food served at school cafeterias across the country — said that even though she studied at Princeton and Harvard, she didn't know what proper food for children is.  So we need the experts.  And where the left sees the government as knowing best, the Founding Fathers believed that the people knew best and had their rights protected against a government like the present one in England.  But expect under Harris that comments about trans being fake, COVID vaccines having safety issues, or any other officially unapproved thoughts to lead to suspension from a platform and possibly, as in England, a visit from the police.

UK police commissioner threatens to extradite, jail US citizens over online posts: 'We'll come after you'.  Riots have broken out across the United Kingdom in recent days over false rumors spread online that an asylum seeker was responsible for a mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event that left three girls dead and others wounded.  The murders, allegedly committed by a now 18-year-old British citizen born to Rwandan parents, sparked a series of violent protests that tapped into broader concerns about the scale of immigration in the U.K.  Footage of the violent clashes involving anti-immigration protesters and the groups of counter-protesters, some of whom have been seen waving Palestinian flags, has gone viral on social media, and the government is warning that sharing such content may have serious consequences.  One key aspect that makes this apparent crackdown on social media particularly shocking to critics is that the British government is threatening to extradite American citizens from the U.S. to be jailed in the U.K. for violating their rules about political speech online.

The Editor says...
Whether the Muslim killer who started the recent chain of events is a recent arrival or the son of less-recently arrived immigrants is a distinction that's hardly worth arguing over, let alone imprisoning people for inaccurately stating.  The core of the issue is that England has admitted too many violent Muslims, the Muslims are no longer laying low, the situation will inevitably get worse, and it's not the fault of the white people who have lived there for multiple generations.

Who Gets To Decide What Is 'Misinformation'?  A chilling letter this week from Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is a reminder that Americans cannot forget about the importance of the judiciary in upholding free speech and our other constitutional freedoms.  On Tuesday — ironically, the day Michiganders went to the primary polls to participate in our constitutional right to vote — Nessel issued a "cease-and-desist letter" against a citizen whom the letter claimed was violating a state law against "misleading or false information" about "polling locations."  The recipient of the letter, Kerry Lynn Elieff, was threatened with "criminal prosecutions" if she did not follow the order.  What raises the biggest red flags is that Nessel's letter doesn't ever state what information was false or misleading.  Elieff told me after the cease-and-desist letter became public that all she was trying to do was verify that due process was followed in changing polling locations.  She actually took down her public posts out of fear of prosecution — and who can blame her?  She wasn't sure what to do after being under surprise threat by a state official.

TSA, SSSS, Tulsi Gabbard, Pre-Crime and PsyWar.  Frankly, receiving an "SSSS" designation by the TSA is one of the constant fears that have nagged at me for the last few years, as I fly almost weekly.  Given how often I fly and how outspoken I have been regarding the COVIDcrisis, synchronized corporate-government Fearporn messaging, psychological terrorism, and the methods and deployment of psychological warfare by Western governments on their own citizens, I half expect to find the dreaded "SSSS" at the bottom of my air travel ticket every time I run through the pre-board process for my next flight.  Every time I go through customs, my heart beats a little faster as I wonder if this is going to be the time that I find out that I have been flagged for spreading mis- dis- or mal-information and consequently designated as a domestic terrorist for committing this speech and thoughtcrime.  Or of the pre-crime of being at risk for committing mis- dis- or malinformation distribution at some point in the future.

UK Police Are Now Arresting Citizens For 'Inaccurate Information'.  UK authorities are now arresting citizens for social media posts that contain "inaccurate information."  [Video clip]

Brits Are Being Arrested for Social Media Posts Now.  Britain is no longer falling.  It has fallen, and it may never get back up.  Hate speech laws have been plaguing Britain for years, and people have sporadically gotten arrested for offending the wrong person — usually somebody in the alphabet community, who are the most "protected" people in the Western world right now.  Close behind are Muslims, who can rampage across Great Britain shouting about killing all Jews, replacing English law with Sharia, and run a parallel police system to enforce Sharia among Muslims.  But now that violence has broken out in retaliation for the murder of English children, the State has decided to crack down on... social media posts.

The Government's sinister disinformation unit is threatening free speech again.  Isn't it curious how almost every problem this country faces seems to have a ready-made solution rooted in digital authoritarianism?  Less than one month into his premiership, Sir Keir Starmer was faced with an unthinkably monstrous fatal stabbing of three little girls, followed by some of the most shameful scenes of street violence in our country's living memory.  His government's response has notably included online censorship powers and AI facial recognition surveillance. [...] and now Technology Secretary Peter Kyle is reviving Whitehall's disgraced Counter Disinformation Unit (now deceptively rebranded as the National Security Online Information Team) which was responsible for the secretive, politicised and sometimes unlawful speech-policing against Brits during the pandemic.

They Create Anarchy To Impose Tyranny.  For hundreds of years, liberals have been fierce opponents of authoritarianism. [...] But increasingly, it's been liberal politicians who have demanded authoritarian restrictions on free speech and personal freedom.  In December 2022, Democratic Vice Presidential candidate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz claimed, "There's no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech and especially around our democracy."  In fact, the First Amendment protects both.  And in 2020, Walz also implemented a Covid snitch line and encouraged residents to report violations of pandemic restrictions.  It turns out he wasn't alone.  The Civil Rights Department of California Governor Gavin Newsom introduced last year a snitch line and urged citizens to report their fellow citizens for alleged hate speech.  British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has called for greater censorship of social media platforms, and British police have over the last few days arrested three people for what they posted online.  And Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has demanded greater online censorship, froze bank accounts of protesting truckers, and is pushing legislation that could send a person to prison for life for speech.

This is how we fall to tyranny.  [Scroll down]  If the government has the authority to restrict "intimidating," or "threatening" speech, how long before they decided criticism of the government or certain approved parties counts regardless of what that speech actually is?  We've seen plenty of people refer to being bullied, threatened, attacked, and a host of other things because they spoke publicly and were criticized for it.  Giving the government power over who can say what to any degree is a recipe for disaster.  But these people actually want this.  Granted, it's a third as opposed to two-thirds or anything like that, but anything more than three people is alarming.  And the idea that more than half think the First Amendment goes too far in any manner is even more disturbing.

The Stranglehold of Censorship.  Much of what you see and hear through electronic devices can be and is carefully crafted to a predetermined end.  AI machine learning can control narratives online in real time by dialing viral messages up or down.  AI algorithms can scan and ban tens of millions of keywords in posts, shutting down or boosting narratives.  AI tools can shape thought and action.  Mike Benz so aptly calls them weapons of mass deletion.  Not some happenstance of tech evolution, these tools were developed by DARPA to take on ISIS and are utilized by the CIA, DHS, DoD, and State Department in what Benz calls the censorship industrial complex.  An entire malinformation cottage industry has grown into a sprawling beast woven throughout government agencies and third-party NGO 'researchers' like EIP, the Orwellian-named Election Integrity Partnership.  Fed by government grants and donor dollars, these weapons of censorship are now trained on us.  Google controls everything you are shown.

Secretary Of State Asks Michiganders To Report Their Neighbors For Election 'Misinformation'.  Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is encouraging residents to report so-called "misinformation" from their neighbors ahead of November's election.  "Misinformation about the election process, voter rights, or even an issue on the ballot is a serious threat to election security," reads an online document from Benson's office.  "If you see misleading or inaccurate information regarding voting or elections in Michigan, please report it."  The document requests residents email reports of election "misinformation" — with "an image if possible" — to misinformation@michigan.gov.  Benson's office solicits residents to report misinformation on its "voter education resources" page.  The Federalist asked Benson's office who this email reaches and how the state responds to alleged "misinformation," but her office did not comment in time for publication.

House demands info from dozens of major businesses over ties to shadowy ad cartel GARM in collusion probe over free speech.  The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday sent letters to more than 40 major companies in its ongoing probe of a left-leaning advertising cartel that has allegedly sought to defund news outlets and platforms, including The [New York]Post.  The panel, chaired by Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), asked the companies — which included Adidas, American Express, Bayer, BP, Carhartt, Chanel, CVS, General Motors and Goldman Sachs — to preserve documents and provide information pertaining to their activities with the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM).  "The Committee has learned that collusive activity is occurring within the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, of which your company is a member," the letter began.

Judge Dumps Suit by Former 'Disinformation Czar,' Says She Really Was a Government Censor.  Nina Jankowicz, the one-time (and short-lived) head of the Department of Homeland Security's "Disinformation Governance Board," filed suit against Fox News last year alleging that the network "built a narrative calculated to lead consumers to believe that Jankowicz intended to censor Americans' speech" among other allegations.  In a delicious and deserved irony, the judge summarily tossed the suit, writing that, in essence, Fox told the truth.  "Fox contends, and I agree, that Jankowicz has not pleaded facts from which it could plausibly be inferred that the challenged statements regarding intended censorship by Jankowicz are not substantially true," U.S. District Judge Colm F. Connolly wrote in his July 22 order to dismiss.  "On the contrary, as noted above, censorship is commonly understood to encompass efforts to scrutinize and examine speech in order to suppress certain communications.  The Disinformation Governance Board was formed precisely to examine citizens' speech and, in coordination with the private sector, identify 'misinformation,' 'disinformation," and 'malinformation.'"  Case dismissed.

Federal Judge:  Disinformation Czar's Defamation Claim Against Fox Is ...  This morning, a federal judge threw out a lawsuit by self-proclaimed disinformation expert and one-time censorship board chief Nina Jankowicz.  Jankowicz had sued Fox News for defamation involving 37 separate statements that she claimed were false and defamatory. — ie, 'disinformation.' Federal judge Colm F. Connolly dismissed the case because Jankowoicz' claims turned out to be false and, well ... disinformation-y, at least:  [Excerpt from news report]  That makes it sound as though Judge Connolly dismissed the suit on a technicality.  That technicality exists, but the larger problem is that the statements that Jankowicz claimed to be lies were in fact were "substantially true."

Obama Lied to Everyone About Biden's Senility at Infamous L.A. Fundraiser.  The push to get Joe Biden out of the 2024 presidential race continues.  The New York Times is now reporting that Obama himself saw how senile the president was at an infamous Los Angeles fundraiser back in mid-June.  At the time, essentially all mainstream press outlets rushed to dismiss the viral video showing Biden freezing for multiple seconds on stage before being led off by the former president.  [Tweet]  That incident began the now-defunct "cheap-fakes" campaign from the White House. [...] I want to point out the obvious here.  When given the chance to tell the truth, Obama and his underlings lied to everyone.  They didn't just abstain from commenting on Biden's troubles at the fundraiser.  They came out publicly and countered them.  They claimed that anyone who pointed out his senility was pushing disinformation, giving the press everything they needed to run with the "cheap-fakes" nonsense.

Censors Everywhere We Look.  [Scroll down]  I'm not on social media, so I have only been informed by others of the rampant censorship surrounding posts about January 6, election integrity, and the official Covid response, among other taboo topics.  Five years ago, if you had been told you needed to watch what you said on social media and in public in the US, no one would have believed it.  It would have seemed a tongue-in-cheek reference to Orwell's 1984, or an absurd comparison to totalitarian states where freedom of speech is not a thing.  So which group are you in?  The group that thinks freedom of speech is alive and well in the US, and that our Constitutional rights are firmly protected?  Or are you in the group that has watched the erosion of every civil liberty and human right over the past five years as an increasingly totalitarian machine censors discussions about topics deemed "unwanted" by... Someone?

Big Brother is Watching You; So Where is the outrage?  [Video clip]  [Transcript:]  The totalitarianism we warned of is happening.  The European Union is at this moment forcing big tech companies to secretly engage in mass censorship.  Google and Facebook are, apparently, going along with it.  Only Elon Musk's X, among the major platforms, is resisting. [...] Most terrifying is the apparently direct involvement of government intelligence and security agencies, and their intermediaries, in demanding censorship.  This is all happening at the very moment that the same governments, including our own, warn of Russian disinformation through spam accounts that hardly anybody ever sees.  Don't be fooled by what is happening.  Governments and former intelligence officials in Europe, Australia, Israel, Brazil, and Ukraine and other nations are not only demanding censorship but also often spreading their own disinformation.  For example, the EU claims that there is more false information on X than on other platforms, and more censorship would reduce it.  This is false.

Trove Of Biden Docs Details How DHS Planned To Crack Down On Conservative Voices, Law Group Says.  America First Legal (AFL) made public a trove of documents that reveal a coordinated effort within the Biden administration to crack down on the free speech of its political opponents, according to the conservative law group.  AFL obtained the documents through legal action taken against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over its now-defunct Homeland Intelligence Experts Group.  The group coordinated with an advisory body led by former intelligence officials John Brennan and James Clapper on ways to combat "domestic terrorism," which includes cracking down on political dissent, according to AFL.

Dems Are Consolidating Absolute Power In The Name Of 'Democracy'.  Democrats have taken a sledgehammer to the First Amendment over the past few years, limiting what information the public can read, listen to, or watch.  After taking office, the Biden administration began a widespread coordination effort with social media companies to "censor posts" that were, as my colleague Shawn Fleetwood explained it, "deemed unfavorable, even if said posts contained factually correct information."  A lower court judge issued a preliminary injunction last July after Missouri and Louisiana sued the Biden administration, citing an abridgment of the First Amendment.  The 5th Circuit later upheld the injunction in September before the Supreme Court gutted the First Amendment in a June decision, permitting the censorship activities to go forward.  CNN described the implication of the ruling as permitting the Department of Homeland Security to continue "to flag posts to social media companies such as Facebook and X that it believes may be the work of foreign agents seeking to disrupt this year's presidential race."  But unelected bureaucrats also censored the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, alleging it was the work of "foreign agents" who wanted to disrupt the election.

How Biden's Mental Decline Went From 'Misinformation' to Fact in a Week.  On CNN today, Carl Bernstein, of Watergate fame, reports that people close to Joe Biden — people "who loved him, have supported him, and among them are some people who would raise a lot of money for him" — say his disastrous debate performance wasn't a "one-off."  There have been, according to these insiders, "15, 20 occasions in the last year and a half when the president has appeared somewhat as he did in that horror show that we witnessed."  Yeah, we know.  All of us saw the horror show in a bunch of videos you hacks kept telling us was "misinformation" a week ago.  Last month, for instance, the same network's Dem apparatchik Oliver Darcy attacked the "glaring problems" of a well-sourced Wall Street Journal piece detailing a litany of Biden's slips.  Not long before the first presidential debate, CNN ran another piece headlined, "Right-wing media outlets use deceptively cropped video to misleadingly claim Biden wandered off at G7 summit."

The West's War on Critical Thinking.  [W]e are all bombarded each day with messages from people and institutions vying to shape our thoughts and control our behaviors.  Television commercials push us to buy certain products.  Politicians describe domestic and foreign threats in such ways that only they can provide necessary solutions.  Religious leaders choose which doctrines of their faiths must be diligently observed and which ones can be casually overlooked.  More open societies might be marketplaces for competing ideas, but the most effective salespeople within any society are the ones who know how to magnify their own messages while silencing others.  Given that this is the case, a society interested in protecting its people from manipulation would be highly invested in educating citizens from a young age how to use reason, rationality, and logic to filter truth from falsehood.

America is Riding on this Supreme Court Decision.  [Scroll down]  According to the Daily Signal & Media Research Center
  •   45 pro-political censorship organizations collected $80.8 million[,] all coming from liberal financier George Soros.
  •   Initiatives such as the State Department-backed Global Disinformation Index and news-rating company NewsGuard partner with Big Tech to deprive so-called "fake news sites" of ad dollars and user engagement.  Their ratings are deeply biased.
  •   Analysis from the Media Research Center found that NewsGuard rates liberal media outlets 27 points higher on average for trustworthiness than conservative outlets.
  •   The Global Disinformation Index maintains a "Dynamic Exclusion List" of websites that it subjectively determines are "high risk" purveyors of "disinformation," including at least 10 conservative-leaning media outlets.
  •   Microsoft, partnered with the Global Disinformation Index to defund so-called disinformation groups.
  •   Microsoft integrated the NewsGuard rating system into "numerous products," including the company's Edge browser, news aggregators, Bing search, and various AI-powered assistants.
The whole point is to control what the population thinks before the election.  We've seen Microsoft partner with NewsGuard and other pro-speech censorship authoritarian organizations.  We are currently watching the FBI once again engage, not surprisingly during this election year, with social media platforms to remove what they deem "misinformation," but what we know are vital stories to an informed electorate, such as the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Biden's Chief Gaslighter Says Those Videos Of Joe Freezing And Wandering Aimlessly Are Fakes.  White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says videos of Biden freezing and appearing confused are "cheap fakes video."  Don't believe your own eyes, folks.  Pierre said right-wingers who are sharing these videos have a "credibility problem."  "I think you all have called this the cheap fakes video, and that's exactly what they are.  They are cheap fakes video."  "They're done in bad faiths.  And some of your news organizations have, have been very clear, have stressed that these right wing, the right-wing critics of the president have a credibility problem because of the fact-checkers have repeatedly caught them pushing misinformation, disinformation."  [Video clip]

The Censorship-Industrial Complex and How It has the Internet in its Grip.  Mike Benz, a former State Department official who now heads the Foundation for Freedom Online and is a staunch campaigner against the CIC, reveals that the complex is controlled by the State Department, the Defense Department, the CIA, MI6, and Brussels. [...] One global nonprofit headquartered in D.C., part of the massive web of entities constituting the CIC, stands out in Benz's exposé — the Aspen Institute. [...] In 2020, the institute established the Commission on Information Disorder to, among other things — believe it or not — determine acceptable levels of diversity in viewpoint and opinion!  Once members decided something was "disinformation" or "misinformation," it was looked on as a societal problem with "life or death consequences."  Blaming such material for decreasing levels of public trust in government institutions, members worked to block access to information that was politically inconvenient.  Opposing viewpoints were deplatformed or banned, false narratives were presented, and propaganda was put out as press releases and news stories.

State Department Won't Say If It's Colluding With Big Tech To Censor Speech Ahead Of 2024 Election.  The State Department is refusing to say whether it is communicating with Big Tech platforms to censor free speech online leading up to the 2024 election.  The agency's silence on the matter came after The Federalist asked about a new working group launched by the United States and Poland on Monday that seeks to counter Russian "disinformation" about Moscow's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.  Called the "Ukraine Communications Group (UCG)," the body will involve the two aforementioned countries and representatives from NATO states, and work to "coordinate messaging, promote accurate reporting of Russia's full-scale invasion, amplify Ukrainian voices, and expose Kremlin information manipulation."  According to the Associated Press, James Rubin, the special envoy and coordinator for the State Department's Global Engagement Center (GEC), was involved with and attended the UCG's inaugural launch in Warsaw.

Leading Misinformation Expert Accused of Misinformation.  Her name is Joan Donovan and she was (maybe still is?) considered one of the country's leading experts on internet misinformation.  But in 2023 she lost her staff job at Harvard's Kennedy School and subsequently filed a whistleblower complaint that was hundreds of pages long.  [Advertisement]  The gist of her complaint is that the power and money of Facebook/Meta had pushed her out of her job after a specific confrontation that took place at a public event in October 2021.  Here's Donovan herself explaining what happened to her.  [Tweet with video clip]  Last week, the Chronicle of Higher Education published a very long and detailed story about Donovan.  It's titled "The Distortions of Joan Donovan" and as you can probably tell it casts a skeptical eye on some of the specific claims she has made.

Trudeau Pushes Online Censorship Bill To "Protect" People From "Misinformation".  Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week complained that governments have allegedly been left without the necessary tools to "protect people from misinformation."  This "dire" warning came as part of Trudeau's effort to have the Online Harms Act (Bill C-63) — one of the most controversial of its kind pieces of censorship legislation in Canada of late — pushed across the finish line in the country's parliament.  C-63 has gained notoriety among civil rights and privacy advocates because of some of its provisions around "hate speech," "hate propaganda," and "hate crime."  Under the first two, people would be punished before they commit any transgression, but also retroactively.  However, in a podcast interview for the New York Times, Trudeau defended C-63 as a solution to the "hate speech" problem, and clearly, a necessary "tool," since according to this politician, other avenues to battle real or imagined hate speech and crimes resulting from it online have been exhausted.

The Editor says...
How did Canada wind up with Castro Junior in charge, and why would anyone want his "protection" from anything?

Alternative Media Giants Sue The Censorship Industrial Complex.  In a new lawsuit, Webseed and Brighteon Media have accused multiple US government agencies and prominent tech companies of orchestrating a vast censorship operation aimed at suppressing dissenting viewpoints, particularly concerning COVID-19.  The plaintiffs, Webseed and Brighteon Media, manage websites like NaturalNews.com and Brighteon.com, which have been at the center of controversy for their alternative health information and criticism of government policies.  The defendants include the Department of State, the Global Engagement Center (GEC), the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and tech giants such as Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook), Google, and X.  Additionally, organizations like NewsGuard Technologies, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), and the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) are implicated for their roles in creating and using tools to label and suppress what they consider misinformation.

Introducing the Censorship Files.  In the last year, newspapers, magazines, and even broadcast programs like 60 Minutes have been aggressively arguing that civic-minded "anti-disinformation researchers" are suffering under assault by outside investigators, who misuse tools like congressional subpoenas and the Freedom of Information Act to slow or halt their crucial work.  The "bad actors" are almost always described as "right-wing activists," "conservatives," "Trump's allies," and so on, who attack beleaguered protectors of the informational realm out of "bias" and bad faith.  [Nonsense].  These are publicly funded researchers who've spent years developing tools for suppressing or deamplifying the speech of the very people paying their salaries.  Taxpayers shouldn't have to use FOIA to find out what these programs do or how they're funded, but a look under the hood makes clear why they want things that way: [...] These are not "anti-disinformation" programs.  They're "censorship technology" programs, and should be identified as such.

Exposing the CIA's Secret Effort to Seize Control of Social Media.  While the CIA is strictly prohibited from spying on or running clandestine operations against American citizens on US soil, a bombshell new "Twitter Files" report reveals that a member of the Board of Trustees of InQtel — the CIA's mission-driving venture capital firm, along with "former" intelligence community (IC) and CIA analysts, were involved in a massive effort in 2021-2022 to take over Twitter's content management system, as Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Alex Gutentag report over at Shellenberger's Public.  According to "thousands of pages of Twitter Files and documents," these efforts were part of a broader strategy to manage how information is disseminated and consumed on social media under the guise of combating 'misinformation' and foreign propaganda efforts — as this complex of government-linked individuals and organizations has gone to great lengths to suggest that narrative control is a national security issue.

A Global Censorship Prison Built by the Women of the CIA.  [Scroll down]  As terrifying as this all seems, and it is terrifying, it is instructive to look at the ruination of the career of America's chief censor, Renée DiResta.  DiResta, as research head of the Stanford Internet Observatory, is now being sued for abuse of power and unethical behavior that violates the constitution.  Spookily, DiResta soared from "new mom" to providing the intellectual under-pinnning for censorship, until she headed up the Stanford Internet Observatory during Covid, where she was instrumental in censoring vaccine and Covid "disinformation."  People thought her backstory contrived and in fact, Shellenberger found that she was, unmistakably another CIA trained censor of inconvenient information under the guise of "safety."  At this point, every time you hear the word 'safety", it's best to check your ammunition supply.

What Is The Most Pernicious Example Of "Misinformation" Currently Circulating?  "Misinformation" — It has been one of the most-used buzzwords of the past few years.  The "misinformation" label has been applied by advocates on both sides of the political divide in the attempt to discredit their opponents.  Numerous assertions that have dominated the news cycle for months or even years have ultimately proven to be completely false, that is, "misinformation."  Examples of such assertions that have been established as "misinformation" include the assertion that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election; the assertion that the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian plant; and the assertion that the Covid virus originated in a wet market in Wuhan.  After the thorough discrediting of so many false narratives during these years, there remain plenty of narratives still out there that richly deserve the "misinformation" label.  But of those, which is the very worst, the very most pernicious?  Here is my candidate:  the assertion that the cheapest way to generate electricity today is with wind and solar generators.

Why Is DHS Keeping 'Disinformation' Regulation Docs Secret?  Nearly two years after Nina Jankowicz briefly led the Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security, she's launched an organization demanding transparency and the public release of documents about the public debate on disinformation.  An interesting move, likely without true transparency in mind.  My organization, Americans for Prosperity Foundation, has spent the same two years fighting DHS for documents on the federal board Jankowicz managed.  We're filing a second lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act to fight continued government stonewalling of our requests.  Thus far, DHS has refused to provide unredacted versions of documents that outline its purported authorities to regulate disinformation.  Nor will the agency release more information about its work on misinformation related to "irregular migration" and "Ukraine" before the board was disbanded in August 2022.  So, taxpayers are unable to find out what legal authority DHS is exercising, and they aren't allowed to learn about the work being done with their tax dollars.

Smoke, mirrors and CO2 emissions, Part 2.  There is a move afoot in the Western world to prevent anyone from having a new idea.  Not unlike the Inquisition in its fervour, this latest version is being disguised as a caring attempt to protect citizens from the harm that comes from what is being called misinformation.  It has been tried many times before, mostly by common or garden varieties of dictators, who proudly boast that 97 percent of the population agree with their diktats, little realising that the claim itself is misinformation.

FBI Confirms It's Restarting Online Censorship Efforts Ahead Of 2024 Election.  On Monday, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters that federal agencies such as the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) restarted discussions with Big Tech platforms.  According to NextGov/FCW, this coordination will focus on "removing disinformation on their sites as the November presidential election nears."  Warner claimed these talks resumed in March, around the same time oral arguments in Murthy v. Missouri — which centers on the feds' censorship efforts — were heard before the U.S. Supreme Court.  When pressed on the validity of Warner's remarks, an FBI representative confirmed to The Federalist that the agency has resumed communications with social media companies ahead of the 2024 election.

The Proof of Censorship is... Censored.  Four years ago, many of us suspected censorship was going on, that the throttling and banning was not merely a mistake or the result of zealous employees stepping out of line.  Three years ago, the proof started to arrive.  Two years ago, it became a flood.  With the Twitter files from a year ago, we had all the proof we needed that the censorship was systematic, directed, and highly effective.  But even then, we only knew a fraction of it.  Thanks to discovery from court cases, FOIA requests, whistleblowers, Congressional inquiries thanks to the very narrow Republican control, and some industrial upheavals such as what happened at Twitter, we are overwhelmed with tens of thousands of pages all pointing to the same reality.  The censors developed a belief at the highest levels of control in government that it was their job to govern what information the American people would and would not see, regardless of the truth.  The actions became truly tribal: our side favors banning gatherings, closing schools, says the Hunter Biden laptop is a fake, favors masking, mass vaccination, and mail-in voting, and denies the import of voter fraud and vaccine injury, whereas their side takes the opposite approach.  It was a war over information, undertaken in total disregard for the First Amendment, as if it doesn't even exist.

Maricopa County and Arizona state collaborate to surveil social media and censor "misinformation".  The Arizona Secretary of State's Office and the Maricopa County Recorder's Office have been exposed as doing their best to team up with social media companies, non-profits, as well as the US government to advance online censorship.  This, yet another case of "cooperation" (aka, collusion) between government and private entities to stifle speech disapproved of by federal and some state authorities has emerged from several public records, brought to the public's attention by the Gavel Project.  The official purpose of several initiatives was to counter "misinformation" using monitoring and reporting whatever the two offices decided qualified; another was to censor content on social platforms, while plans also included restricting discourse to the point of banning users from county-run accounts.  "Online harassment" was another target, and Maricopa County took it upon itself to "identify" — and then report to law enforcement.

The Golden Age Of Disinformation Has Only Just Begun.  Disinformation is all about power, and because of the harmful and far-reaching influence that disinformation exerts, it cannot achieve much without power.  As a tool for shaping public perceptions, disinformation can be used by authoritarian regimes and democracies alike.  The dissemination of false information is not a new practice in human history.  However, over the last few decades, it has become professionalized and has taken on exorbitant proportions at both national and international levels.  Disinformation can be understood as misleading information, intentionally produced and deliberately disseminated, to mislead public opinion, harm a target group, or advance political or ideological objectives.

Biden DHS shuts down 'experts' panel featuring signatories of infamous Hunter laptop letter.  The Biden administration agreed Friday to shut down a panel of "experts" that included multiple signatories of a letter that dismissed a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden as Russian disinformation.  The Department of Homeland Security agreed to "wind down" the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group in 30 days following litigation from America First Legal, according to court documents.  The experts in the group included former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who signed an October 2020 letter that claimed a bombshell New York Post report about emails from the laptop supposedly abandoned by Hunter Biden "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."

Government officials push against First Amendment, claiming disinformation is 'threat to democracy'.  Government officials and even some journalists claim that the First Amendment prevents crackdown on "disinformation," which they say is a "threat to democracy," despite the constitutional protection of free speech.  While journalists and government officials are supposed to uphold and defend the First Amendment's protection of free speech, several on the left are now claiming that because mis- and disinformation are "threats to democracy," shutting down such information is of greater importance than protecting speech.  Katherine Maher, who runs National Public Radio and has no journalistic experience, has long propounded that the same constitutional right upon which her employees rely every day should be curtailed.

OnlyFans Creator Says Biden Regime Paid Her To Spread Propaganda.  OnlyFans creator Farha Khalidi says she was paid by the Biden Administration to spread "political propaganda" & was told not to disclose her videos were ads.  Khalidi says the Biden admin reached out to her because they wanted someone with darker skin sharing propaganda for Biden.  "I was doing full on political propaganda," she said of her TT videos.

Disinformation's 'Mary Poppins' is back, and boy, does she want payback.  Always faintly ridiculous, Nina Jankowicz, the self-described "disinformation expert," TikTok enthusiast, Mary Poppins impersonator, and onetime Biden "disinformation czar" is back in action. [...] Do you notice what this little think tank is really about?  That's right, it's about her.  Her mission number one is to justify herself and her disgusting lifework of censoring others in the name of "national security," as well as take down her opponents and critics.  In this she implicitly admits that her industry has been discredited based on its own disinformation and partisan orientation, but by golly, she's going to make it, or more specifically, herself, respectable again in the eyes of mankind.

'Mary Poppins Of Disinformation' Returns With New Group To Defend Disinformation Industry.  The Biden administration's former "disinformation czar," ousted after an apparent attempt to create an Orwellian ministry of truth within the Department of Defense, has launched a new nonprofit that declares criticism of "disinformation researchers" such as herself as a chief threat to the United States of America.  "The campaign against counter-disinformation work is the greatest threat to freedom of expression and academic integrity since the McCarthy era," Nina Jankowicz said in a press release, pledging that her group would not "allow it to continue."  "Once researchers are free to conduct their essential work, the American people will gain a better understanding of the nature and severity of the disinformation threats we face," she said.  "Disinformation knows no political party.  Its ultimate victim is our democracy."  The group, the American Sunlight Project, was announced as a bipartisan advocacy organization founded by Jankowicz that was "launched to expose and oppose efforts to weaponize disinformation in the United States."

Australia Has Fallen:  Aussie Prime Minister Announcing His Government Is Cracking Down On People Making Memes Of Him.  Australian PM says he is cracking down on people making memes with his face.  [Video clip]

She says Elon Musk should be "JILED."
Australian Senator Says Elon Musk Should Be Jailed For Allowing Free Speech On X.  Australian Senator Jacqui Lambie says Elon Musk needs to be jailed because he's allowing too much free speech on X.  "Quite frankly the bloke should be jailed, and the sooner we can bring laws in and do something about this game playing with our social media the better off we're going to be," she told ABC Radio.  [Video clip]

Australia's Communications Minister Tells People To Report Social Media Posts to the Chief Censor.  Australia's Federal Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has urged citizens to report content posted on social sites to what's known as the country's "chief censor," the eSafety commissioner.  Appearing on the ABC Radio Sydney Breakfast, Rowland explained to host Craig Reucassel what the current government thinks should be done about "misinformation."  Often-repeated assertions were heard that there is dangerous misinformation on social media along with exposure to "reactions and rumors" that traumatize users — because, for example, they are able to view breaking news videos "with no censorship."  (This last bit is what rubs Reucassel the wrong way, and it has to do with the recent Sydney stabbing attacks that he would evidently like "nicely packaged" first, in that way controlling how the public learns about an event and reacts to it.)  And so, clearly, both the minister and the host agree that the government should step in (even more) and intervene, the only question is, how?

A Massive Government-Censorship Industrial Complex.  SCOTUS will rule in June 2024 on a First Amendment free speech case the federal judge called "the most massive attack against free speech in United States history" and the circuit court judge described as "fairly unsubtle strong-arming" by government officials using "mafiosi style" threats to increase regulation.  Should government officials immediately cease contacting social media companies to censor content, with exceptions for illegal speech?  The U.S. government attorney, Brian Fletcher, eloquently argues for SCOTUS to discuss the following theoretical legal issues regarding free speech censorship on social media rather than specifics of the case.  Should the government have privacy in speech moderation policies?  The lawsuit discovery process exposed government pressure applied behind closed doors, with 24/7 badgering and profanity arising from the highest W.H., FBI, CDC, and CISA officials until Big Tech capitulation.  The Twitter Files released by Elon Musk and the House Weaponization of the Federal Government subcommittee investigation uncovered a massive government-funded censorship-industrial complex that links third-party "trust and safety teams" within universities and foundations to social media platforms.

Hawaii Lawmakers Call for Set Standards for Ethical News Sources.  Lawmakers in the US state of Hawaii are trying to get a journalist association there to come up with and adhere to a new "process" that would make sure their sources are "ethical and objective."  This comes in the shape of a state Senate resolution asking the Society of Professional Journalists chapter in Hawaii to find a way to carry out such evaluation.  This week, the resolution was passed by the Judiciary Committee with no votes against or abstainees, and is now headed for adoption by the Senate.  The resolution was introduced by Senator Chris Lee, and explained as a way to "help" the public understand who might be spreading "misinformation."

Popular Nullification of the State's Propaganda.  [Scroll down]  All these years later, though, mass media's worst propagandists have begrudgingly come to accept a striking truth:  in a world where anybody can be a messenger, authenticity is king.  You might even say that in a world flooded with competing points of view, authentic truth possesses enhanced power.  The public's capacity to deconstruct lies means that propagandists must work harder to construct false realities.  Because those with political and economic power no longer maintain exclusive narrative monopolies, they are stuck playing on a more level playing field with everyone else.  No matter how much they might pay homage to the virtues of "democracy," the last thing those with power want is a world where knowledge, ideas, and viewpoints blossom democratically.  This is why the United Nations and the World Economic Forum have both declared "disinformation" and "misinformation" the planet's most dangerous threats.  It is why NATO is openly expanding operations to "counter cognitive warfare" by manipulating what the public can see and say on social media platforms.

The Coming Disinformation War.  In the Wall Street Journal, Holman Jenkins reviews the dishonorable role that the intelligence community played in the 2016 and 2020 elections, and predicts more of the same. [...] The "mainstream" press was an active and knowing collaborator in the disinformation campaigns of both 2016 and 2020. Why would they blow the whistle on themselves?  ["]The real motive for the press silence is fear and shame over acts that are close to treasonous.["]  Here, Jenkins gives the press way too much credit.  It is true that the news media's acts were close to treasonous, but they are not at all ashamed of them.  Their goal was to swing the 2016 election for Hillary Clinton, and the 2020 election for Joe Biden.  In their eyes, one out of two isn't bad.  They are proud of what they did.

The Bezmenov Plan:  Is America now in the Last Stage?  [Scroll down]  Simultaneous to the changes to election rules to facilitate stuffing the ballot boxes, a social media censorship and cancellation campaign was undertaken by the Stanford University-based NGO Election Integrity Project (EIP) in consultation with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a unit within the Department of Homeland Security.  EIP had an inordinate influence on the 2020 election by convincing major social media companies such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, You Tube, Reddit, and Pinterest to change their customer terms of service policies to incorporate language about "delegitimization."  Once that was accomplished, according to Mike Benz, a former U.S. State Department communications policymaker and an expert on propaganda, the door would be open to instantaneous algorithmic mass censorship and cancellation.  EIP then exerted pressure on all the social media companies to adhere to their customer service policies and censor, cancel, or deplatform any content that contained "delegitimized" terms such as:  'new election protocols and processes,' 'issues and outcomes,' 'mail-in ballots,' 'early voting,' 'drop boxes,' and 'Antifa.'  And when the Hunter Biden laptop story broke in mid-October 2020, it was immediately delegitimized, and taken down from every social media site.

RFK Jr.: Biden's Censorship Regime Is Arguably A 'Worse Threat To Democracy' Than Trump.  Independent presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Monday that President Joe Biden is a "worse threat to democracy" than former President Donald Trump because Biden is weaponizing federal agencies to target free speech.  CNN's Erin Burnett asked whether the "threat to democracy that Trump poses" is "equal evil to Biden."  "Listen, I can make the argument that President Biden is a much worse threat to democracy, and the reason for that is President Biden is the first candidate in history, the first president in history that has used the federal agencies to censor political speech," Kennedy said.  "I can say that because I just won a case in the Federal Court of Appeals, and now before the Supreme Court, that shows that [Biden] started censoring not just me — 37 hours after he took the oath of office, he was censoring me.  No president in the country has ever done that," the independent presidential candidate continued.

The Biden Democrats don't respect the Constitution.  Under the 14th Amendment we are entitled to equal protection of the law.  Racial preferences are prohibited.  The "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion" agenda, known as DEI, creates favored groups based on skin color and other arbitrary distinctions.  The 2nd Amendment right to "keep and bear arms" is under attack again.  Biden just announced a "federal center" to support "red flag laws."  Those laws empower bureaucrats and left-wing judges to confiscate a citizen's firearms without notice and a court hearing.  In comparison we have more legal protection against involuntary commitment for insanity.  Our 1st Amendment right of freedom of speech has been diluted by a conspiracy of the Biden Democrats and social media companies who claim that there is a "misinformation" exception from the 1st Amendment.

Biden's DHS Using Taxpayer-Funded Comic Books to Fight Perceived Election 'Disinformation'.  The Biden government is deploying taxpayer-funded comic books to combat what it considers 'disinformation' ahead of the 2024 presidential election in November.  Produced by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the comic books are intended to educate voters on how foreign governments try to influence U.S. elections.  Backed by CISA's parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the government-produced comic books also raise civil liberties concerns as they position the government agency as the final determinant of 'truth.'  Several lawmakers on Capitol Hill have criticized the DHS program.  Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) called the comic books another avenue for the government to "trample on the First Amendment" and label any dissident as 'disinformation.'

Free speech hangs in the balance in 3 Supreme Court cases.  This month, the Supreme Court reviewed a trifecta of free speech cases that has government and civil libertarians alike on edge.  While each of the cases raises an insular issue, they collectively run across the waterfront of free speech controversies facing this country.  For some of us, what was most chilling from oral arguments were the sentiments voiced by justices on the left of the court, particularly Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.  The court may now be reflecting the shift among liberal scholars and politicians away from freedom of speech and in favor of greater government speech regulation. [...] We are now living through one of the most anti-free speech periods in our history.  On our campuses, law professors are leading a movement to limit free speech under the pretext of combating hate speech or disinformation.  A dangerous triumvirate has formed as government, corporate and academic interests have aligned to push limitations of free expression.

California proposes restricting 'influential' anonymous online speech.  An influential California state legislator is proposing that social media companies restrict large-scale anonymous online free speech by requiring social media accounts with more than 25,000 followers provide personal identifying information.  Under the proposed bill, California government attorneys would be authorized to sue companies that fail to seek verification, which in the case of users with more than 100,000 followers would require government-issued identification.  Under SB 1228, authored by State Sen. Steve Padilla, D-Chula Vista, social media companies would be required to verify "influential" users with 25,000 to 100,000 followers through their names, telephone numbers, and email addresses.  Social media companies would be required to verify "Highly influential" users with more than 100,000 followers via their government-issued identification.  "Verifying the identities of accounts with large followings allows us to weed out those that seek to corrupt our information stream," said Padilla in a statement.

The Editor says...
I guess you're allowed to say whatever you want as long as you're not influential.  That's not what the First Amendment says.

10 times the censorship industry attacked the truth.  An organization founded by Mike Benz, a former State Department official who worked on U.S. foreign policy, has revealed its top 10 list of times "the censorship industry suppressed the truth."  And it includes instances of targeting "malinformation," Hunter Biden's laptop, multiple issues that developed during the COVID pandemic and more.  Its report explains it was "media-driven panics" about "fake news" that drove the censorship agenda.  And the ultimately result was the censorship of true information, the report said.

The right to shout "BS" during a pandemic.  I found the oral argument of the case now styled Murthy v. Missouri this past Monday to be utterly demoralizing.  As soon as the oral argument concluded I rashly hazarded my assessment that it portends a victory for the massive censorship-industrial complex represented by the Biden administration.  My assessment was a hot take based on the tenor of the argument.  The argument seemed to me to reflect a fantasy world.  It was unreal.  In the case argued by Biden administration, the big sticks from the feds were simply here to lend a helping hand to their friends in social media.  They all got along beautifully.  No problem!  The misinformation promoted by the government went unmentioned.  The government appeared only as our benefactor.  "My biggest concern," said Justice Jackson, "is that [plaintiffs'] view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways."  She only wants to leave government censors free to persuade their social media partners to do their bidding.  You got a problem with that?

What happened at the Supreme Court Monday, and what it means for Berenson v Biden — and free speech.  On Monday, the Supreme Court heard two cases vital to the future of the First Amendment — and Berenson v Biden, my lawsuit against the White House and Pfizer officials for their conspiracy to force Twitter to ban me in 2021. The first, Murthy v Missouri, came out of broad federal efforts to monitor and suppress "misinformation" on social media.  The second, NRA v Vullo, looks specifically at whether the state of New York overreached when it leaned on insurers to stop doing business with the National Rifle Association.  Both cases may impact my suit.  In fact, the two cases are so vital to it that on Tuesday federal Judge Jessica G.L. Clarke, who is hearing it, officially delayed it until after the Supreme Court decides them.  Based on how the justices handled oral arguments, the court seems on track to rule for the government in the Missouri case but also in favor of the NRA, overturning appellate courts in both cases.

This Country Cannot Afford A Weak Supreme Court Decision On Internet Censorship.  The Biden administration attempted to distract the Supreme Court from the voluminous evidence of federal abuse of Americans' speech rights during oral arguments in Murthy v. Missouri Monday.  It sounded like several justices followed the feds' waving red flag.  "The government may not use coercive threats to suppress speech, but it is entitled to speak for itself by informing, persuading, or criticizing private speakers," said Biden administration lawyer Brian Fletcher in his opening remarks.  He and several justices asserted government speech prerogatives that would flip the Constitution upside down.  The government doesn't have constitutional rights.  Constitutional rights belong to the people and restrain the government.  The people's right to speak may not be abridged.  Government officials' speaking, in their official capacities, may certainly be abridged.  Indeed, it often must be, precisely to restrict officials from abusing the state's monopoly on violence to bully citizens into serfdom.

American CJ Hopkins, Charged Again in Germany, Describes Global Censorship Effort.  The German people are famous for putting everything in print, even things they shouldn't, and in this instance at least, American playwright and author CJ Hopkins is glad.  "The irony," he says, laughing.  "The Germans, always documenting everything."  In a letter from the Berlin Prosecutor's file on Hopkins, the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA, analogous to our FBI) acknowledges receipt of a document from a government office describing an effort to have tweets deleted.  "The Hessen Gegen Hetze reporting office," the highlighted portion reads, "has already initiated measures to delete the relevant post on the social network":  [Illustration]  Hopkins reached out to me after listening in disgust to the Murthy v. Missouri Supreme Court hearing Monday.  Standing was a big issue:  our government said plaintiffs like Drs.  Jay Bhattacharya and Aaron Kheriaty lacked definite proof that the government was responsible for suppressing their speech.  No such issue exists in CJ's case, as you can see.

SCOTUS Set to Hear Free Speech Case on Biden Admin Colluding With Big Tech to Stifle 'Misinformation'.  As we wrote in Oct. 2023, the attorneys general of Missouri and Lousiana, along with five plaintiffs, asked the United States Supreme Court to uphold an injunction prohibiting the Biden administration from colluding with Big Tech companies to stifle free speech on social media sites by calling it "misinformation."  They also argued that the case should be heard in front of the High Court. [...] SCOTUS will hear arguments in what's now called Murthy v.  Missouri, which may become a landmark case in the fight to uphold Americans' First Amendment rights[.] Journalist Glenn Greenwald and Twitter-X owner Elon Musk were just a few of the people talking about the case in anticipation of the SCOTUS hearing the case:  [Tweet]

Consequences Minus Truth.  This Monday, the Supreme Court will entertain oral arguments on the case Missouri, et al. v. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., et al.  The integrity of the First Amendment hinges on the decision.  Do we have freedom of speech as set forth in the Constitution?  Or is it conditional on how government officials feel about some set of circumstances?  At issue specifically is the government's conduct in coercing social media companies to censor opinion in order to suppress so-called "vaccine hesitancy" and to manipulate public debate in the 2020 election.  Government lawyers have argued that they were merely "communicating" with Twitter, Facebook, Google, and others about "public health disinformation and election conspiracies."  You can reasonably suppose that this was our government's effort to disable the truth, especially as it conflicted with its own policy and activities — from supporting BLM riots to enabling election fraud to mandating dubious vaccines.  Former employees of the FBI and the CIA were directly implanted in social media companies to oversee the carrying-out of censorship orders from their old headquarters.

The disinformation playbook: how industry manipulates the science-policy process — and how to restore scientific integrity.  The scientific community faces frightening realities:  the public's ability to distinguish science from pseudoscience is declining, corporate efforts to influence evidence-based policymaking are intensifying, and foundational processes to protect science — including the integrity and independence of peer review systems and advisory committees — are under attack.  The examples covered here offer a glimpse into the problems that are ubiquitous worldwide, and the solutions presented can be adopted outside of the United States.  All stakeholders, in and outside the global scientific community, must develop and enforce policies that ensure transparency and accountability in science-based decision making.

The truth about disinformation.  What's the difference between misinformation, disinformation or any other sort of bad information?  There is none.  All are merely propagandistic ways of labeling free speech Democrats/socialists/communists (D/s/cs) don't like as somehow bad and evil.  The more convincing or effective that speech, the worse and most dangerous to "our democracy" it must be.  D/s/cs virtually never refer to America's actual form of government, which is a constitutional, representative republic, preferring instead "our democracy, which is a one party, tyranny of the majority.  One such is one Barbara McQuade:  ["]MSNBC legal analyst Barbara McQuade argued Monday [02-29-24] that the United States' "deep commitment to free speech" makes Americans uniquely susceptible to disinformation campaigns.  McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor, went on "The Rachel Maddow Show" to promote her new book, [...] ["] McQuade wants Americans to know the "truth," which can't be "disinformation," because disinformation can't be true, and she knows, because she, unlike anyone that doesn't share her political views, is uniquely capable of speaking, writing and knowing the truth.

Canada's descent into tyranny is almost complete.  Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is threatening his most tyrannical attack on freedom yet through his government's proposed Online Harms Act (currently Bill C-63).  Brought to you by the same farcically-named "Liberal" party who froze the bank accounts of the truckers who protested vaccine-mandates, the OHA is the government's overzealous attempt to promote online safety.  The proposed legislation supposedly achieves this by requiring operators of social media services to adequately mitigate the risk that their users will be exposed to harmful content through measures such as publishing standards of online conduct, providing blocking tools and ways to flag and label harmful content.  The OHA would create a Digital Safety Commission to administer and enforce its rules along with a Digital Safety Office to support social media users and advocate for online safety.  These agencies can investigate complaints, summon people to testify in hearings and to produce records.  Costs of all this will be paid by unspecified charges on social media platforms, presumably contemplating Canada's planned Digital Services Tax on big tech platforms.

The American Stasi Controls What You Hear And See To Control What You Think And Do.  It's tempting to look at Big Tech, corporate media, and federal agencies as distinct industries and entities with their own goals and organizational structures, but that's not the right way to analyze them in 2024.  In reality, they are just different systems within the same organism, similar to how eyes, ears, and legs are all part of a human body.  They have different roles and functions, but all are subordinate to the same overarching goal:  total power.  In 2024, these entities all function as part of a single system:  the American Stasi.  Recall that the Stasi was the oppressive spying and law enforcement regime deployed by the Soviet Union against the people of East Germany.  The American regime today is every bit as corrupt and deceitful as the Soviet Stasi was during the Cold War.  Big Tech and the federal surveillance system work hand in glove to manipulate what you see, hear, and think.  The surveillance state spies on you constantly if you engage in activities it detests:  going to church or speaking out at a school board meeting, for example.  It develops and deploys complex technologies used to manipulate your perception of reality.

Here's what America does not need:  another secret court:
New Data Protection Review Court gets its first panel of judges — including Eric Holder.  The Biden administration named the first panel of judges to a new data court mandated by a deal with the EU, and it includes a familiar name — Eric Holder, the attorney general under former President Barack Obama.  The Data Protection Review Court was created through an executive order President Joe Biden signed in 2022 that was designed to comply with Europe's data-privacy regulations.  It will review cases filed by EU residents alleging the US government is violating American regulations by digitally surveilling them.

The Editor says...
Whatever the ostensible purpose of this secret court is now, I predict the "mission creep" will begin shortly, and it will be used against U.S. citizens.

Free speech is under attack all over.  Democratic societies suddenly seem to have forgotten the value of speech and debate.  Elites inside and outside government lash out against "misinformation" — a word they can rarely if ever define — and demand measures against it.  Most stunningly, the media itself now regularly demands that speech be suppressed.  The reasons why are complex, but the heart of the crisis seems to be that the elite institutions have lost confidence in their ability not just to win arguments but to set the underlying rules for them.

Canada's New Democratic Party introduces bill that would prescribe jail terms for speaking well of fossil fuels.  An NDP bill is seeking to criminalize the "promotion" of fossil fuels, and prescribe jail time even for Canadians who say scientifically true things such as how burning natural gas is cleaner than burning coal.  C-372, also known as the Fossil Fuel Advertising Act, was tabled Monday as a private member's bill by Charlie Angus, the MP for Timmins-James Bay and a longtime member of the NDP caucus.  "Today, I am proud to rise and introduce a bill that would make illegal false advertising by the oil and gas industry," Angus announced in the House of Commons.

Government-Backed Censors Who Rigged The 2020 Election Are Now Stealing 2024.  If you didn't see Tucker Carlson's interview last week with Mike Benz, you need to take an hour and watch the whole thing.  In a mind-bending narrative about the emergence of what Benz calls "military rule" through an online censorship industry in the U.S., he lays out in startling detail just how corrupt and tyrannical the U.S. defense and foreign policy establishment has become.  Most importantly, Benz, the executive director of the Foundation For Freedom Online, explains how a constellation of federal agencies and publicly funded institutions, under the pretext of countering "misinformation," rigged the 2020 election and are right now smothering the First Amendment and rigging the 2024 election through massive state-sponsored censorship online.  The 2020 election and the Covid-19 pandemic, says Benz, were the "two most censored events in human history."  And 2024 is shaping up to be the same, thanks to the emergence of a federal censorship-industrial complex.

Delaying the Inevitable.  Just in case you were not yet aware, there is an effort to make fact-checking and (mis)information management into an academic discipline. [...] The experts we surveyed defined misinformation as false and misleading information.  They agreed that pseudoscience and conspiracy theories are misinformation, while satirical news is not.  Experts across disciplines and methods disagreed on the importance of intentionality and whether propaganda, clickbait headlines, and hyperpartisan news are misinformation.  The experts agreed that social media platforms worsened the misinformation problem and that people are exposed to more opposing viewpoints online than offline.  Respondents were also skeptical of the claim that misinformation determined the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, whereas psychologists were not.  The most popular explanations as to why people believe and share misinformation were partisanship, identity, confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and lack of trust in institutions.

'Trusted Messengers:' Volunteer Censors Trained to Control Your Community's Speech.  During the 2020 election and in its immediate aftermath, the growth of the censorship industry could reliably be traced back to the U.S. federal government.  The DHS-born Election Integrity Partnership infamously worked to throttle and remove speech en masse in 2020.  Starting in 2020, the government began pouring taxpayer money into tech tools, university "disinformation research" labs, and the media literacy field's leading organization, NewsGuard — all of which contributed to the rapid growth of the censorship industry's capabilities.  This is how the government and private funders capacity-built the censorship industry — by injecting the financial resources needed to develop the structure and tools to target oppositional American political speech and narratives online.  [Video clip]

State Department Threatens Congress Over Censorship Programs.  The State Department is so unhappy a newspaper published details about where it's been spending your taxes, it's threatened to only show a congressional committee its records in camera until it gets a "better understanding of how the Committee will utilize this sensitive information."  Essentially, Tony Blinken is threatening to take his transparency ball home unless details about what censorship programs he's sponsoring stop appearing in papers like the Washington Examiner: [...] A year ago the Examiner published "Disinformation, Inc.", a series by investigative reporter Gabe Kaminsky describing how the State Department was backing a UK-based agency that creates digital blacklists for disfavored media outlets.  Your taxes helped fund the Global Disinformation Index, or GDI, which proudly touts among its services an Orwellian horror called the Dynamic Exclusion List, a digital time-out corner where at least 2,000 websites were put on blast as unsuitable for advertising, "thus disrupting the ad-funded disinformation business model."

Has Our Government Erased the First Amendment?  The most important thing you will see this week is this interview of Mike Benz by Tucker Carlson:  Benz is with the Foundation for Freedom, which tracks government censorship.  In this interview he explains how our government rigged elections abroad and has now, through DHS (Department of Homeland Security) and CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency), censored online communications, noting that its most substantial censorship involved blocking and limiting any critiques online respecting the government's responses to COVID-19 and the security of the 2020 election. [...] Benz has made a persuasive historically accurate case demonstrating how techniques developed by government agencies to meddle with elections abroad have now metastasized online to interfere with domestic elections and policies.  He has also persuasively shown how these agencies fear popular control, justifying their actions by confusing the concept of "democracy" with the preservation of existing institutions like NATO and the IMF.

Biden White House Pressured Amazon to Censor Vaccine-Skeptical Books, Internal Emails Reveal.  In early 2021, the Biden White House sent a series of emails to Amazon pressuring the online retailer to suppress the distribution of books that cast vaccines in a negative light.  The administration was ultimately successful in its efforts:  Amazon began limiting the visibility of titles that cast doubt on vaccine efficacy soon after hearing from the White House.  The internal Amazon emails, provided to the House Judiciary Committee in response to a subpoena, reveal that White House senior adviser for Covid-19 response Andrew Slavitt concluded that the retail giant was trafficking in "misinformation" after conducting a cursory search on the topic of vaccines.  "Who can we talk to about the high levels of propaganda and misinformation and disinformation of [sic] Amazon?" Slavitt asked an Amazon representative in an email dated March 2, 2021.  "If you search for 'vaccines' under books, I see what comes up," Slavitt wrote in a follow-up email.  "I haven't looked beyond that but if that's what's on the surface, it's concerning."

The Curious Case of Disinformation.  Since the American Godzilla came down the escalator in 2015 our liberal friends have been obsessed with disinformation coming from the Far Right. [...] So, in the 1980s, experts agreed that disinformation was a government thing.  But now all the best people at the Atlantic are worried about Substack, which is "unwilling to remove avowed Nazis from its platform."  But are the avowed Nazis committing "misinformation" or "disinformation" or "malinformation?" How would we know?  How could we tell?  Fortunately, the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency has the whole thing covered and defined with comprehensive and mandatory definitions of "misinformation" and "disinformation" and "malinformation."  And naturally, our liberal friends and their miasma of NGOs — led by the noble ADL and the SPLC — are doing their bit to winkle out the bad guys.  The SPLC recently helped the FBI horn in on dangerous radical Catholics practicing the Tridentine Mass.

Biden's Secret Internet Surveillance Court — But Really, It Seems Like a Filtering System.  A revelatory article in Politico discusses a secret tribunal that Joe Biden has created to act as an arbiter in the space between the USA internet and the EU user privacy rules.  However, if you apply the Occam's Razor perspective, you might discover the tribunal or secret court is really just an arbiter of content, a "filtering system".  Those who do not pretend have long ago realized the systems deployed to control information and communication will always be the priority.  You cannot intentionally abuse a victim and yet allow them to have uncontrolled contact with family, the abuser needs to keep the victim isolated.  The same is true for government in their need to control information that might expose their purpose.  Recently European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said controlling information was the #1 priority of the WEF group for 2024.  That makes sense, when you consider that organized pushback would be counter to their agenda.  The western alliance of nations is collaboratively focused on definitions to help with their disinformation, misinformation and malinformation agenda.

EU President Says Number One Challenge for Global Control Systems is to Control Information and Speech.  In her keynote address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reaffirmed Europe's unwavering support for Ukraine in the face of Russia's invasion.  However, in the open admission of priority, President Von der Leyen declares the #1 priority of the corporations who run the WEF and world of politics, must be control of speech and information against their interests.  She goes on to note that political dissent, what she calls "polarization within our societies" must be controlled, as the ability of individuals and groups to assemble against the WEF plan remains a constant threat to the fulfillment of the agenda. [...] Yes, you do not need to interpret their intent, you only need to listen to their words and accept them.

Lawmakers Sue Democrat Governor, Election Officials To Halt 'Misinformation' Contracts Against Election-Related Speech.  Oregon state legislators, radio show hosts and GOP representatives are suing government officials to put an end to the state's censorship of so-called "false election information."  According to a First Amendment lawsuit against Democrat Gov. Tina Kotek, Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade and Elections Director Molly Woon, Oregon's election officials are negotiating deals with censorship vendors to silence "criticism of its election system" through a contract to "identify and mitigate" purported "MDM," purported misinformation, disinformation and malinformation.  Twelve plaintiffs, including former Oregon gubernatorial candidate Marc Thielman, state Sens. Dennis Linthicum Kim Thatcher, filed a motion for a preliminary injunction last week following an attempt to resolve the dispute with the plaintiffs in a "good faith effort through a telephone conference" to no resolve.

BBC 'Disinformation' Reporter Plans Six-Month Sabbatical to go on Climate Course Funded by Green Billionaires.  Marco Silva is taking time out from his role as a senior reporter for BBC Verify specialising in 'climate disinformation' to enrol on a six-month course at the Oxford Climate Journalism Network (OCJN), a green activist operation funded by billionaire foundations promoting the collectivist Net Zero project. [...] The OCJN runs what is described as an intensive programme for about 100 journalists/activists around the world.  Participants can expect to be immersed in the correct political narrative surrounding climate collapse, the so-called 'settled science' and the need for extreme Net Zero measures, whatever the economic and societal cost. [...] Marco Silva should enjoy his time confirming his climate science priors.  He has a keen nose for what he calls 'disinformation', basing his work on what he deems to be the authority of 99.9% of scientists who say humans are primarily responsible for the current warming of the climate.  This is provided as a reason for not hearing from the "other side".  The ongoing scientific process, alas, seems to play little part in the BBC's Net Zero agitprop.

Biden's Campaign Message 2024.  The Biden's administration's agents in social media censored his political opponents before the 2020 election, including censoring the true Hunter Biden laptop story.  The Biden administration have still been working with social media to censor Americans after the election.

Biden Admin Pays Anti-Israel Group That Spreads Lies About Gaza War To Fight 'Disinformation'.  The Biden administration, in its efforts to fight the spread of disinformation in the Middle East, awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money to an anti-Israel nonprofit that has pushed fake news about the Israel-Hamas war.  The State Department gave $573,000 on Oct. 1 to MENAACTION Inc., a Virginia-based nonprofit, to protect "media and society against disinformation" and to train Jordanian journalists how to identify "fake news," according to federal spending records.  It's a topic that MENAACTION's founders know all about.  Cofounder Chris Aboukhaled pushed Hamas's claim that Israel bombed Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza.  The rocket that struck the hospital was actually fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another terrorist group in Gaza.  MENAACTION's other cofounder, Mohammed Abu Dalhoum, who also suggested that Israel was behind the bombing, claimed Israel's military response to Hamas "isn't self-defense" and accused Israel of "genocide."  Experts agree that Israel's targeted retaliatory strikes against Hamas do not constitute genocide.

Misinformation Does Not Exist.  Misinformation does not and cannot — by definition — exist.  Correct information, incorrect information, true information, false information can all certainly exist, as can partial, missing, complete, and detailed.  Just not misinformation — same with disinformation, by the way.  So why is the term used with such vitriolic abandon?  Why not call something a lie and leave it at that?  Because misinformation is not about describing factual information but about dismissing and denigrating personal opinion and belief.  It is about changing when someone says "I think..." into "I know" and then claiming that person is spreading a factual misrepresentation.  Like the famous Jordan Peterson Channel 4 interview in which the host over and over again said "so what you're saying is..." to Peterson even though he had said no such thing (see the interview here:  [Video clip]

Biden Admin Praised YouTube's Censorship, Used It To Pressure Facebook To Intensify Suppression Of Vaccine Stories.  As the Biden administration pressured Big Tech companies to censor Americans' speech during the COVID vaccine rollout, Google's YouTube went along with the White House's requests before Facebook was pressured to follow suit, according to documents shared with House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and obtained by The Daily Wire.  In an April 18, 2021, email, Facebook President for Global Affairs Nick Clegg expressed concern after Andy Slavitt, a senior White House advisor, told him that Facebook was "lagging behind" as YouTube "made significant advances to remove content leading to vaccine hesitancy."

Politicians Urge Censorship Of The Disasters They Create.  Ireland must pass new legislation to crack down on the online hatred behind the rioting in Dublin on Thursday, said its Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, on Friday.  "It's not just the platforms that have a responsibility here, and they do," he said.  "It's also the individuals who post messages and images online that stir up hatred and violence.  We need to be able to use laws to go after them individually as well."  But what triggered the riots were accurate news media reports that the suspect in the stabbing of multiple individuals, including a five-year-old child, was an Algerian immigrant.  Either Varadkar is spreading misinformation by attributing the riots to "messages and images," or he wants to criminalize sharing accurate news stories.

Government-Funded Stanford Group Successfully Urged Censorship Of Republicans But Not Democrats For Equivalent Claims.  The US government-funded Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) claims that its 2020 Election Integrity Project (EIP) and its 2021 Virality Project (VP) were "non-partisan research coalitions."  They did not discriminate against Republicans or conservatives, SIO insists.  But a new tranche of SIO files requested by the House Homeland Security Committee Chairman, Mark Green (R-TN), and Homeland Security Subcommittee for Oversight Chairman Dan Bishop (R-SC) reveal that SIO singled out Republicans for censorship, even though Democrats engaged in similar kinds of inaccurate or misleading speech.  One member of Congress singled out for censorship was alarmed to learn of the pattern.  "In striving to silence duly elected Congressmen and prevent them from communicating with constituents," Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) told Public, "this government-funded censorship network has shown itself to be a far greater threat to our representative democracy than any foreign nation."

Censorship Industry: 'Business Booming' for Ex-Facebook 'Disinformation' Experts amid Wars.  A new report in CNBC confirms what many observers, including the House Judiciary Committee, have noticed: online censorship has become a global industry, worth billions of dollars.  And with two major wars underway, one in Ukraine and one in the Gaza Strip, that industry is reportedly set to expand.  According to one industry insider interviewed by CNBC, the worldwide market for "trust & safety" (Silicon Valley shorthand for "censorship") services now stands at $11 billion.

NY Gov Admits Out Loud to Social Media Surveillance, Government Will "Reach Out" if They Catch You Using "Hate Speech".  Big Sister is now watching.  George Orwell predicted a future of a dystopian surveillance state where words are monitored, unacceptable speech is censored, and a person's existence can be denied for ideological thought crimes.  Unfortunately, we are now in a time where acceptable speech is decided by both elected and unelected bureaucrats over what is permitted online.  New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Monday that the state is "very focused" on collecting data from social media platforms as part of an effort to counter online "negativity" and "hate speech" after a rise in antisemitic attacks.  [Tweet]

Meet NewsGuard:  The Government-Backed Censorship Tool Billed As An Arbiter Of Truth.  In May 2021, L. Gordon Crovitz, a media executive turned start-up investor, pitched Twitter executives on a powerful censorship tool.  In an exchange that came to light in the "Twitter Files" revelations about media censorship, Crovitz, former publisher of the Wall Street Journal, touted his product, NewsGuard, as a "Vaccine Against Misinformation."  His written pitch highlighted a "separate product" — beyond an extension already on the Microsoft Edge browser — "for internal use by content-moderation teams."  Crovitz promised an out-of-the-box tool that would use artificial intelligence powered by NewsGuard algorithms to rapidly screen content based on hashtags and search terms the company associated with dangerous content.  How would the company determine the truth?  For issues such as Covid-19, NewsGuard would steer readers to official government sources only, like the federal Centers for Disease Control. [...] NewsGuard's ultimately unsuccessful pitch sheds light on one aspect of a growing effort by governments around the world to police speech ranging from genuine disinformation to dissent from officially sanctioned narratives.

The Tragic Victimhood of "Disinformation Experts".  I've been in media long enough not to be shocked by much, but the people picked to man "anti-disinformation" bureaucracies have an almost admirably bottomless capacity for self-pity and deception.  With teary eyes, they'll swear they're not in the censorship business, but then it will come out that they're sending notes to platforms like, "We recommend that these posts be removed immediately."  They'll describe concerns about the First Amendment as conspiracy theories, but then we learn about people like Stanford's Renée DiResta making notes about "very real 1st amendment questions" in a presentation about the EIP, or a lawyer for former CISA director Chris Krebs snapping at congressional investigators to cite a legal authority "other than the First Amendment" to justify questioning.  "Researchers" will declare unequivocally that CISA did not "found, fund, or control" their program, but then it will come out the superficially private structure of the EIP was necessary because "DHS cannot openly endorse the portal," while a "behind-the-scenes" arrangement was fine.  And so on.

How about some hearings on human disinformation and electoral interference instead of so-called AI disinformation?  The Senate is worried about disinformation and interference in the 2024 election by artificial intelligence.  It appears they think the computers have programmed themselves. [...] I'll believe that the media and other Democrats care about election interference and misinformation the day they apologize for all the intentional lies and misinformation that they have spread over the last several elections.  Trump is despised by many voters because they say he is divisive because he vociferously fought back against the lies by the media, Justice Department, other Democrats, and never-Trumpers instead of quietly taking it.  Trump's policies were successful and popular.  The cabal of attackers would have sought to destroy him even if he was a squish who never tweeted a word.

Documents Shed New Light on Feds' Collusion with Private Actors to Police Speech on Social Media.  In the runup to the 2020 election, cybersecurity experts at the Department of Homeland Security and Stanford University decided they had discovered a major problem.  The issue was not compromised voter rolls or corrupted election tallies but a "gap" in the government's authority to clamp down on what it considered misinformation and disinformation — a gap identified by DHS officials and interns on loan to the agency from the Stanford Internet Observatory.  Given what SIO research manager Renee DiResta described as the "unclear legal authorities" and "very real First Amendment questions" regarding this gap, the parties hatched a plan to form a public-private partnership that would provide DHS with an avenue to surreptitiously censor speech.  The collaboration between DHS' Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency and the Stanford outfit would quickly expand into a robust operation whose full extent is only now becoming clear.

The Weaponization of "Disinformation" Psuedo-Experts and Bureaucrats.  Following the 2016 presidential election, a sensationalized narrative emerged that foreign "disinformation" affected the integrity of the election.  These claims, fueled by left-wing election denialism about the legitimacy of President Trump's victory, sparked a new focus on the role of social media platforms in spreading such information.  "Disinformation" think tanks and "experts," government task forces, and university centers were formed, all to study and combat the alleged rise in alleged mis- and disinformation. [...] The First Amendment to the Constitution rightly limits the government's role in monitoring and censoring Americans' speech, but these disinformation researchers (often funded, at least in part, by taxpayer dollars) were not strictly bound by these constitutional guardrails.  What the federal government could not do directly, it effectively outsourced to the newly emerging censorship-industrial complex.

Jim Jordan:  Censorship Org 'Election Integrity Partnership' Was Created at DHS Agency's Request.  Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) has released further evidence of the collaboration between the federal government and private institutions to censor the First Amendment protected speech of Americans, including new files show that the infamous Election Integrity Partnership, which targeted social media posts for censorship during the 2020 election, was created "at the request" of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). [...] Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC), in a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee earlier this year, played a clip unearthed by the Foundation for Freedom Online showing the Atlantic Council , showing the Atlantic Council casually discussing the EIP's "partners in government... most particularly those in CISA/DHS."

DHS officials created a 'disinformation group' at Stanford University to help censor American's speech on social media ahead of the 2020 election.  The Department of Homeland Security partnered with Stanford University and other colleges to create a 'disinformation group' to censor speech leading up to the 2020 election, new emails reveal.  The Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) was created in July 2020, and consisted of members from the Stanford Internet Observatory, the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public, Graphika, and the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, according to a new report from the House Judiciary Committee and released Monday evening.  '[T]he federal government and universities pressured social media companies to censor true information, jokes, and political opinions,' the report said of the partnership.

SCOTUS Takes Up Free Speech Case.  Late Friday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Missouri v. Biden, a case that may end the Biden administration's circumvention of the First Amendment by outsourcing censorship to Big Tech.  The case was initially filed by the states of Missouri and Louisiana, along with various private plaintiffs who allege that social media platforms censored them at the behest of federal agencies.  U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty ruled for the plaintiffs on July 4, enjoining the agencies from communicating with platforms about "content moderation."  The Biden administration sought relief from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and lost again, making a Supreme Court clash inevitable.

Supreme Court lifts restrictions on Joe Biden's administration pushing for the removal of controversial Facebook and X posts about COVID and election security.  The Supreme Court on Friday said it would indefinitely block a lower court order curbing Biden administration efforts to combat controversial social media posts on topics including COVID-19 and election security.  The justices said they would hear arguments in a lawsuit filed by Louisiana, Missouri and other parties accusing administration officials of unconstitutionally squelching conservative points of view.  The new case adds to a term already heavy with social media issues.

Supreme Court Takes Up Landmark Government Censorship Case.  The Supreme Court on Friday took up Missouri v.  Biden, the free speech case challenging the Biden administration's efforts to censor content on social media, while issuing a pause on a preliminary injunction granted by a lower court.  Republican attorneys general from Missouri and Louisiana sued the Biden administration over its communications with social media companies related to the suppression of online speech, arguing it violated the First Amendment.  District of Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty issued an injunction in July blocking certain parts of President Joe Biden's administration from colluding with social media platforms to censor content online.  The Supreme Court paused the injunction, but agreed to take up the case, according to the court order.

The High-tech Lynching of America.  [Scroll down]  In 2020 the main issues for Deep State influence and control of the American people were the COVID-19 pandemic and the November national election.  The CIA, FBI, and DHS, which all had personnel who were hired by such social media companies as Google, Facebook, and Twitter, also had information-and-influence portals to these social media companies.  However, directly influencing the election through censorship was perceived to be constitutionally problematic.  In June of 2020, the Election Integrity Project was formed by Alex Stamos, who was then a "research professor" at Stanford University, after resigning his role at Facebook as chief security officer in 2018.  Stamos' first endeavor at EIP was to meet with the Chris Krebs, the head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) at the Department of Homeland Security to identify what EIP needed to do to influence the upcoming election, particularly regarding censorship, which CISA was reluctant to do.  Although Stamos had a staff of some 120 at EIP, keeping up with flagging and censoring the tens of millions of social media posts deemed to have "misinformation" would be impossible.

Meta [and] TikTok [have been] Given A Week By [the] EU To Detail Measures Against Disinformation.  Meta and TikTok have been given a week by the European Commission to provide details on measures taken to counter the spread of terrorist, violent content and hate speech on their platforms, a week after Elon Musk's X was told to do the same.  The European Union's executive body said on Thursday it had sent a request for the information to the two companies as researchers point to the proliferation of disinformation following Hamas' attack against Israel more than a week ago.  The Commission can open investigations into the companies if it is not satisfied with their responses.

Who Ghostwrites Reports for the Center for Countering Digital Hate?  I wrote an investigation last week for Tablet looking into Imran Ahmed, a political operative with ties to British intelligence who runs the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a dark money nonprofit that is now attacking the Biden administration's political opponents.  Through one of their board members, Simon Clark, Ahmed's group has been linked to the Center for American Progress, a think tank and lobby group for corporate Democrats.  A few days before we released this investigation, Imran Ahmed's Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) released one of their flimsy reports that took off in the media, garnering press in almost a dozen outlets.  In my investigation, I noted that Elon Musk is now suing CCDH, in part, for a report Ahmed released last July that made up allegations that hate has increased on Twitter, and I wrote that Facebook shot down a 2021 CCDH report by pointing out that CCDH was making up numbers about vaccine disinformation.  So I just took a hard look at CCDH's latest report and discovered something very odd:  CCDH never names their researchers.  I then dug through past reports and found the same:  CCDH's reports are written by ghosts, anonymous writers who the media then quote as expert "researchers" in news articles.

Google Throws Its Support Behind Australia's Online "Misinformation" Censorship.  Google's recent endorsement of the Australian government's proposal to bolster the powers of the media watchdog, aimed at countering online "misinformation," unfolds a narrative much larger than what meets the eye.  The discourse transcended beyond its original intent during a Senate inquiry on Tuesday, which saw representatives from tech behemoths delve into the implications of amplifying the regulatory might of the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).  The draft legislation in the spotlight seeks to empower ACMA with an enforceable industry code of conduct to ensure digital platforms rigorously address misinformation and disinformation.  While the legislation does not authorize the ACMA to remove content deemed inappropriate, it does allow the body to scrutinize the internal practices of platforms, paving the way for penalties should they deviate from the code.  This development signals a furthering of the usual, revealing Google's willingness to align with government interests, as shown by Lucinda Longcroft, a government relations representative for Google.

The Politics of Third-Party Validation.  [Scroll down]  The examples are too numerous to mention, though it should be noted that — unlike private "take the money and run" groups — government agencies are usually in on the game — or even started it — very early on in the process.  But one of the most devastating examples currently occurring involves the censorship industry.  Groups were created and funded — quite often by government agencies — to silence opponents while giving the government, again, some distance from the stink (although Missouri V. Biden may be cutting in that scheme.)  One of these groups is the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH,) a "non-profit" created out of whole cloth to police the internet for bad thought.  Funded by foundations, the CCDH sprung from the loins of the British Labour Party.  Like the (formerly) U.S. State Department-funded Global Disinformation Network, the foundation-funded CCDH hunts hate and misinformation (read: honest opinions and anything that challenges the elite narrative) and then writes reports about and then tells advertisers they shouldn't do business with people or companies it doesn't like or it finds threatening to its vision of a not at all free future.

The New Push for Censorship Under the Guise of Combating Hate.  In March of 2021 a nonprofit group called the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) released a report about online misinformation. [...] The report quickly reached the hands of executives at Twitter.  "COVID-19 misinfo enforcement team is planning on taking action on a handful of accounts surfaced by the CCDH report," a Twitter official wrote on March 31.  One account they eventually took action against belonged to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was then running against Joe Biden for the Democratic Party's nomination for president.  A few months later, the same report was being cited by the Biden administration.  At a press briefing in July 2021, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki quoted from the CCDH report in a briefing where she accused Facebook of undermining federal vaccine policies.  "There's about 12 people who are producing 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms," Psaki claimed, citing the CCDH's work, while warning social media companies to shut down these "misinformation" accounts.  "They're killing people," President Biden told a reporter a short time later, leveling the charge of murder against Facebook for its alleged role in providing a platform for "vaccine misinformation."

The New Rules for Radicals.  It is a reflection of these volatile times that the Supreme Court's First Amendment ruling in Brandenburg v. Ohio echoes in the back of my mind whenever I sit down to write.  In that case, the Court defended inflammatory speech from government punishment unless it is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."  How the government defines "lawless action," though, is quickly changing.  Just being a concerned parent opposed to a school board's sexualized curriculum can make an otherwise law-abiding American a potential "domestic terrorist" in the eyes of the FBI.  Today, the federal Leviathan is neck-deep in the ugly business of propaganda and censorship.  It persecutes J6 election protesters for their political beliefs.  It seeks to imprison President Trump for the "crime" of having delivered a political speech.  Congress engages in Soviet show trials devoid of due process or exculpatory defense but rife with unsupported accusation and criminal innuendo.

Canada Regime to Monitor "Meaningful Content" of Podcasters & Platforms.  The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is allegedly modernizing its framework and wants to ensure "online streaming services make meaningful contributions to Canadian and Indigenous content."  What they really want is to control speech and anyone who challenges the totalitarian rulers.  They have over 200 interventions they've opened up to public consultations on which two decisions have been made.  And they've only just begun.  First, online streaming services in Canada making over $10 million must register.  Second, they will have "to provide the CRTC with information related to their content and subscribership.  The decision also requires those services to make content available in a way not tied to a specific mobile or Internet service."

What We're Up Against.  A corps of people like Twitter's former head of Trust and Safety Ella Irwin, so certain of their tolerance and love of freedom that they are able to convince the richest man in the world who staked his wealth on your job, that they'll carry forth his vision.  Then at the first chance they get, they slap down a conservative documentary.  It's not that they're necessarily hypocrites or liars.  They genuinely believe they are champions of free speech even as they suppress differing opinions.  The warp in their character is not just a staggering lack of basic self-awareness, but they assume their opinions equal truth, and any deviation is not just falsehood, but hatefulness.  And they're permitted to condemn what (and who) they deem hateful, which means you.

These House Republicans Voted To Fund CISA's Criminal Censorship And Election Interference.  In true Orwellian fashion, CISA officials use illegal powers to suppress information that they know to be true in order to preserve official government narratives and control the minds of the American public.  In addition to addressing mis- and disinformation, CISA directs the censorship of "malinformation," defined by the agency as information "based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate."  "In other words, malinformation is factual information that is objectionable not because it is false or untruthful, but because it is provided without adequate 'context' — context as determined by the government," explained lawmakers on the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.  The agency justifies censoring truth because it claims to be "protecting" the American public's "cognitive infrastructure."  In the lead-up to the 2020 election, CISA began treating speech critical of American institutions as a threat to said institutions and the infrastructure of our country.  Former CISA Director Chris Krebs, who served during the 2020 election cycle, cracked down on speech that called into question the integrity of the election by deeming it a threat to election infrastructure.

Slouching Towards 1984.  Joe Biden tried but failed to institute a Disinformation Governance Board.  His administration also pressured social media companies to restrict access to posts it deemed untruthful or otherwise harmful.  One wonders, why after almost 250 years without such a board, this became necessary.  In the 1990s, internet-based news sources led to a vast increase in the availability of information, significantly more than had been available when partisan daily newspapers dominated the information landscape.  Philosophers and Supreme Court Justices alike agree that the solution to bad speech is more speech.  But according to the Left, now that we have more news sources than ever before, this no longer holds true.  Only their approved sources should be allowed a platform.

EU Signs Law To 'Police' The Entire Internet And Takes Down Websites With Unapproved Speech.  Unbeknownst to most people of the world, the internet has officially changed forever and what people are allowed to say and publish is in great jeopardy.  One month ago to this point the European Union's invasive law called the Digital Services Act (DSA) took effect, that essentially allows bureaucrats in the EU to become the arbiters of speech and free thought online, legally restricting what platforms can and cannot say.

California quietly passes bill repealing COVID 'medical misinformation' law.  California legislators have subtly passed a bill that would repeal a law targeting doctors who take a stand against mainstream COVID-19 narratives after previously labeling them as engaging in "medical misinformation."  Assembly Bill 2098, which Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed last year, considers medical doctors and surgeons to be guilty of "unprofessional conduct" if they "disseminate misinformation or disinformation related to COVID-19, including false or misleading information regarding the nature and risks of the virus, its prevention and treatment; and the development, safety, and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines."  The legislation also subjected physicians found to have violated the law to disciplinary action from the Medical Board of California and the Osteopathic Medical Board of California, including potential suspension of medical licenses.

Biden Administration Makes Unbelievable Move to Re-Employ James Clapper and John Brennan.  Remember James Clapper and John Brennan?  It's easy to forget given how much has transpired since both men consistently led the news throughout the Trump administration.  At one time, though, their involvement in Crossfire Hurricane, otherwise known as the Russia collusion investigation was really big news.  For those less initiated, here's a quick refresher.  Clapper was Barack Obama's DNI and has been credibly accused of lying to Congress.  Meanwhile, Brennan is Obama's former CIA Director and has been credibly accused of doing the same.  Both men lived on cable news after Trump's inauguration, making all kinds of wild, unsubstantiated claims related to nefarious Russian collusion supposedly committed by the former president.  Then, in 2020, the two men reentered the spotlight as the most notable signatories of a now infamous intel letter that claimed the Hunter Biden laptop story was "Russian disinformation."  That was a completely false contention that was used to influence the outcome that year's presidential election.  But while they've been quiet the last several years, both Clapper and Brennan are back.

Journalists Who Get Trolled Are Receiving Taxpayer-Funded Counseling to Fight 'Misinformation'.  Buried within spending provisions that passed in 2022 is a little-known program that has come to light and is raising eyebrows.  According to reports, journalists who get "harassed" online can seek taxpayer-funded counseling and other services as part of a program that seeks to fight "misinformation."  No, I'm not making that up.  Your hard-earned tax dollars are going to soothe the souls of aggrieved journalists who get trolled online so they can return to doing the regime's bidding. [...] Expert Voices Together, the program in question, has received millions of dollars in grant funding from the Biden administration.  It is completely Orwellian in nature.  The federal government has no role in "monitoring and reporting" online "harassment" of journalists, which is just another way of saying people are using their free speech rights to push back on said journalists.

DHS Secretary Appoints Primary Trump-Russia Conspiracy Agents as "Expert Group" to Identify Domestic Terrorism and Disinformation.  If you put the individual names within this group in the search bar, you will discover their connection.  Most of them were the primary background operatives who pushed the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy in '16, '17, '18 and '19.  With names like James Clapper (DNI), John Brennan (CIA), Tashina Gauhar (DOJ-NSD), David Kris (DOJ-NSD, FISA), Paul Kolbe (CIA) and Benjamin Wittes (Lawfare), what you will find is that this specific group are functionaries of the corrupt intelligence apparatus that framed the Trump-Russia collusion nonsense.  This is the team now that will define for DHS how to focus their future targeting efforts.

Meta's Threads blocks COVID-related searches to combat so-called disinformation — health officials slam decision.  Meta's new social media platform, Threads, recently confirmed that it is blocking COVID-related search terms in order to combat disinformation, according to the Washington Post.  Threads, a social media site launched by Mark Zuckerberg's company in July to compete with X, formerly known as Twitter, has already landed in hot water for censoring search terms that could populate sensitive results.

BBC's Millennial Misinformation Czar Under Fire for Reportedly Lying on Her Resumé.  The face of the BBC's disinformation fact-checking unit allegedly fabricated details on her resumé when she applied for a different media role in 2018, sparking another round of criticism for the millennial presenter.  In what has been described as an "unsurprising" turn of events, legacy media darling and the lead figure for the UK publicly-funded broadcaster's 'Verify' disinformation division, Marianna Spring is once again facing allegations of lying.  According to a report last week from The New European, Spring allegedly made up details on her CV when she applied for the position of Russian correspondent for the American news site Coda Story.

You Should Be Very Worried About the Digital Services Act.  Article 11 of The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which replicates a part of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, protects the right of European citizens to "hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers," and affirms that "the freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected."  Sadly, the fate of freedom of expression in Europe now very much hangs in the balance, as the European Union has just enacted a law that empowers the Commission to significantly restrict the ability of citizens to use digital platforms to engage in robust and sincere democratic discourse.  Under the recently enacted Digital Services Act, the European Commission may apply significant pressures upon digital platforms to curb "hate speech," "disinformation," and threats to "civic discourse," all of which constitute notoriously vague and slippery categories, categories that have historically been co-opted to reinforce the narrative of the ruling class.

BBC 'Disinformation' Reporter Caught Lying on Her Resume.  The BBC's so-called "Disinformation Correspondent" Marianna Spring has added yet more controversy to the corrupt "fact-checking" industry as she was caught lying on her resume.  Spring is facing claims that she filled her resume with "disinformation" about her experience in order to advance her career.  According to a report from the Daily Mail, about five years ago Spring was trying to get work as a freelancer in Moscow for U.S.-based news site Coda Story.  When Spring applied to the website's Editor-in-Chief Natalia Antelava in 2018, she said she had worked alongside BBC correspondent Sarah Rainsford.

Facebook Files V: How Facebook Bent the Knee to White House Demands.  On the latest episode of uncovering the Censorship Industrial Complex, Rep. Jim Jordan exposed how the White House used foreign misinformation to get Facebook to do its political bidding.  Jordan released part five of the Facebook Files on X (formerly Twitter) Tuesday which brought to light an alliance between the formerly U.K. based censorship activist organization Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), the Biden White House and Facebook. "Foreign activists at the CCDH feed false info to the Biden White House," Jordan wrote.  "The Biden Admin then uses the full weight of the federal govt to coerce Facebook to censor Americans, Biden's critics and political opponents, and the truth."  In March 2021, the CCDH claimed that 12 accounts, dubbed the "disinformation dozen," accounted for 65% of "of anti-vaccine content circulating on social media."  But it seems the disinformation complainers became the disinformation spreaders.  Jordan said that even Facebook was aware that the claim was false.  "First, that 65% stat?  CCDH was off by quite a bit.  Facebook knew the actual number was closer to 0.05%," he added[.]

'The green movement is a disinformation campaign'.  This summer, wildfires from Greece to Hawaii have been portrayed as nature's punishment for mankind's polluting activities.  Each disaster has been treated as a portent of the End Times.  Reining in human development, we're told, is the only way to avert an even more serious catastrophe.  But is there any truth to these apocalyptic claims? [...] There has been a concerted effort since the 1990s to convince people that climate change is making natural disasters worse.  Yes, there is some evidence that climate change is causing more heatwaves and changes to precipitation.  But a disaster is defined by two things:  deaths and costs.  And we're not seeing an increase in either.  In fact, deaths from extreme weather events have actually drastically declined over the past century.  Only a few hundred people now die each year from natural disasters in the US, for example.  So the climate movement is undeniably a disinformation campaign.

Direct Government Censorship Of The Internet Is Here.  Censorship of the Internet has been getting worse for years, but we just crossed a threshold which is going to take things to a whole new level.  On August 25th, a new law known as the "Digital Services Act" went into effect in the European Union.  Under this new law, European bureaucrats will be able to order big tech companies to censor any content that is considered to be "illegal", "disinformation" or "hate speech".  That includes content that is posted by users outside of the European Union, because someone that lives in the European Union might see it.  I wrote about this a few days ago, but I don't think that people are really understanding the implications of this new law.  In the past, there have been times when governments have requested that big tech companies take down certain material, but now this new law will give government officials the power to force big tech companies to take down any content that they do not like.  Any big tech companies that choose not to comply will be hit with extremely harsh penalties.

Globalists Resurrect Roman Censor to Police Public Morals.  Western governments embrace widespread censorship today because they have gained tremendous leverage over our property.  They do not need to conduct a census or inspect our farms to determine the size of our homes or the numbers of our various livestock.  They simply conduct warrantless searches of our financial transactions, recorded debts, and digitized savings — while monitoring our movements and business activities.  They do not need to formally assess our qualification for certain honors.  They simply conduct warrantless searches of our phone calls, text messages, emails, and social media histories to determine whether we are "worthy" of receiving State-bestowed group privileges or social-credit-score-enabled ranks.  They do not need to chastise us for breaching "woke" public morals.  They simply "cancel" us from the online public square and deny us access to the digital infrastructure connecting the modern world.

U.S. government to deploy surveillance software to detect 'problematic sentiment and emotion'.  The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has purportedly partnered with AI tech firm Fivecast to deploy social media surveillance software that, according to its proprietor, can detect "problematic" emotions of social media users and subsequently report them to law enforcement for further action. [...] What could go wrong?  If the government is going to utilize surveillance software to more precisely ascertain our sentiments and emotions on social media, and then determine if they are "problematic," how else will it use it?  What other methods will it deploy to keep us from stepping out of line?  And who determines what is "problematic," anyway?

Secretive Covid disinformation unit worked with security services.  A government unit accused of seeking to suppress free speech during the pandemic worked with Britain's intelligence agencies, senior civil servants have confirmed.  Documents submitted to the Covid inquiry and marked "official sensitive" reveal that the "UK intelligence community" has been involved in the Counter-Disinformation Unit (CDU) since it was founded in 2019.  The unit was set up by ministers to tackle disinformation — false information that is deliberately spread — and initially focused on foreign interference in the European elections.  However, in 2020 it turned its attention to the pandemic and collected social media posts by members of the British public.  The intelligence community — which includes MI6, MI5 and GCHQ — continued "working closely" with the CDU "where appropriate" during this time, documents show.  The disclosures were made in witness statements by two senior civil servants, and come amid growing concerns that the CDU was monitoring the activities of British citizens during the pandemic.  Earlier this year, The Telegraph revealed that the secretive unit had paid an external AI firm to trawl the web for so-called disinformation — but that the firm's reports had also included legitimate posts criticising lockdown policies.

'Legal' concerns halt NIH $154 million 'false information' program.  The National Institutes of Health halted a $154 million research program intended to study "equitable health communication" and combat alleged medical misinformation.  The "pause" came "in the context of the current regulatory and legal landscape around communication platforms," according to a website for the initiative.  A spokeswoman for the NIH did not answer direct questions about the reason for the pause.  A federal court is considering a lawsuit brought by plaintiffs who allege the federal government colluded with Big Tech companies to silence their speech, often critical of COVID policies or the integrity of the 2020 presidential election.

Government minister says who should get to decide what speech is 'permitted'.  Totalitarian governments such as China's, North Korea's, and Iran's — among many others — have long been the arbiters of truth and have gone to great lengths to control what can be said and where.  Tragically and despicably, many formerly open and liberal governments of Western nations have begun doing much the same thing... with a twist.  Each in turn claims that it must take these autocratic, tyrannical, and anti-democratic measures... "to save our democracy."  This should immediately engender a response [...] from every sane person.  Unfortunately, due to the modern media's fanatical unwillingness to speak truth to power when that power is left-leaning, combined with the apparently rapidly dwindling numbers of sane persons, those in these governments are getting away with this ridiculous and reprehensible ruse.

Irish Media Minister Supports Government Defining What Is True and What Speech Can Be Permitted Online.  Discussing the implementation of the Digital Services Act (DSA), Ireland's Media Minister defends the decision that a government appointed entity will ultimately decide what speech is permitted by citizens.  This is the next phase in the control of opposition to the expansion of government controls.  We are all traveling at the front of one long continuum toward tyranny.  Are the people of Ireland so weak and pathetic they cannot make decisions or formulate opinions for themselves?  Of course not.  This is not what government control of information is about.  Government control of information is about CONTROL of the people.  [Video clip]

UN Builds 'Digital Army' to Punish Dissent, Censor Critics.  The globalist United Nations revealed that it is "building a digital army" that would police and censor the speech of the taxpayers online.  The organization doubled down on the narrative about the supposedly serious threat that this new "fight against online misinformation" phenomenon brings to humanity, Slay News reported.  In addition to that, the UN added that it is not satisfied with just censoring "misinformation." The globalist agency upped the ante by starting a war against "deadly disinformation," as the globalists themselves described it.  The international organization warned that "disinformation" is "deadly" and poses an "existential" risk to the core building blocks of modern societies such as "democratic institutions" and "fundamental human rights," the UN wrote in an announcement that was published on their website.

YouTube amps up "medical misinformation" policy:  Now you can't talk about alternative cancer treatments or prevention of any disease.  The Google-owned YouTube video platform is changing the rules again to now prohibit the sharing of information about alternative cancer remedies, which the tech giant says constitute "medical misinformation."  In a "long term vision" notice on its official blog, YouTube's Dr. Garth Graham, the Director and Global Head of Healthcare and Public Health Partnership, along with Matt Halprin, the Vice President and Global Head of Trust and Safety, explain how "removing cancer misinformation" is now a top priority alongside removing all contrary information about the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19).

Thought Police:  The Center For Countering Digital Hate.  During the recent pandemic, all of those who considered or attempted to approach the crisis without the blessings of authorities were summarily belittled, repressed, and disgraced.  Many voices of reason were confounded by the enigmatic organization, the Center For Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).  Their duplicitous activities were neither creative nor supportive, and simply aimed at destroying those who refused to agree with dogmatic mandates and protocols generated by the pharmaceutical industry.  At the peak of CCDH's influence, they released a malicious piece of propaganda, called The Disinformation Dozen.  The document was a frontal, full-scale attack on those who questioned the viability and motives of the mainstream response to the pandemic.  This manifesto was conceived as a distractive and deceptive instrument — disseminated among the willing world press corps.  Not only was the news media compromised by their funders, but they were also hungry for a scapegoat and eager to enthusiastically repeat easily drawn, though suspect conclusions.

The FDA can't be sued for providing false or dishonest information.  The gist of a current court case that you've likely never heard of, is that three heroic doctors are suing the FDA about the loss of their jobs, about their careers being derailed, about the loss of their reputation — all because their professional, scientific opinion as to what was in the best interest of their patients, was different than the political agenda of the FDA.  What is at stake here could not be more significant, and it applies across the board to EVERY federal agency.  The question is:  do federal agencies have the unsupervised right to replace Science with political science?  Put another way:  can they act dishonestly, incompetently, etc. with essentially no meaningful consequences?

FDA Admits Guidance on Ivermectin was Illegal, Invokes 'Sovereign Immunity' for Misleading Statements.  This Substack has chronicled the illegal war on PSYOP-19 early treatment therapies by the very perpetrators of the "pandemic," and their associated criminal mandates.  It is no surprise that the most vilified early treatment repurposed drug Ivermectin has also been by far the most effective: [...] The reason that the captured FDA along with their partners-in-crime the CDC, WHO, UN, WEF, CFR, DoD, Pentagon, CIA, the illegitimate Federal government, Rockefeller and Gates "nonprofits," et al. have targeted Ivermectin is threefold:  it is exceptionally effective as an early C-19 treatment, mass administration would have resulted in plummeting global (turbo) cancer rates, and this wonder drug attenuates and reverses the slow kill bioweapon DEATHVAX damage.  A landmark lawsuit filed against the FDA by doctors Mary Talley Bowden, Paul Marik, and Robert Apter was heard in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday [8/8/2023].  Part of this lawsuit against the FDA was specific to fraudulent and illicit claims made by the agency against Ivermectin.

Surgeon General demanded Facebook remove TRUE information.  "Misinformation" is an elastic term.  It can cover anything from intentional falsehoods to incorrect information to contested claims to unverified claims.  But it's hard to argue that it covers things known to be truthful.  Now I am, to say the least, not a fan of any efforts to suppress "misinformation" because it empowers some authority somewhere to impose a standard of what is true and what is not, and doing so is dangerous in itself.  While I would agree that in a perfect world everything we read, hear, and speak would be entirely true and completely in context, the reality is that we live in an imperfect world where nobody knows everything and everybody has some agenda or another.  Best to let the conversation flow freely.  Even "consensus" claims have turned out to be false or misleading, and often the people we recognize as geniuses are the people who were considered heretics at the time.

Biden's Inaugural Address was a big, fat lie.  President Biden pledged "Unity" in his Inaugural address, but see his call immediately following the words "uniting our people": "uniting to fight the common foes we face."  Now, two and a half years after the Biden inauguration, the Biden/Garland persecution by prosecution of former president Donald J. Trump makes it obvious that for the incumbent regime, the major "foe" is political opposition.  Further, an administration that respected diversity of political viewpoint would not pressure social media platforms to censor conservative opinion under the false label "disinformation."  For the incumbent regime, "disinformation" is the term used to silence dissent.

Judge who called out Biden's 'Ministry of Truth' consolidates free speech cases.  A federal judge who not long ago called out the Biden administration for running a "Ministry of Truth" now has consolidated two separate challenges to the president's campaign to have federal bureaucrats tell private social media companies to censor ideas that don't align with the White House.  In issuing an injunction that banned the administration from meeting with social media companies to discuss that censorship, a decision suspended by an appeals court for now, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty had said in one of the cases, the "evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario.  During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian 'Ministry of Truth.'"

Democrats Are Becoming the Censorship Party.  A Pew Research poll released July 20 found that 70% of Democrats think the government should restrict what appears on social media, a dramatic change from five years ago when a majority of Democrats supported a free marketplace of ideas.  It's no wonder, considering the drumbeat of warnings from leftist politicians and their liberal media allies about "disinformation" and "misinformation."  But be warned:  Democracy cannot survive for long if one of the nation's two major political parties wants to put blinders on the public, limiting their access to information and canceling political opponents.  That's a rigged system.  Ask the Iranians, Russians or Chinese.

The scariest poll you'll see this summer.  A majority of Americans — and an overwhelming number of Democrats — no longer support First Amendment protections for free speech.  The government should restrict "false" information online, even if doing so blocks people from "publishing or accessing information," 55 percent of Americans said in a large poll released Thursday.  Only 42 percent disagreed.  The antipathy to free speech represents a sea change in attitudes in just five years.  It is driven by a powerful new hostility to First Amendment rights on the left.

How the Democrats and Media Enablers Censor News.  [Scroll down]  The idea that you can permit the government to decide true from false statements will always be selectively enforced to protect the interests of the officeholders. [...] Censorship, whether it is direct or indirect through threats to social media (enjoined by Judge Terry A. Doughty in Missouri v. Biden a few weeks ago) is a danger to us.  We saw how the serious concerns about the COVID vaccine by reputable scientists were blocked from public view; how bad medical treatment (use of ventilators for COVID victims) and denial of alternative therapies cost lives; how exaggeration of COVID mortality locked down schools, businesses, and place of worship, magnifying terror in those who misunderstood the degree of risk.  Indeed, the overblown coverage paved the way for overriding sensible election integrity laws and surely enabled fraud.

10 Paradigm Shifts that Shatter Establishment Illusions.  [#6] Western governments are so terrified of losing control over their citizens that they attack freedom of speech as a threat to their continued monopolies over information.  Words and ideas are now labeled as "hateful" whenever they contradict official State dogma.  Debate and argument are censored as "misinformation" so as to stifle dissent.  Corporations and bureaucrats have anointed themselves as high priests for assessing "truth" or "disinformation."  Their anti-Enlightenment efforts to smother freethinking have exposed the political Establishment as mere propagandists and bullies.

Will Someone Please Wake Me From This Nightmare?  While Trump was in office you were pretty much permitted to say whatever you knew to be true and free speech was not hindered.  Now, under Biden, you can be fired for simply pointing out something destructive, but which you know to be true.  This includes issues about climate change, the value of masks and vaccinations, and other so-called health measures.

The Feds Get Their Knuckles Rapped on Censorship.  On the 247th anniversary of America's Independence Day, Judge Terry A. Doughty of the US District Court of the Western District of Louisiana (Monroe Division) issued a major preliminary injunction against the US government in the Covid censorship lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana (and others).  The government was enjoined and restrained from "meeting with social-media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms," and related actions cited in the ruling posted [elsew]here. [...] The federal agencies and individuals listed in the injunction cited an extra-constitutional power to fight misinformation and disinformation as rationale for coercing private social media companies to censure the free speech rights guaranteed under the First Amendment.

Woke Neo-Marxist Hard Left Declares the First Amendment a Psychological Disorder.  A 2020 article published by a World Health Organization-affiliated medical doctor in Nepal gains new relevance in light of the recent disclosure that the Biden administration's FBI worked with a Ukrainian spy agency to take down social media posts that Ukraine considered "spreading Russian disinformation."  The "woke" leftists' ambition to censor as "disinformation" any communication they consider harmful to their neo-Marxist agenda may well be just the first step to designating as "mentally ill" any dissenter to their views who dares to exercise free speech rights under the First Amendment.  In a 2020 article entitled "Information Disorder Syndrome and its Management," published in the Journal of Nepal Medical Association, Nirmal Kandal, a member of the Nepal Medical Association, argued that there were three grades to the psychological disorder of sharing or developing "false information."
  •   Grade 1: in which the individual "shares false information without the intent of harming others."
  •   Grade 2: a moderate form of psychological disorder in which "the individual develops and shares false information with the intent of making money and political gain, but not with the intent of harming people."
  •   Grade 3: a severe form "in which the individual develops and shares false information with the intent of harming others."
Kandal suggested that "all sufferers from grade 2 and 3 levels need psycho-social counseling and sometimes require strong regulations and enforcement to control such information disorder."

Biden's social media manipulation is exactly what the Framers feared.  The nation's constitutional Framers worked hard to create a government that responded to its citizens' interests rather than telling citizens what their interests should be.  The Framers, indeed, feared a government that could control the flow of information and impose its views on the governed.  The First Amendment was created to allow for citizens, not the government, to manage the marketplace of ideas.  Federal District Judge Terry Doughty clearly understands this principle, as evidenced by the preliminary injunction he handed out recently that restricts the Biden administration from manipulating and pressuring social media outlets for its own messaging purposes.  It's a safe bet that every single signer of the original Constitution would have agreed with Judge Doughty.  Such was their fear of and opposition to government control of the rhetorical sphere.

Free speech is seen as a threat:
Emergency Petition Filed in Major Biden Admin Social Media Censorship Case.  The attorneys general for Missouri and Louisiana have submitted a petition to oppose the Biden administration's motion to stay an injunction against its efforts allowing it to contact social media firms about a range of online content, including its efforts to flag so-called misinformation.  Over the weekend, the two states filed a memorandum of opposition to the administration's motion, coming days after a federal judge partially granted an injunction that blocks various Biden administration officials and government agencies such as the Justice Department and the FBI from working with big tech firms to censor posts on social media.  It came in response to a lawsuit filed by the attorneys general, who accused the White House and various federal agencies of putting pressure on social media firms to take down posts or suspend accounts.  "Evidence in this case overwhelmingly shows that the way the Government supposedly 'prevent[s] grave harm to the American people and our democratic processes' is to pressure and induce social-media platforms to censor disfavored viewpoints on COVID-19, elections, and other core political speech," they argued on Sunday [7/9/2023].

Louisiana Official Blasts Legacy Media Coverage of Biden Big Tech Case.  Last week, a federal judge ordered the Biden administration to stop strong-arming Big Tech into silencing Americans' free speech online in a first-of-its-kind temporary injunction.  Rather than celebrating this move to uphold free speech, many legacy media outlets appear to be demonizing the very idea of protecting speech from government censorship, according to one of the lead attorneys in the case.  Liz Murrill, the solicitor general of Louisiana and co-counsel in the case Missouri v. Biden, spoke with The Daily Signal about the "misinformation or disinformation censorship complex" and criticized media outlets for suggesting that this censorship apparatus is a good thing.  "As someone who was a journalist at one time before I went to law school, it still baffles me to see the mainstream press buying into this massive effort to create a 'misinformation' or 'disinformation' censorship complex," Murrill said.

Censorship Is More Dangerous Than Disinformation.  The First Amendment is under assault by the very people entrusted to protect it.  The Biden administration and the corporate media removed any doubt about this after a July 4 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty.  Evidence revealed during the discovery process in Missouri v. Biden convinced the judge that administration officials illegally pressured social media platforms to censor disfavored views.  Doughty issued a 155-page opinion and an injunction prohibiting federal officials from "pressuring or coercing social-media companies in any manner to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce posted content of postings containing protected free speech."

The appalling media campaign to bow to government censors.  The censorship efforts of the government are, unfortunately, not new.  However, what is new is the support of the media and the Democratic Party in such censorship.  That was on display on various channels after the recent opinion finding that the Biden administration had violated the First Amendment in "the most massive attack against free speech in United States history.  However, the New York Times immediately warned that the outbreak of free speech could "curtail efforts to combat disinformation."  Yet, no one expressed it more simply and chillingly than CNN Chief White House Correspondent Phil Mattingly who stated that it "makes sense" for tech companies to go along with government censorship demands.

Judge Doughty and Biden's Orwellian 'Ministry of Truth'.  It's hardly news that the government has long managed news reporting through a combination of leaks, favored treatment, and threats.  With the growth of social media and the COVID-19 "pandemic," the Biden administration blatantly used every tool in its arsenal to censor constitutionally protected free speech.  Posters on the pre-Musk Twitter and Facebook, to take the most obvious examples, were regularly shadow banned and even silenced altogether from posting alternate views to those of the government.  This past week, Judge Terry A. Doughty detailed the government's manipulation of social media in a 155-page memorandum.  Based on what was presented to the court, he enjoined agencies, officers, and employees from HHS, NAIAD, CDC, FBI, DoJ, White House, OMB, DHS, and DoS from continuing their practices.  Those practices, which the judge characterized as "almost dystopian," included flagging posts and "urging encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech."

Democrats [are] mad [that a] court won't let them censor conservative ideas.  A federal judge has enjoined the Biden administration from colluding with Big Tech to censor conservative ideas, and Democrats are mad.  According to the New York Times, "disinformation researchers" are worried that the ruling will make it harder for "civil society organizations" to police online speech.  "That's the really important distinction here," University of California at Santa Barbara communications professor Miriam Metzger told the paper.  "The government should be able to inform social media companies about things that they feel are harmful to the public."  Apparently, when left-wing organizations try to police speech on their own, Big Tech companies don't listen.

Judge Bars Biden Press Secretary From Flagging Posts For Big Tech To Censor, Two Years After Admin Bragged About It.  Afederal judge in Louisiana on Tuesday specifically barred President Joe Biden's press secretary from colluding with corporate tech giants to censor Americans' speech.  In a preliminary injunction handed down on July 4, Judge Terry Doughty, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, implemented restrictions on collusion between the Biden White House and social media companies.  White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was among the more than three dozen administration officials specifically named who are now prohibited from engaging in collaborative censorship.

Departing CDC Director Says The Agency Plans To Work With Media To "Prebunk" "Misinformation".  As the CDC's Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, concludes her controversial tenure, her revelations about the agency's decision to work hand in glove with the media to shape public opinion raise alarming questions about government overreach and the erosion of free speech.  In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Dr. Walensky did not mince words about her agency's attempts to shape the narrative concerning public health information through a process she terms "prebunking."  This involved pre-emptive communication with media outlets to nudge them in a particular direction regarding health reports, ostensibly to curb misinformation.  But herein lies the crux of the issue — who decides what constitutes misinformation?

What the Left Has Left for America.  In our Animal Farm left-wing world, free speech is "hate speech" and "individual liberty" is selfish privilege.  The ACLU transmogrified into an activist group targeting conservative expression deemed "hateful."  Universities' "hate speech" codes and "free speech" zones are Orwellian.  They are subtexts for ensuring that any prominent conservative speaker should expect to be shouted down, threatened, slandered, and run off campus — sometimes violently — for infringing on the "safety" of the marginalized and vulnerable.  Social media, Google searches, and internet access are warped by corporate efforts to alter the flow of information.  Once dangerous censorship has become a noble effort to silence "misinformation" and more dangerous "disinformation" — as adjudicated by ignorant 20-somethings at computer screens in Silicon Valley and obsequious 30-somethings in government cartels.

WHO Declares 'Infodemic,' Announces 'Misinformation' Surveillance Program.  The World Health Organization (WHO), funded primarily by the CCP and Bill Gates tag team, has been very busy getting its so-called "pandemic treaties" into place, which in effect hand over national control of a state's public health response to unaccountable multinational bureaucrats — whose interests, not unimportantly, are not shared by the populations over which they exercise authority.  Relatedly, the WHO also succeeded recently in instituting "vaccine passports" across the European Union.  Dovetailing with both of those projects of social control is the organization's declaration of war on something called an "infodemic."

Now Obama wants even more power.  The media, government bureaucrats and other Democrats have spread a massive amount of lies to the public for years through many election cycles.  All are meant to mislead the public and influence or interfere in elections but now Obama wants more government control to determine what the truth is.  This, from a former president who has a long record of lying.  ["]Obama suggests digital fingerprints to counter misinformation, so we know what is true or not true.["] [...] Who will be Obama's arbitrators?  Will they be Rachel Maddow and MSNBC, Brian Stelter, WaPo, DHS, SPLC, the Justice Department?  Obviously, Obama wants some kind of censorship power under the rubric of "stopping disinformation" because lying is so hard to conceal when the truth keeps getting out.

Australian government threatens Elon Musk with $475,000-a-day fine if he doesn't stop people's feelings from being hurt on Twitter.  Oh no, Elon!  You better watch out!  The whole nation of Australia is REALLY mad at you because now Twitter has free speech! [Tweet]  Whatever is Elon going to do now that the government of Australia is mad at him and their feelings are hurt because people say mean things online?  The threat from Australia does have some teeth, at least in the mind of the Australians:  ["]Twitter could be fined as much as $475,000 a day if it doesn't comply, under an online safety law that Australia touted as world-first when it was introduced in 2021.["]

U.S. military leaders prioritizing protecting themselves rather than the nation?  Forget defending against China, Iran, North Korea, et. al., the Obiden administration has fundamentally transformed what was previously the world's most powerful and capable fighting force.  It has emasculated it — and tasked it with defending against nationalism, climate change, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, misgendering, "disinformation," "domestic terrorists" (i.e. patriots and parents), and now posts critical of military heads themselves.

The World War On Free Speech Intensifies.  The war on free speech is hardly a novel phenomenon, instead mutating over the centuries.  What is new, however, is its global aspirations: today, the conflict takes the form of a world war.  You can see its shadow in every Western country, from the US and Canada to Ireland and Australia, as well as in every multinational organization, from the EU to the UN.  Rising levels of hate speech and misinformation, we are told, make it more urgent than ever for governments, corporations, and multilateral organizations to adopt stronger measures to protect vulnerable populations online.  It is for this reason that Biden's Department of Homeland Security recently created a "Disinformation Governance Board," the European Commission crafted a new Digital Services Act and Code of Practice on Disinformation, and the UN is proposing a "Code of Conduct for Information Integrity on Digital Platforms."  All of these initiatives are allegedly the product of good intentions; all of them, however, are rooted in the same fallacy: there is little evidence to suggest that hate speech and misinformation are on the rise.

Obama's Suggested Plans To Combat 'Misinformation' Should Scare Us All.  Former President Obama wants the government to be able to track and hunt down Americans by their fingerprints if they dare spread so-called "misinformation."  During an interview with podcast host David Axelrod, Obama called for implementing "digital fingerprints" as a mandatory online requirement to combat misinformation.  The Democrat suggested the government needs a way to track and identify people who spread so-called "misinformation" online.  The CNN podcaster claimed he has seen "misinformation, disinformation, [and] deep fakes" targeting the former president, which Obama agreed with, adding that he was the most "recorded, filmed, photographed human in history."

UN Secretary-General Proposes 'Global Digital Compact' to Push Laws Against Online 'Hate'.  United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, proposed a "Global Digital Compact," (GDC) to push sweeping international laws against "hate and lies" online.  "The proliferation of hate & lies in the digital space is causing grave global harm.  This clear & present global threat demands clear and coordinated global action.  We don't have a moment to lose," he wrote in a tweet announcing the compact.  The UN policy brief, which was released on June 12, called for handing control of the internet to international bodies, as part of the UN's 2030 Agenda.  Guterres also referred to another UN brief, "Information and Integrity on Digital Platforms" (IIDP), which he said will be used as a guide to coordinate global efforts against "hate."

FDA Sets Up a Stoolie Network.  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration launched an updated "Rumor Control" hub aimed at enlisting the public to help stop the spread of "misinformation," which the agency defined as "false, inaccurate, or misleading ... spreading intentionally and unintentionally," Children's Health Defense reports.  They say the facts are found in: medical journals, a nonprofit "fact checker" or a government website.  Medical journals?  You mean the ones that told us it's not possible for COVID to have originated in the Wuhan lab?

A Government at War with Its People.  You might have noticed that the word "propaganda" has been somewhat retired from polite conversation.  Occasionally, some State-allied news corporation will apply the term to a public statement coming from inside Russia, but otherwise, the idea that governments promote falsehoods cloaked as official truths has quietly disappeared.  Instead, ordinary information enjoyed and shared among regular people is now targeted for classification.  An alliance of national governments, international institutions, and propaganda engines disguised as disinterested nonprofits has sprung up to toss "unacceptable" thoughts into garbage piles for "mis-," "mal-," and "dis-" information trash bins.  As with everything else in modern society, the cult of expertise has even given us "disinformation experts" to decide what knowledge belongs where.  The small coterie of "disinformation experts" recognized and promoted by governments then monitor what the common people are saying among themselves, cast their nets around anything "unacceptable," and stigmatize those words and thoughts as deserving of censorship.

Let's take the whole 'misinformation' con and run with it.  "Misinformation" and "disinformation" used to have a concrete meaning.  But lately, they've been reduced only to a convenient way to call someone a liar without addressing any facts.  They have been re-created to shut people up, shut down debate, and in general make it much easier to declare oneself right and an opponent wrong and evil and stupid.  Because calling people wrong and evil and stupid for a living is apparently a rather profitable enterprise — and because suppressing opposing thoughts is a useful tool for governments and other powers that be — billions of tax dollars around the world are being funneled into the "information space" industry to forcefully remind people that if they are exposed to, let alone listen to, or heaven forbid consider such inconvenient facts, then they are even more wrong and evil and stupid and really need to knock it off before they are deemed a terrorist by the people calling them wrong and evil and stupid.  And don't forgot that if you are a "denier" of anything, you are also wrong and evil and stupid.

Five Questions for Prospective Republican Candidates.  [Question #4] Given the accumulation of evidence proving that the federal government is engaging in constitutionally impermissible censorship of Americans' free speech, why have Republican politicians remained largely silent?  From the Department of Homeland Security's "Disinformation Governance Board" to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's "Foreign Malign Influence Center," government agents have taken formal steps to monitor and manipulate the information Americans are allowed to see.  A whole new official lexicon now exists to stigmatize unsanctioned ideas as "mis-," "mal-," or "dis-" information.  Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other Big Tech platforms actively conspire with the government to undermine Americans' free speech and promote the "official truth."  When free speech dies, other freedoms soon follow.  How can Republicans remain quiet?

Elon Musk withdraws Twitter from European Union's 'voluntary Code of Practice on online disinformation'.  With no pesky First Amendment to deal with, the bureaucrats of the European Union have a relatively easy time dictating what the truth is, and what is not allowed to be part of the public conversation.  But "free speech absolutist" Elon Musk wants nothing to do with it and has withdrawn Twitter from the EU's "voluntary Code of Practice against disinformation," as if the "voluntary" part of that name is not itself disinformation.  But that may not be the case, as EU Commissioner Thierry Breton is already issuing not-so-veiled threats.

WHO to Use 'Listening Surveillance Systems' to Monitor Americans' Speech for 'Misinformation'.  Congress is launching an investigation into the World Health Organization (WHO) after details emerged of the United Nations health body's disturbing Orwellian plan to combat so-called "misinformation."  The WHO's pandemic prevention initiative, the Preparedness and Resilience for Emerging Threats (PRET), pushes plans to use "social listening surveillance systems" to monitor the public's speech for "misinformation."  However, PRET has been met with a backlash as more people start to push back against unelected bodies who are trying to suppress speech and potentially override sovereignty.  PRET aims to "guide countries in pandemic planning," according to documents from the UN agency.

Australian Authorities Made 4,000 Requests to Big Tech to Censor COVID-19 Content.  The Australian Home Affairs Department — normally responsible for dealing with terrorism and border security — made over 4,000 requests to U.S. tech giants to review COVID-19-related content during the pandemic years.  The revelations come after a Freedom of Information request from Senator Alex Antic and highlight the extent to which government authorities attempted to control public discourse around issues like vaccine efficacy, lockdowns, and mask mandates.  Between Jan. 1, 2017, [and] Dec. 15, 2022, the Home Affairs Department made 4,213 "COVID-19-related content referrals" to digital platforms like Facebook and Twitter to review content against their own terms of service — the height of the pandemic was from 2020 to 2021.

Christian Broadcasters Join Pushback Against California's "Misinformation" Censorship Law.  The National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) has announced that it has joined a lawsuit against a law in California, which its proponents say is aimed against online hate speech — but which is actually simple censorship.  The NRB, an association of Christian communicators, in this way joined other plaintiffs — The Babylon Bee, Tim Pool, and Minds, Inc. — in a bid to block the implementation of the law, AB 587.  Proposed by Democrat Jesse Gabriel and signed last September by California Governor Gavin Newsom, it mandates that companies behind social media platforms report what is deemed as hate speech, disinformation, radicalization, extremism, harassment and foreign political influence to the authorities, in this case, the California Attorney General.  The law envisages fines of up to $15,000 per day for each violation for those who fail to comply.

Biden's 'Ministry of Truth' Is Back, But With New Branding.  Every American should be alarmed by the Biden administration's pushes on multiple fronts, from the regulatory state to the surveillance regime, to expand its "oversight" of our constitutionally-protected civil liberties.  But this effort seems to be less focused on safeguarding Americans and more about exerting control over us.  Any government agency determining the merits of American speech is dangerous. [...] The most egregious examples of this administration's censorial instincts can be seen in the government's extensive effort to suppress of the Hunter Biden laptop story.  The same goes for the Covid-19 lab leak theory, which was initially dismissed as conspiracy but has since been found to have legitimate grounds for investigation.  Instead of allowing the American public to examine information and make up their own minds, the administration has stepped in to bury or shape these stories and many others.  The Biden administration's assault on our First Amendment rights is un-American.

The Union Is Not a Suicide Pact.  Anybody in any office attempting to implement some form of a "disinformation" board to monitor and modify Americans' speech should never hold office again.  That so many elected and unelected federal employees not only disregard Americans' constitutional rights, but also vocally brag about infringing them demonstrates that a malignant cancer afflicts the central government from head to toe.  So, yes, disband the FBI, but don't stop there until all the powers stolen by the federal government have been properly returned to the states and the American people.  To save the Republic, the federal government must be starved and diminished.

Now They're Trying Censor Your Text Messages.  Ever since journalist Matt Taibbi and I testified before Congress on April 10, critics of the Twitter Files have claimed that we were making a big deal about nothing.  We were being paranoid, they said, to imagine that the U.S. government was involved in spying on ordinary Americans and demanding censorship.  The various groups involved in what we called the Censorship Industrial Complex were merely "flagging" problematic posts for social media companies, said our critics.  The platforms were by no means required to act on it.  Yet act on it, they did.  As I noted in our video about CIA Fellow Renee DiResta, who oversaw the Censorship Industrial Complex's effort to censor disfavored speech and disfavored users in 2020 and 2021, the social media companies responded to 75% of flagged posts and acted on one-third of them.  And now, new information has come to light that the censorship activists are trying to spy on and censor even supposedly encrypted text messages through apps like What's App, Signal, and Telegram.

Fox News Sued for Defamation by Biden's Former Disinformation Chief.  A former Biden administration official who oversaw a federal initiative against alleged disinformation filed a civil lawsuit against Fox News on Wednesday, alleging that the news outlet defamed her and damaged her career.  Nina Jankowicz, former head of the now-disbanded Disinformation Governance Board, alleged in a complaint filed Wednesday that Fox News, via figures like host Laura Ingram and former host Tucker Carlson, waged "a malicious campaign of destruction" against her that allegedly damaged her career and well-being.  "By particular, Fox described Jankowicz as moronic, an embarrassment to her parents and employers, and a 'self-obsessed social media neophyte,'" reads the complaint, filed in the Delaware Superior Court on May 10.

Biden Admin Creates New Disinformation Office To Oversee The Rest.  With the Biden administration elevating disinformation to a national security threat, as codified in its first-of-its-kind National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism, published in June 2021, new government (and non-government) offices dedicated to fighting foreign disinformation are cropping up everywhere.  To oversee organizations like the Pentagon's new Influence and Perception Management Office and at least four organizations inside the Department of Homeland Security alone, the Director of National Intelligence has created a new office - the Foreign Malign Influence Center, The Intercept reports.

AFL Reveals a DHS Campaign to Surveil and Censor Speech.  America First Legal (AFL) has uncovered a vast, coordinated campaign to surveil and censor American speech.  They filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security cyber security division that is responsible.  In a series of tweets, AFL President Stephen Miller reveals he has documents proving the vast left-wing conspiracy, which is banned under US law.  They learned from the Missouri and Louisiana deposition, that Brian Scully was in charge of censoring election "misinformation" in CISA's Countering Foreign Interference Task Force during the 2020 election cycle.

We Already Have a Disinformation Governance Board: Media Decides What You Can and Cannot Hear From RFK Jr..  Old Joe Biden's handlers tried and failed to establish their own little Ministry of Truth, the Disinformation Governance Board, but they were likely not devastated by the ignominious failure of this initiative.  That's because they already have plenty of Disinformation Governance Boards:  they're known as "news outlets."  The mainstream media happily carries water for the establishment line, as we saw again this week with ABC's censorship of its own interview with a Democrat presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., because his views on vaccines dissent from the establishment line.

The White House Keeps Twisting the Truth About Florida.  In late April 2022, the White House named Nina Jankowicz — who believed in the Steele dossier and considered the Hunter Biden laptop story Russian disinformation — its disinformation czar.  But the Department of Homeland Security Disinformation Governance Board that Jankowicz headed lasted only four months; Jankowicz herself resigned after just three weeks.  A year later, it's hard to ignore the irony that a White House that created an office allegedly to combat disinformation keeps trafficking in it to damage its political opponents.  President Biden and his press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, are spreading disinformation about Florida schools to discredit Governor Ron DeSantis.  At a White House briefing on April 20, Jean-Pierre referred to Florida's Parental Rights in Education law as "the state's dystopian Don't Say Gay law."  There's nothing "dystopian" about the legislation, which prevents K-12 teachers in the state from engaging in "classroom instruction" on "sexual orientation or gender identity" through third grade but doesn't prevent teachers or students from saying the word "gay," having conversations about being gay, or discussing gay people.

Bringing the War on Terror Home to Target Americans for 'Disinformation'.  The U.S. government took the information techniques it learned after 9/11 and has turned them on Americans.  America may have lost the Great War on Terror, but our technocratic elites could still win their war against American liberty.  That's the argument made by Jacob Siegel in a 13,000-word Tablet magazine article titled "A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century," which seeks to explain "a high-level hoax perpetrated against the American people" by elitists "who believe themselves to be infallible."  Specifically, Siegel writes, these "infallible" elitists believe they are saving the world from "disinformation," which is whatever they view as untruths about Russia, Ukraine, Donald Trump, Covid, climate change, election fraud, Brexit, etc.  You name a flavor of disinfo, and they want to save us from it.

A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century.  In a technical or structural sense, the censorship regime's aim is not to censor or to oppress, but to rule.  That's why the authorities can never be labeled as guilty of disinformation.  Not when they lied about Hunter Biden's laptops, not when they claimed that the lab leak was a racist conspiracy, not when they said that vaccines stopped transmission of the novel coronavirus.  Disinformation, now and for all time, is whatever they say it is.  That is not a sign that the concept is being misused or corrupted; it is the precise functioning of a totalitarian system.  If the underlying philosophy of the war against disinformation can be expressed in a single claim, it is this:  You cannot be trusted with your own mind.

ABC 'News' Edits Out Robert F. Kennedy's Jr's Covid Vaccine Comments.  ABC News aired an interview with Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. this week.  The interview did not air in full.  Rather, ABC edited the conversation to exclude Kennedy's commentary on Covid-19 vaccines.  ABC News Live anchor Linsey Davis announced the edit on air.  Like the good little girl she is, she read what her bosses wrote verbatim:  "We should note that during our conversation, Kennedy made false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines.  We've used our editorial judgment in not including portions of that exchange in our interview. [...]" [...] The corporate press holds itself up as a group of experts.  But it's far from that.  Particularly when deducing what is "false."  The same network that censored RFK on the topic of the vaccine long told viewers the vaccine would stop the spread.  It did not.  ABC reported that the jab would prevent infection.  It did not do that either.  The outlet parroted the talking point that the virus originated in a wet market.  Yet, the U.S. Energy Department and the FBI say no, the virus most likely formed in a Wuhan lab.  Another conspiracy turned reality.  ABC promulgated the idea that plexiglass barriers worked.  That cloth masks were effective.  That school closures protected children And that our "experts" accurately counted the fatality rate.  Wrong.  All of it.  ABC "News" proved itself to be a beacon of Covid untruths.  Yet it has the gall to suppress an interviewee and accuse him of spreading vaccine misinformation.

FDA Commissioner is lying again.  "Misinformation" is the Left's new boogyman, up there with White Supremacists, carbon dioxide, and transphobes.  We are supposed to believe that all these things are threats to human existence itself and that all of them must be ruthlessly suppressed in order to save humanity.  Yeah, whatever.  The FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf has apparently been traveling the country making a rather amazing claim:  that misinformation is the leading cause of death in America.  If so, that's pretty shocking.  A number of studies suggest that medical errors may be the third-leading cause of death in America, resulting in 250,000 to 440,000 deaths a year, depending upon how you define medical errors.  The data is all over the map, with some estimates as low as 22,000 a year to high-end estimates that seem implausible to me.  There is even a medical term for death caused by a doctor:  iatrogenic.

Arguing COVID came from China could land you on Minnesota's government bias registry according to new bill.  Minnesota state Rep. Harry Niska, R., asked during a debate on a new bill whether praise for "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling or arguing that COVID originated in China would qualify as biased speech that would put citizens on a government database.  Minnesota lawmakers are mulling a change to state law, House File 181, that would log alleged bias incidents even when they aren't considered a crime.  The bill, introduced in January, would allow people to report perceived bias-related incidents such as alleged slurs and verbal attacks that would fall outside the hate crimes compiled annually by the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, according to the St. Cloud Times.  Republican state Rep. Walter Hudson warned House File 181 could pose a threat to religious freedom.

U.N. Is A Climate "Disinformation Threat Actor".  The United States government's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), within the Department of Homeland Security, is raising the alarm about the threat of "foreign influence" that is "leveraging misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation."  CISA defines "malinformation" as information "based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate."  In 2021, CISA, along with the White House and private sector partners, successfully persuaded Facebook and Twitter to censor accurate information about the origins of the SARS-2 coronavirus and covid vaccines.  And yet CISA is failing to do its job when censoring malinformation, misinformation, and disinformation about climate change, including by "threat actors," often funded or employed by foreign governments.

Oracle Ends Relationship With Global Disinformation Index Over Free Speech Concerns.  Finally, there is some more good news in the battle for free speech.  The Global Disinformation Index has taken yet another hit after being exposed for its campaign to limit the reach of conservative and libertarian views online.  Oracle, the multinational software company, has announced that it is ending its relationship with the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a group that has been secretly blacklisting conservative media outlets.  The decision comes after a review by Oracle, which stated that its services must be in full support of free speech.

They Fear You.  Long before the Department of Homeland Security attempted to justify the formal recognition of a "Disinformation Czar" to monitor Americans' speech or news broke that the State Department had been using a foreign organization called the Global Disinformation Index to censor conservative voices here at home, it was clear that the war for free speech had begun. [...] Now the cat is out of the bag, and neither government agencies nor their corporate co-conspirators are hiding their embrace of viewpoint discrimination.  The FBI continues to flag more language — including words as innocuous as "red pill," "based," and "Chad" — as extremist rhetoric.  Google blocked Right Side Broadcasting Network from covering President Trump's Democrat-engineered Manhattan arraignment on YouTube, claiming that the censorship was necessary to combat "elections misinformation."  A revolving door now exists to fill social media companies with employees from the ranks of the FBI, CIA, and Homeland Security.

The 'RESTRICT Act' Is About Controlling Online Information By Force.  We have spoken about online censorship, social media silencing content they do not approve of, Google demonetizing websites like ANP that doesn't follow the "authoritative, scientific consensus," but the 'RESTRICT act' takes things to a whole new level.  Stefan Stanford recently described the RESTRICT act, otherwise known as Senate Bill 686, as an attempt at "controlling Internet content," in order to ensure that the "never-ending stream of lies that we've been getting from the government and the mainstream media for the past several decades at least will be the ONLY information that we're 'allowed' to get."

Homeland Security Hired Left-Wing Consultants to Combat "Misinformation" During 2022 Election.  Homeland security officials in the Biden administration enlisted the help of progressive organizations as they sought to combat misinformation leading up to the 2022 midterm elections, according to a new report from the Daily Caller.  An advisory panel convened by the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA), a subset of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), began its work in December 2021 reaching out to individuals and groups linked to Democratic causes.  Members of the panel include former Twitter legal counsel Vijaya Gadde, University of Washington professor Kate Starbird, and Suzanne Spaulding from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.  Gadde, perhaps the most prominent member, was known publicly for supporting the decision by Twitter to ban former President Donald Trump from its platform following the 2020 elections.

Russell Brand Debriefs Matt Taibbi With Some Solid New Intel Surfacing About Larger Internet and Social Media Control Operations.  U.K. cultural and political pundit Russell Brand sits down for an interview with U.S. Twitter File journalist Matt Taibbi, to discuss Taibbi's experience with his recent congressional testimony, the advancement of the 'Restrict Act', and new revelations still coming from his exploration into the Twitter communication files.  After some general overview and sense about the issues in/around congress, at 06:45 of the interview Taibbi begins to highlight new information he is discovering about how the Aspen Institute group was organizing, discussing and planning a larger objective about controlling any/all information on the internet.  [Video clip]

Disinformation Is the Word I Use When I Want You To Shut Up.  While your back was turned, the federal government erected a convoluted apparatus of control for what you can say and see online.  They did this, we are told, to protect us.  Protect us from what, you ask?  Well, mostly from ourselves, but also from a threat that makes nuclear annihilation feel like a pinprick by comparison:  disinformation.  Also misinformation and malinformation — the latter defined as "bits of actual reality we totally object to."  But disinformation is the big dog.  And by "disinformation," they mean the web.  And by the web, they mean, of course, you — but I already said that.  I have written long, deeply researched tracts about the technical aspects of disinformation.  Why did I bother?  Nobody cares.  Disinformation is just a jargon word with a subliminal meaning, thrown out by the mighty of the earth whenever they worry that they are about to lose an argument — something that happens with painful regularity these days.  The word means, "Shut up, peasant."  It's a bullet aimed at killing the conversation.

How the Biden administration has quietly helped to 'score' conservative speech.  Last year, the Biden administration caved to public outcry and disbanded its infamous Disinformation Governance Board under its "Disinformation Nanny," Nina Jankowicz.  Yet, as explored in a recent hearing (in which I testified), the Biden administration never told the public about a far larger censorship effort involving an estimated 80 FBI agents secretly targeting citizens and groups for disinformation.  Now it appears that the administration also was partially funding an "index" to warn advertisers to avoid what the index deemed to be dangerous disinformation sites.  It turns out that all ten of the "riskiest" sites identified by the Global Disinformation Index are popular with conservatives, libertarians and independents.  The index, run by a British organization, appears to be an effort to score and sanction sites based on their "reliability" to those in the political and media establishments.  That sounds like a knockoff of China's "social credit" system which scores its citizens, based in part on social media monitoring.  Clearly, the administration never abandoned its intent to fund and field efforts to curtail speech on the internet — with the support of many in the media and academia.

People Can Win.  Earlier today Susan Schmidt and I published an article about a series of changes at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a creepy sub-division of the Department of Homleand Security.  It turns out that CISA, which just a week or so ago was busted for scrubbing embarrasing text from its website by the Foundation for Freedom Online, quietly eliminated its so-called "MDM" or "Misinformation, Disinformation, and Malinformation" subcommittee.  Just a year ago, the Department of Homeland Security was going all-in on the fight against "MDM."  The notion that America is fatally infected with "Misinformation, Disinformation, and Malinformation" was in fact the animating idea begind the asinine plan the Biden administration announced last April to institute a "Disinformation Governance Board," which was to be headed by Nina Jankowicz, a self-styled Mary Poppins of digital rectitude:  [Video clip]

The Crusade Against 'Malinformation' Explicitly Targets Inconvenient Truths.  Last month, I noted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had repeatedly exaggerated the scientific evidence supporting face mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Facebook attached a warning to that column, which it said was "missing context" and "could mislead people."  According to an alliance of social media platforms, government-funded organizations, and federal officials that journalist Michael Shellenberger calls the "censorship-industrial complex," I had committed the offense of "malinformation."  Unlike "disinformation," which is intentionally misleading, or "misinformation," which is erroneous, "malinformation" is true but inconvenient.  As illustrated by internal Twitter communications that journalist Matt Taibbi highlighted last week, malinformation can include emails from government officials that undermine their credibility and "true content which might promote vaccine hesitancy."  The latter category encompasses accurate reports of "breakthrough infections" among people vaccinated against COVID-19, accounts of "true vaccine side effects," objections to vaccine mandates, criticism of politicians, and citations of peer-reviewed research on naturally acquired immunity.

The U.S. Government Is Building A Vast Surveillance And Speech Suppression Web Around Every American.  Our government is preparing to monitor every word Americans say on the internet — the speech of journalists, politicians, religious organizations, advocacy groups, and even private citizens.  Should those conversations conflict with the government's viewpoint about what is in the best interests of our country and her citizens, that speech will be silenced.  While the "Twitter Files" offer a glimpse into the government's efforts to censor disfavored viewpoints, what we have seen is nothing compared to what is planned, as the details of hundreds of federal awards lay bare.  Research by The Federalist reveals our tax dollars are funding the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning (ML) technology that will allow the government to easily discover "problematic" speech and track Americans reading or partaking in such conversations.  Then, in partnership with Big Tech, Big Business, and media outlets, the government will ensure the speech is censored, under the guise of combatting "misinformation" and "disinformation."

U.N. Is A Climate "Disinformation Threat Actor".  The United States government's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), within the Department of Homeland Security, is raising the alarm about the threat of "foreign influence" that is "leveraging misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation." CISA defines "malinformation" as information "based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate."  In 2021, CISA, along with the White House and private sector partners, successfully persuaded Facebook and Twitter to censor accurate information about the origins of the SARS-2 coronavirus and covid vaccines.  And yet CISA is failing to do its job when censoring malinformation, misinformation, and disinformation about climate change, including by "threat actors," often funded or employed by foreign governments.  A Google survey of over 2,300 people conducted last year by the nonpartisan research organization Environmental Progress, which I founded and lead, found that 53% of people surveyed in the U.S. agree with the false statement, "Climate change is making hurricanes more frequent," while 46% agree with the false statement, "Climate change threatens human extinction."

Time Is Running Out To Speak Freely About Free Speech In America.  Donald Trump's rise, his successful use of social media, and new media's refusal to join the crusade against Trump caused a fatal case of Stockholm Syndrome, with Big Tech and legacy media outlets welcoming government requests for censorship.  With support from both for-profit and nonprofit organizations and academic institutions, a Censorship Complex emerged, embracing the government's definition of "truth" and seeking to silence any who challenged it, whether it be new media or individual Americans — even experts.  The search for truth suffered as a result, and Americans were deprived of valuable information necessary for self-governance.  We know this because notwithstanding the massive efforts to silence speech, a ragtag group of muckrakers persisted and exposed several official dictates as lies: The Hunter Biden laptop was not Russian disinformation, Covid very well may have escaped from a Wuhan lab, and Trump did not collude with Putin.  But if the Censorship Complex succeeds and silences the few journalists and outlets still willing to challenge the government, Americans will no longer have the means to learn the truth.

Twitter Files reveal government-sponsored suppression of the truth with the help of Stanford University.  According to LifeSiteNews, "the nineteenth 'Twitter Files' installment has revealed that a Stanford University initiative routinely told social media companies to suppress posts containing '[t]rue content which might promote vaccine hesitancy.'"  Journalist Matt Taibbi posted the latest batch of files on March 17th.  Taibbi stated that a federally funded Stanford University initiative called the Virality Project instructed Big Tech social media platforms such as Twitter and TikTok to take action against admittedly true posts regarding the experimental COVID-19 vaccines as part of its fight against "disinformation."  The Virality Project, which is partially funded by the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation, also directed the social media giants to treat "often true posts which could fuel hesitancy" as "misinformation" on their platforms.  Some of us on conservative sites have long alleged that this has been happening.  Those on the left often deem anything with which they disagree, especially if true, to be "misinformation" or "disinformation."

The CDC's Vaccine "Misinformation" List.  One of the most important findings of the Twitter Files was an email from Stanford's Virality Project (the favored "disinformation experts" of the Biden White House, the CDC, and the US Surgeon General), which discussed the potential removal of "True content which might promote vaccine hesitancy."  This would include "stories of true vaccine side effects" — information that is not "mis or disinformation" but may be "malinformation" that is "exaggerated or misleading".  The Virality Project, like its clients and supporters within the US government, was concerned that these true social media posts "could fuel [vaccine] hesitancy."  [Tweet]

Private-federal censorship machine targeted true 'misinformation'.  Did you make any "worrisome jokes" about the Biden administration's proposal to send agents door-to-door to browbeat people to get COVID vaccines?  Then you were a public enemy guilty of spreading dangerous disinformation.  Did you ask questions about COVID policy?  You were guilty of a tactic "commonly used by spreaders of misinformation to deflect culpability."  Did you complain to anyone that vaccine passports violated your liberty?  You were deluded, if not depraved, and guilty of propelling a deceptive "anti-vaccination narrative about the loss of rights and freedoms."  Your tax dollars at work:  These are the bizarre revelations from the latest and perhaps funniest Twitter Files from Matt Taibbi.

Latest Twitter Files tackle 'Great Covid-19 Lie Machine' flagging true content as 'disinformation'.  The latest installment of the Twitter Files examined Stanford University's Virality Project meant to combat "disinformation" but in reality targeted COVID content that defied establishment narratives.  According to its website, the objective of the Virality Project, which was launched in May 2020, was "to detect, analyze, and respond to incidents of COVID-19 vaccine disinformation across online ecosystems, and ultimately mitigate the impact of narratives which would otherwise undermine the public's confidence in the safety of these processes in the United States."  On Friday, independent journalist Matt Taibbi showed the project didn't exactly live up to its mission statement.

Censorship: The Week Democrats Finally Came Out.  It has long been obvious that the Democrats harbor a deep aversion to free expression and that they are perfectly willing to silence voices that fail to parrot the pungent orthodoxies of the left.  Historically, however, this authoritarian impulse has been impeded by the First Amendment and the revulsion with which most Americans regard censorship.  It is no small irony that the advent of the internet, which was widely expected to make it all but impossible to interfere with the free flow of information, actually rendered it easier to suppress speech by stealth.  The Democrats were quick to realize this and have effectively used the technology as an instrument of censorship for years.  Inevitably, this has come to light and forced the Democrats to adopt the position that censorship has become a crucial weapon in the battle to protect "our democracy."  And they demonstrated late last week that this is not empty rhetoric.

Taking Back Our Country, One Word at a Time.  [4] Disinformation does not exist.  There are two kinds of false information: mistakes and lies.  The term isinformation is promulgated to obfuscate and sanitize lying.  Disinformation is lying committed by liars.

They Say We're Dangerous.  There's a price to be paid when you go against the left-wing narrative.  Many of you faced the ire of friends, family members, and the medical community when you voiced skepticism about the origins of the Covid-19 virus, the lockdowns, the jabs, and the anti-science masking rules.  You've been called conspiracy theorists and told you were (literally!) killing people when you did your own research and decided what was best for you and your family.  Some of you lost your jobs because you refused to take the unproven vaccine.  You've been censored on social media or banned from platforms outright.  The same thing has happened to PJ Media.  Our articles about Covid have been demonetized, censored, and throttled on social media platforms.  Our writers have been suspended and/or banned.  They said we're "dangerous."  That we're spreading harmful disinformation and making "unreliable and harmful claims."

This week we saw more proof of the Democrats' disdain for democracy.  Journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger, who are among the authors of the Twitter Files, were in D.C. to testify regarding Twitter's inner workings before the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.  Twitter had suppressed the expose of Hunter Biden's Laptop which was the most important story of the 2020 election cycle.  A NewsBusters poll revealed that 16% of Biden voters would have voted differently had they known of Hunter's laptop.  Another survey showed that 79 percent of Americans think Trump would have won reelection if voters had known facts about Hunter's laptop.  The Twitter Files series that began last December revealed how the Social Media giant was colluding with government agencies and Democrat politicians to manipulate the narrative in favor of the Democrats.  For every claim they made, they provided evidence of documents or screenshots of correspondence.  Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio chaired the hearings and made it clear that selective state-sponsored targeting 'disinformation' is an attack on the First Amendment.

Matt Taibbi Releases Twitter File Review #18 — Whole of Government Censorship Approach, Including Senate Intel and Legislative Branch.  One aspect that draws particular interest to those who spent years deconstructing the false Trump-Russia narrative, appears in the section beginning in Tweet #34 where Taibbi again visits the influence of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).  At the epicenter of the SSCI effort we have always found then Vice-Chair Mark Warner manipulating events.  Taibbi pulls this thread a little further with his review of how the SSCI contracted with outside government agencies to maintain the false premise of Russian interference in the 2016 election.  A name that might be familiar to those who read the SSCI report on "Russian Active Measures and Disinformation in the 2016 Campaign" might be familiar to you.  Taibbi notes:  ["]Profiles portray [Renee] DiResta as a warrior against Russian bots and misinformation, but reporters never inquire about work with DARPA, GEC, and other agencies.  In the video below from @MikeBenzCyber, Stamos introduces [Renee DiResta] as having "worked for the CIA."  DiResta has become the public face of the Censorship-Industrial Complex, a name promoted everywhere as an unquestioned authority on truth, fact, and Internet hygiene, even though her former firm, New Knowledge, has been embroiled in two major disinformation scandals.  This, ultimately, is the most serious problem with the Censorship-Industrial Complex.  Packaged as a bulwark against lies and falsehood, it is itself often a major source of disinformation, with American taxpayers funding their own estrangement from reality.["]

Shellenberger on Censorship: It's No Longer a Slippery Slope.  Shellenberger: "Seeing this censorship industry go from, well, we're just fighting ISIS to well, we're just fighting Russian disinformation bots to well, now we need to fight domestic misinformation, which is just saying we need to fight against people who are saying things we disagree with online, that's all that means.  And I — I mean, it's not a slippery slope.  It's an immediate leap into a terrifying mechanism that I — we only see in totalitarian societies of attempting to gain control over what the social media platforms are allow — are allowing."  [Video clip]

Michael Shellenberger Outlines Deep State Psychological Operations Being Conducted Against Americans.  After his review of the Twitter Files, Michael Shellenberger is beginning to take a big picture approach to each of the discoveries.  Shellenberger, appears on Tucker Carlson tonight to discuss how in the big picture the U.S. government is conducting psychological warfare against domestic citizens through the auspices of Twitter and likely other social media platforms.  He's not wrong, we've been calling it out in real time.  [Video clip]

Jim Jordan subpoenas former head of DHS disinformation board.  House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Monday subpoenaed a former Biden administration official who oversaw the Department of Homeland Security's disinformation board.  Jordan, R-Ohio, called on Nina Jankowicz to appear before the committee April 10 for a deposition as Republicans scrutinize the short-lived Disinformation Governance Board, which drew widespread GOP criticism after it launched last year.  Jankowicz "ignored voluntary requests for a transcribed interview," Jordan said, citing two letters last year and three letters since he took the helm of the committee in January.

Nina Jankowicz puts out new video seeking cash to sue Fox News — and barely anyone donates.  Joe Biden's now-former disinfomation czar, Nina Jankowicz, of the now junked Disinformation Governance Board, is stepping up her gofundme campaign to sue Fox News, issuing this self-pitying video pitch:  [Tweet]  This is pretty wretched.  I'm surprised she didn't use TikTok, the medium that got her famous.  Perhaps the would-be disinformation tsarina has been informed that it's a China data-mining outfit, or at least doesn't want other people to laugh and point at that unfortunate fact with her name on it.  Using all of her theatrical skills, she attempts to rouse the public into donating money for her claim that Fox News lied about her and was mean to her and, sniff, sniff, it messed up her relationship with her newborn son.  She doesn't seem to have heard about the First Amendment.

WHO Advances Plan to Censor 'Disinformation' under Global Law.  The World Health Organization (WHO) is advancing its plan that would see the unelected United Nations health body receive sweeping new powers to censor so-called "disinformation" under global law.  This week, the WHO held a meeting to advance the "international pandemic treaty."  Once passed, the treaty is a "legally binding" instrument that will enhance the WHO's powers to target anything that it deems to be "false, misleading, misinformation or disinformation."  The scope of the WHO is vast and its 194 member states will have to comply with the treaty under the new international law.

Twitter discloses another possible government censorship effort.  In the 17th release of the "Twitter Files," journalist Matt Taibbi disclosed that the U.S. government is funding a group that has supported the censorship of dissenting viewpoints on social media, including those of U.S. citizens.  That may sound familiar.  Just a few weeks ago, I wrote here that the congressionally created, federally funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) had supported the British-based Global Disinformation Index (GDI).  The index was widely ridiculed for targeting ten conservative and libertarian sites as the most dangerous sources of disinformation; it sought to persuade advertisers to withdraw support for those sites, while listing their most liberal counterparts as among the most trustworthy.  At the time, I noted that the Biden administration had played us for chumps.  As we celebrated the demise of the infamous Disinformation Governing Board with its "Disinformation Nanny," the Biden administration never disclosed a larger censorship program.  Shortly after my column posted in The Hill, the NED wrote to me to say that it was discontinuing support for the GDI. Microsoft also was forced into retreat after it was shown to be pushing the GDI's biased blacklist.  Again, many celebrated a victory for free speech.  Yet, here we are again [...]

People Behind Biden Announce Creation of Formal National Surveillance State, Yet No One Seems Bothered.  On March 2, 2023, the people in control of the Joe Biden administration officially announced that government control of internet content was now officially a part of the national security apparatus.  If you have followed the history of how the Fourth Branch of Government has been created, you will immediately recognize the intent of this new framework.  The "National Cybersecurity Strategy" aligns with, supports, and works in concert with a total U.S. surveillance system, where definitions of information are then applied to "cybersecurity" and communication vectors.  This policy is both a surveillance system and an information filtration prism where the government will decide what is information, disinformation, misinformation and malinformation, then act upon it.  In part, this appears to be a response to the revelations around government influence of social media, the Twitter Files.  Now we see the formalization of the intent.  The government will be the arbiter of truth and cyber security, not the communication platforms or private companies.  This announcement puts the government in control.

Canned Disinformation Governance Board's Nina Jankowicz now wants to stick it to Fox News.  Remember Nina Jankowicz?  That would be the now flamed-out Biden administration appointee who was to lead Joe Biden's "Disinformation Governance Board," the agency hatched by the Bidenites to police Americans' speech in the name of "protecting" Americans from "disinformation."  That was until Congress got wind of it and the public found out and the Homeland Security's Advisory Board scrapped it last August.  Jankowicz was out of a job then, but seemed to have landed on her feet, reemerging as a registered foreign agent working for some British public relations firm seeking to exert some kind of influence on the American government.  Apparently that didn't pan out, or perhaps she couldn't stop stewing about losing that six-figure government job that made her feel so important.  So now she's out raising money through GoFundMe campaign to sue Fox News, claiming they lied about her.

Biden's Ex-Disinformation Czar Nina Jankowicz Soliciting $100,000 to Sue Fox News and for 'Other' Costs.  Nina Jankowicz, the short-lived disinformation czar for the Biden Department of Homeland Security, is soliciting funds for a lawsuit against Fox News for allegedly spreading "lies" about her.  Jankowicz posted a five-minute video to her Twitter account along with a GoFundMe page asking for money to sue Fox News.  According to the GoFundMe page, she is seeking to raise $100,000.  So far, she has raised over $10,000.

Hitler was mad, too.
The Former Disinformation Governance Board Chief Is Back, and She's Mad.  Nina Jankowicz is back, and she's mad.  Jankowicz, you'll no doubt recall, was the chief of the Biden regime's ill-fated Disinformation Governance Board, which was ominously part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and was widely reported to be an Orwellian exercise in policing the speech of Americans that strayed from the line of the establishment Left.  But Jankowicz insists that the Disinformation Governance Board was nothing like the way it was portrayed.  She claims that Fox News' negative coverage of it spread lies about her, endangered her life as she was inundated with death threats, and even interfered with her ability to bond with her newborn son. (Yeah, she is really throwing the kitchen sink into this one.)  Jankowicz has published a video, "Help Nina Fight Fox," asking for donations to help her sue the beast that ruined her life.

Obama's Global Engagement Center (GEC) Labeled U.S. Accounts as "Foreign Actors" to Promote Media Narrative.  Matt Taibbi has done another extensive review of Twitter data in File Release #17.  This information release focuses on the Global Engagement Center (GEC), an internal sub-agency within the State Department as constructed by the Obama administration.  As noted by Taibbi, the GEC was funded mostly from the Pentagon and the financial outlays were to various leftist organizations who constructed the Trump-Russia narrative.  The outcome of the original deception created a need for the illusion of "foreign influence agents" in U.S. social media, specifically in this instance, Twitter.  The GEC was created as a targeting system to label any voice adverse to the Obama interests as a "foreign actor."  Generally speaking, the GEC network identified usernames and social media account information they deemed adversarial to the Obama administration, then told Twitter to take down the accounts.  The people working within GEC were political activists, financed through government agencies by the very taxpayers' they were targeting.  Ironic, no?

6 Ways The Censorship Complex Silences Speech It Doesn't Want You To Say Or Hear.  [#3] Twitter Followed Requests from 'Disinfo' Groups:  As if accepting government censorship requests through the FBI were not enough, Twitter allowed nonprofits to ask for tweets to be blocked if those organizations deemed them "disinformation."  A partnership portal expedited censorship requests from outside think tanks, such as the Stanford Observatory, which, at times, passed along requests for other nonprofit organizations.  [#4] Chorus of 'Disinfo' Claims Prompted Censorship:  While at times Big Tech censorship followed requests solely from the government or nonprofit "disinformation" think tanks, more often Twitter was pushed into silencing speech because of a concerted PR pressure campaign undertaken when private organizations, academics, the media, and government actors — including agencies, commissions, committees, and individual lawmakers — fanned unfounded claims of "disinformation."

CNN and Election Disinformation.  My friend and I sometimes argue about media outlets like CNN and MSNBC.  Why do they spread misinformation?
  A.   Are they grossly uninformed?
  B.   Do they know the truth but tell falsehoods anyway?
  C.   Do they think we are stupid or naïve?
My buddy feels that the media outlets know the truth but lie about it.  To me, it is more complicated.  The nice-looking journalists who read the teleprompters are genuinely ignorant.  On the other hand, the news producers probably know the truth but spread misinformation anyway.  Producers are the ones who select the topics, construct the programs, and hire the special analysts.

Government-backed 'disinformation' group under fire for punishing outlets that reported on lab leak theory.  A government-affiliated group that attempted to blacklist conservative networks over "coronavirus conspiracies" is now coming under fire after a federal agency announced its analysis that the lab-leak theory could be true.  The Global Disinformation Index reportedly sought to convince advertising companies to distance themselves from and punish conservative websites that suggested the coronavirus may have initially spread because it was leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China.  Earlier this week, the Energy Department concluded based on new intelligence that the virus most likely did originate in a lab.

"The stuff labeled as dangerous disinformation keeps turning out to be true."
Get Tomorrow's Disinformation Today!  This disinformation business sure has gotten complicated lately. [...] A recent batch of Twitter files, for example, showed that the Alliance Defending Democracy's widely cited Hamilton 68 dashboard of Twitter accounts "linked to Russian influence" was bogus — which meant that every mainstream press outlet that relied on Hamilton 68 was involved in a massive disinformation campaign organized by a left-wing group.  But no matter how many times the leftist press is shown to have peddled misinformation, it continues to get gold stars for reliability from "independent" groups.  A Washington Examiner investigation found one such well-funded group, the Global Disinformation Index, gives sites such as the far-left Huffington Post top-level reliability scores while labeling the RealClearPolitics site — which links to both liberal and conservative news and commentary — as one of the 10 "riskiest" in the nation.  "All of the websites that GDI ranks as the 'least risky' lean left in their news coverage," the Examiner found.

NY Times Editorial Board Member Questions Free Speech on Internet: 'I don't think we can allow it to go on'.  Mara Gay of the NY Times editorial board appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe this week and questioned the idea of free speech on the internet.  She whined about so-called 'hate speech' and disinformation, which is classic leftist talk for, speech I don't like.  Remember, this woman works for a newspaper that pushed the Russia collusion hoax for four solid years.  She is appearing on a network that did the same, but now she is worried about disinformation?

Probe Launched Into State Department Censorship of Conservatives.  House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer announced an investigation into the State Department after it was revealed by the Washington Examiner the federal bureaucracy spent hundreds-of-millions in taxpayer dollars on censorship of conservative news outlets.

Disinformation index collapses after targeting conservative media content.  AState Department-backed group is severing its connections with a disinformation index group also backed by progressive megadonor George Soros following reports about the group's efforts to muzzle conservative media outlets by blacklisting them with advertisers.  The National Endowment for Democracy, a private foundation created by Congress whose funding is part of the State Department budget, said it will no longer provide grants to the Global Disinformation Index, according to The Washington Times.  "Recently, we became aware that one of our grantees, the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), was engaged in an initiative, funded by a different donor, that focused on specific U.S. media outlets," the NED told the newspaper Tuesday.  "We recognize the important work GDI has done with NED support in other countries ....  However, given our commitment to avoid the perception that NED is engaged in any work domestically, directly or indirectly, we will no longer provide financial support to GDI."

State Department-backed group cuts ties with group blacklisting conservative news.  As a direct result of multiple Washington Examiner reports, a State Department-backed nonprofit group is severing its financial relationship with a "disinformation" tracking organization that is secretly blacklisting and taking steps to shut down conservative media.  The National Endowment for Democracy, a group funded almost entirely through congressional appropriations, granted $545,750 between 2020 and 2021 to the Global Disinformation Index, which is feeding conservative website blacklists to advertising companies.  Amid GOP lawmakers raising concerns, the National Endowment for Democracy is taking steps to distance itself from the purported "disinformation" monitor and will no longer be providing it future grant money, the nonprofit group told the Washington Examiner.

How the Biden administration has quietly helped to 'score' conservative speech.  Last year, the Biden administration caved to public outcry and disbanded its infamous Disinformation Governance Board under its "Disinformation Nanny," Nina Jankowicz.  Yet, as explored in a recent hearing (in which I testified), the Biden administration never told the public about a far larger censorship effort involving an estimated 80 FBI agents secretly targeting citizens and groups for disinformation.  Now it appears that the administration also was partially funding an "index" to warn advertisers to avoid what the index deemed to be dangerous disinformation sites.  It turns out that all ten of the "riskiest" sites identified by the Global Disinformation Index are popular with conservatives, libertarians and independents.  The index, run by a British organization, appears to be an effort to score and sanction sites based on their "reliability" to those in the political and media establishments.  That sounds like a knockoff of China's "social credit" system which scores its citizens, based in part on social media monitoring.

NTSB Chair Wallops Buttigieg for 'Spreading Misinformation' About Derailment.  After the woefully inadequate Transportation secretary found a way to blame Trump for the catastrophic train derailment, he got pushback from an unexpected quarter: National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chair Jennifer Homendy, who branded Buttigieg's politically opportunistic claims "misinformation."  Misinformation!  That's something that only "MAGA Republicans" are supposed to be spreading, not good team players such as our Pete!  Homendy's word choice made her rebuke all the more blistering.  The Biden regime has repeatedly sought to deplatform and silence those who questioned their propaganda line, on the spurious grounds that the dissidents were spreading "misinformation."  Will Biden's handlers now silence Buttigieg?  Don't bet on it, but the onetime front-runner for becoming America's first (openly!) gay president has seen his star dim considerably during his stormy demonstration of his own incompetence as Transportation secretary.

Report: Marco Rubio, Ron Johnson Demand Investigation into Government Backing Group Leading Conservative Media Blacklist.  Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) are demanding an investigation into reports that U.S.-backed entities funded a foreign think tank that is trying to blacklist and defund conservative media outlets. [...] Microsoft's ad network, Xandr, has used GDI's Dynamic Exclusion List to blacklist conservative media outlets.  Xandr has reportedly, at least temporarily, removed the negative flags for conservative media.

Disinformation Inc: Rubio and Johnson demand investigation into conservative media blacklists.  Republican Sens. Marco Rubio (FL) and Ron Johnson (WI) are demanding an investigation into the United States government bankrolling an organization that is secretly blacklisting and trying to defund conservative media outlets.  The Global Engagement Center and the National Endowment for Democracy, two State Department-backed entities, have granted $665,000 combined to the Global Disinformation Index, which is feeding conservative website blacklists to advertising companies.  Now, Rubio and Johnson are calling for an inquiry into how taxpayer dollars have flowed to GDI, which intends to shut down disfavored speech.

Microsoft Suspends Foreign Disinformation 'Experts' That Blacklist Conservative Media.  Microsoft has stopped partnering with a foreign think tank, pending review, that was designed to blacklist conservative media.  The tech company also reportedly removed negative flags for conservative media outlets.  After Breitbart News, the Washington Examiner, and the Daily Caller News Foundation highlighted how a Microsoft-owned ad network, Xandr, employed foreign think tank Global Disinformation Index's (GDI) media blacklist, otherwise known as the "Dynamic Exclusion List," Microsoft said it has stopped using its blacklist, pending review.

The State Department helped defund conservative websites.  Last week, news broke that American Thinker and other conservative internet sites were the subjects of a successful campaign to defund them by telling advertisers that their content was misleading.  That's bad.  What's worse is that we're learning that the State Department was helping fund the campaign to defund conservative media.  The Washington Examiner revealed in a two-part report how various organizations claimed to track "disinformation."  That "disinformation," of course, was anything that countered the Democrat narrative on politics and social issues.  American Thinker was among the list of 39 conservative sites that also included Newsbusters, Town Hall, Rush Limbaugh, Daily Wire, Breitbart, etc.

Disinformation Inc: Microsoft removes conservative sites from blacklist 'defunding' outlets.  Microsoft has removed negative flags for conservative media outlets that have blocked them from reaping key advertising dollars amid the corporation launching an internal review and suspending its subscription to a "disinformation" tracking group's blacklist used to "defund" disfavored speech, according to internal data obtained by the Washington Examiner.  The Microsoft-owned Xandr, a major advertising company, previously abided by a secret blacklist of conservative news compiled by the Global Disinformation Index, a British organization with two affiliated U.S. nonprofit groups.  Now, as Microsoft appears to be taking steps to distance itself from GDI, the company has, for the time being, deleted flags such as "false/misleading" and "reprehensible/offensive" for right-leaning websites, data show.

Disinformation Inc: Meet the groups hauling in cash to secretly blacklist conservative news.  Major ad companies are increasingly seeking guidance from purportedly "nonpartisan" groups claiming to be detecting and fighting online "disinformation."  These same "disinformation" monitors are compiling secret website blacklists and feeding them to ad companies, with the aim of defunding and shutting down disfavored speech, according to sources familiar with the situation, public memos, and emails obtained by the Washington Examiner.  Brands, which have been seeking to promote products online through multiple websites to expand their digital footprint, are turning to corporate digital ad companies keyed into global markets.  In turn, some of these companies are contracting "disinformation" trackers to obtain private information about which websites they should purportedly "defund."

The Biden Administration Is Colluding With Corporate Censors To Blacklist Dissidents.  The State Department is funneling taxpayer dollars to a shadowy network of corporate censors to blacklist dissident media, the Washington Examiner's Gabe Kaminsky reported Thursday night.  On Thursday morning, the Examiner published the paper's first expose on the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a British group that compiles secretive lists of news organizations the index encourages major corporations to boycott.  Advertisers that seek out online platforms to promote their products contract with such "disinformation" groups and make decisions on which websites to advertise based on their recommendations.  The network of corporate censors disguised as groups on the frontlines countering disinformation, such as GDI and NewsGuard, often label conservative media with low ratings while they offer high scores to legacy outlets that botched major stories.  NewsGuard, for example, continues to label major papers at the heart of the Russia hoax with perfect credibility while the Fox News, the New York Post, and The Federalist, which accurately reported on the Hunter Biden laptop, are given failing grades.

Microsoft-Owned Ad Group Blacklisted Conservative Sites, in [an] Attempt to Break Them Financially.  The attack on conservatives by major corporations, internet companies, and political activist groups is nothing new.  This doesn't just include conservatives, but conservative sites as well.  There have been repeated high-profile attempts at silencing conservative news and opinion sites, usually by attacking their ability to generate revenue from ads using flimsy excuses about misinformation or hate speech.  According to the Washington Examiner, new information has been discovered about a low-profile attempt to target conservative sites by blacklisting them for various "safety" reasons.  This includes sites such as Daily Wire, Newsmax, Epoch Times, and even RedState.  The Examiner revealed the existence of the "Global Disinformation Index," a British organization with two American affiliates that was bought by Microsoft in 2021 for $1 billion.  This company is responsible for giving blacklists to ad companies like Xandr to restrict ad dollars and break conservative websites financially, effectively silencing them.

Ad Network Owned by Microsoft Is Using Foreign Disinformation 'Experts' to Blacklist Conservative Media Companies.  The Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a foreign think tank headquartered in the United Kingdom, released an assessment of American online media designed to blacklist conservative media outlets and choke off their advertising revenue.  The information is kept on what GDI calls its "Dynamic Exclusion List."  Ad networks — including most prominently Xandr — which is owned by Microsoft — are now using this list to refuse to allow advertising on conservative media websites.  Microsoft has yet to respond to a request for comment regarding Xandr's use of the Dynamic Exclusion List, which is censoring conservative outlets.

State Department Helped Fund 'Disinformation' Research Group That Reportedly Blacklists Conservative News Sites.  The U.S. State Department, through its Global Engagement Center (GEC), helped facilitate funding for a group that reportedly works to demonetize sites it claims are disseminating "disinformation," including conservative news outlets, according to its website.  The Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a United Kingdom-based nonprofit that styles itself as a "non-political" monitor working to "disrupt the business model of disinformation," lists as a funder the Disinfo Cloud, a now-shuttered GEC project.  However, GDI has worked to demonetize conservative news sites by collaborating with ad exchanges to flag alleged purveyors of disinformation, the Washington Examiner reported Thursday.

AOC serves up disinformation about Hunter Biden — and us.  "I believe that political operatives who sought to inject explosive disinformation with the Washington Post couldn't get away with it — and now they're livid," railed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in Wednesday's hearings about Twitter censoring the Hunter Biden story.  First off, Congresswoman, we're the New York Post.  We understand how you can get confused since you don't spent much time in the city that elected you.  But that's the least of your problems.  For someone who claims to be an opponent of "disinformation," you sure shovel enough horse manure to fill an MSNBC studio.  The Hunter Biden laptop was indeed "explosive" but not fake.  If you don't believe us, you can read the confirmations and follow-up reporting in countless other publications, including the Washington Post.  Or you can believe Hunter Biden, who admitted it was his laptop in legal letters last week.

Court Slaps Down California's Attempt To Muzzle Doctors Who Dissent From Covid Groupthink.  [Scroll down]  In passing the law, the California legislature made multiple "findings," including facts purveyed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that there is a much higher risk of death for unvaccinated individuals from Covid-19 than the vaccinated.  The legislature also found that "the spread of misinformation and disinformation about COVID-19 vaccines has weakened public confidence and placed lives at serious risk" and that "major news outlets have reported that some of the most dangerous propagators of inaccurate information regarding the COVID-19 vaccines are licensed health care professionals."  Soon after Newsom signed AB 2098, a group of doctors and organizations representing doctors filed suit in federal court in California.

Judge blocks California's covid misinformation law.  On January 25, the case of Hoeg v. Newsom prompted a federal judge to pause California's covid misinformation and disinformation law for violating the First and 14th Amendments to the Constitution.  Five doctors who are plaintiffs in the case say Assembly Bill 2098 violates their constitutional rights.  These include Drs.  Tracy Hoeg, Ram Duriseti, Aaron Kheriaty, Pete Mazolewski, and Azadeh Khatibi.  Gov. Gavin Newsom and other elected officials, including the president and members of the Medical Board of California, are named as defendants in the case (and there is also a second lawsuit, separate but related in nature, called Hoang v. Bonta that makes similar allegations).  AB 2098 puts a muzzle on California doctors, preventing them from providing information to their patients that the state deems to be "misinformation" or "disinformation."  Doctors who advise and treat their patients based on science rather than lies face the potential loss of their medical license under AB 2098.

Report: George Soros Funds Global 'Fact Checking' Empire.  Over the past few years, a cottage industry of "fact checkers" and "misinformation" experts has emerged to advance the left's mission of silencing dissent to its agenda around the world.  Analysis of the funding of these organizations leads back to a familiar figure: left-wing billionaire George Soros.  The New York Post broke down the trail of Soros dollars linking a global network of organizations intent on suppressing and discrediting conservative voices online.

Federal Judge Uses Covid Regime Case To Attack Key Leftist Tactics.  A new California law that went into effect on January 1st is intended to punish doctors who spread "misinformation" about Covid — and especially about treatment options and the dangerous mRNA injections.  That law has been challenged in federal court.  In what follows I'll be drawing from an article in the Sacramento Bee, which was brought to my attention by Thomas Lifson.  Yesterday Judge William Shubb stayed enforcement of the law, while subjecting it to a withering critique.  What I found particularly encouraging is that a federal judge directly attacked a major shibboleth of Leftist ideology as well as one of the Left's key tactics in attacking the free flow of information to the American public.

California's COVID-19 Misinformation Law Blocked by Judge.  A federal judge in California on Jan. 25 paused the state's so-called COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation law that has been challenged by doctors in two lawsuits, claiming it violates their constitutional rights.  In Hoeg v. Newsom, five doctors alleged that the state law, AB 2098, is unconstitutional under the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.  The doctors, Tracy Hoeg, Ram Duriseti, Aaron Kheriaty, Pete Mazolewski, and Azadeh Khatibi, filed their lawsuit against Gov. Gavin Newsom and other officials, including the president and members of the Medical Board of California.  A separate related lawsuit, Hoang v. Bonta, makes similar allegations.  The doctors say the law prevents them from providing information to their patients that may contradict what the law permits or prohibits.  They also alleged the law was used to intimidate and punish physicians who disagreed with prevailing views on COVID-19.

Emails Reveal the CDC's Role in Silencing COVID-19 Dissent.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) played a direct role in policing permissible speech on social media throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.  Confidential emails obtained by Reason show that Facebook moderators were in constant contact with the CDC, and routinely asked government health officials to vet claims relating to the virus, mitigation efforts such as masks, and vaccines. [...] After Elon Musk took control of Twitter, he permitted several independent journalists to peruse the company's previous communications with the FBI, the CDC, the White House, and government officials elsewhere.  These disclosures, which have become known as the Twitter Files, reveal that government bureaucrats put substantial pressure on Twitter to restrict alleged misinformation relating to elections, Hunter Biden, and COVID-19.

How the CDC Became the Speech Police.  Anthony Fauci, the federal government's most prominent authority on COVID-19, had his final White House press conference two days before Thanksgiving 2022. The event served as a send-off for the long-serving director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who was finally stepping down after nearly four decades on the job. [...] Indeed, the U.S. public's understanding of COVID-19 — its virality, how to prevent its spread, and even where it comes from — was largely controlled by Fauci and bureaucrats like him, to a greater degree than most people realize.  The federal government shaped the rules of online discussion in unprecedented and unnerving ways.

California's 'Misinformation' Law Targets 'Doctor Zero'.  A new and unconstitutional, Orwellian gag-order law took effect on Jan. 1.  Titled "Physicians and surgeons: unprofessional conduct," the law permits the Medical Board of California to discipline doctors who "disseminate" misinformation.  It's an obvious and direct attack on the First Amendment — freedom of speech — as well as the Fifth Amendment, which says an individual cannot be compelled by the government to provide incriminating information about himself, and the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection under the laws.  This law attempts to mandate a new and undefined standard known as "contemporary scientific consensus" and illegally suppress differing professional opinions counter to this consensus on COVID-19.  Differing professional opinions are of course protected from governmental interference and censorship by the First Amendment.  The importance of differing professional opinions is also enshrined in the practice of medicine by the longstanding right and traditional entitlement of patients to the time-honored "second opinion."  If everyone were forced to adopt the undefinable "contemporary scientific consensus," second opinions could be deemed to be "misinformation."

WaPo: You know that big gov't-media freakout over "disinformation"? Yeah ... never mind.  Does "disinformation" on the Internet actually do anything — even to persuade?  When the freak-out over Russia-generated Facebook and Twitter memes began in late 2016, I repeatedly asked one basic question: where is the evidence that these campaigns changed even one single vote?  The answer:  No such evidence exists. [...] The disinformation panic that should never have started in the first place is now a fully industrialized aspect of our journalistic platforms as well as our political institutions.

'The View' is the biggest source of misinformation in America.  Barbara Walters died last week at 93, but the legendary journalist's legacy lives on:  "The View," the daytime-TV talker she created in 1997, is the most-watched — and most-talked-about — show in its genre.  Some legacy, though: What Walters envisioned as "women of different generations, backgrounds and views" discussing "the topics of the day, mixing humor with intelligent debate," devolved after she departed as co-host in 2014 into a four-against-one daily catfight with few laughs and even fewer smarts.  The New York Times calls it "the most important political TV show in America."  If so, America is in trouble — because "The View" is the biggest source of misinformation in the country.  More than 2.4 million people watch "The View" every day — and are less informed for it every day.  The show's moderator is one of its worst offenders.

The FBI's Top Ten Most Dangerous Thought Crimes of 2022:  [Thread reader]
  [#1]   The vaccine does not prevent spread
  [#2]   Natural immunity is real and, in fact, optimal
  [#3]   Ballot harvesting laws were changed in 2020 to give Dems a major electoral advantage
  [#4]   Biological men are naturally stronger than women.
  [#5]   This coronavirus most likely leaked from a gain-of-function research lab in Wuhan, China.
  [#6]   Placing every man, woman and child in lockdown will do more harm than good.
  [#7]   A drag queen reading books to a classroom of 6 year olds is sexually abnormal behavior.
  [#8]   My doctor prescribed me Ivermectin.
  [#9]   Your best protection against COVID is to lose weight, improve your lifestyle.  Get outside, spend time on the beach, walk nature trails, etc.
  [#10]   The mRNA COVID vaccine is still experimental and is potentially dangerous, especially to young people.

California's Crazy New Year: Five Radical Laws Go into Effect.  [#2] AB 2098: 'COVID Misinformation' — This law, signed in September, requires California's medical licensing boards to take disciplinary action against doctors who are involved with the "dissemination of misinformation or disinformation related to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, or 'COVID-19'."  The law does not take into account the fact that authorities like Dr. Anthony Fauci changed their recommendations over time.

2010 DHS Contract to General Dynamics Information Systems for Domestic "Media Monitoring and Social Media Networking".  During my trip to DC in the summer of 2020 there were a myriad of disconcerting datapoints assembled; revelations that made sense of the madness and disappointments found everywhere.  However, one of the key notations for future reference was to watch the political evolution of Dept of Homeland Security (DHS) and spot the jump where the ideological outlook turns into specific government action.  With that in mind, this recent discovery of a 2010 to 2015 DHS contract to a very well-known USG defense contractor, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems Inc., surfaces.  As many are now becoming aware, DHS is the lead agency behind all of the engagements with Twitter and other social media.  The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), specifically created as an outcome of the post-911 Patriot Act, is the pivot point on the surveillance radar sweep.  Prior to the DNI the general Intelligence Community (IC) surveillance faced offshore and swept foreign adversaries.

The latest Twitter Files focus on COVID "misinformation".  The latest installment of Twitter Files dropped today as a slightly late Christmas present from independent journalist David Zweig.  This batch may wind up being the best yet in terms of demonstrating the Biden administration's direct and deliberate intervention in the social media platform's "content moderation" activities and the censorship of speech, particularly when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic. [...] After Joe Biden was sworn in, the first White House meeting with Twitter focused on COVID-19 "misinformation."  They immediately put pressure on Twitter to deplatform Alex Berenson, a frequent critic of the administration's policies and CDC "science."  Biden specifically called Berenson out in public, saying that social media was "killing people" by allowing Berenson to speak.  He was suspended within hours and his account was deleted the following month.

Biden admin funding AI research to detect and censor "microaggressions".  Here's one part of the nearly $2 trillion American Rescue Plan passed last year that few people apparently read.  The bill included more than half a million dollars in grants for tech researchers to develop artificial intelligence algorithms capable of identifying and suppressing "microaggressions" in social media posts.  Part of the money was quietly gifted to researchers at the University of Washington earlier this year and they expect to receive the rest of it in coming years as the development work proceeds.  You may find yourself wondering how the federal government wound up handing out taxpayer money to develop ways to automatically censor the free speech of its citizens.  It's a great question.

The Feds' 'Misinformation' Scam.  The biggest political story of 2022 was not the midterm election.  It was the release of the "Twitter Files" by Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter.  In the sixth installment published last week on Twitter in a thread by journalist Matt Taibbi, the headline was "Twitter, the FBI Subsidiary."  The FBI had its own channel of communication for tipping off Twitter executives as to authors of tweets who needed to be censored, if not banned, for posting "election misinformation" during the 2020 election season.  What was insidious is that some of the offending tweets were satirical in nature and posted by people with relatively few followers.  At least 80 FBI agents were assigned to a social media task force.  The Department of Homeland Security had its own operation.  Both were inspired by the alleged foreign interference in the 2016 election, known now as the "Russian collusion hoax."  However, it was just days before Election Day for the 2022 midterms that we learned that censorship has been a secret project for over two years of the DHS, the FBI, and "Big Tech."  Apart from Twitter, that included Facebook, Reddit, Discord, Wikipedia, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Verizon Media.

DHS Redacted Critical Details About 'Anti-Disinformation' Activities: Sens. Grassley, Hawley.  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has neglected to provide in full certain disclosures requested by members of the U.S. Senate relating to the department's growing role in "counter-disinformation" activities, and this failure is particularly egregious in light of the co-equal roles of the executive and legislative branches of the government, two senators have charged in a Dec. 15 letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.  Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) charge the DHS with ignoring or downplaying their "serious concerns" about the DHS's "growing counter-disinformation efforts" as conveyed previously in a letter of June 7, which formally requested "information necessary to inform our congressional oversight of DHS activities."

Grassley, Hawley slam DHS for redactions of disinfo docs: 'The people's business ought to be public'.  Two Republican senators this week slammed the Department of Homeland Security for what they said were overzealous redaction decisions pursuant to an oversight request made by the senators themselves.  In their letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley criticized the department for its response to a request for documentation the two lodged in June of this year.  Of the two responses the senators received, they wrote, one "did not answer any of the ten questions" they originally posed, while the other consisted of "two documents already in the public domain" and "500 pages of material, approximately half of which are mostly or entirely redacted."  "We remind you that the oversight letters we send to the Executive Branch are signed in our capacity as sitting members of Congress, a separate and co-equal branch of government," the senators wrote.

I Am A Misinformation Denier.  Misinformation does not and cannot — by definition — exist.  Correct information, incorrect information, true information, false information can all certainly exist, as can partial, missing, complete, and detailed.  Just not misinformation — same with disinformation, by the way.  So why is the term used with such vitriolic abandon?  Why not call something a lie and leave it at that?  Because misinformation is not about describing factual information but about dismissing and denigrating personal opinion and belief.  It is about changing when someone says "I think..." into "I know" and then claiming that person is spreading a factual misrepresentation.

FBI Agent Testifies About Bureau's Involvement in Social Media Censorship.  An FBI agent has provided sworn testimony that the bureau's leadership was directly involved in colluding with Big Tech companies to censor certain political information during the 2020 presidential election.  As reported by Just The News, Elvis Chan, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Cyber Branch in San Francisco, provided the information to lawyers for the Attorneys General of Missouri and Louisiana, as part of a lawsuit filed by those two states regarding government coordination with Big Tech to censor alleged COVID-19 "misinformation."  Chan testified that he was in charge of a "command post" in San Francisco that played a crucial role in a nationwide censorship operation.  Chan said that his office would sometimes enlist the help of other federal officials, including federal prosecutors, lawyers for the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ), as well as FBI field offices all across the country, before making direct requests to social media companies to censor any content that the office determined to be "misinformation."

Why Wasn't the Lesson From 2016 to Eschew Corrupt Candidates?  Dictators all have elections.  But the dictators control the media so the public only hears the approved messages. [...] Not so long ago the media argued with a straight face that it needed to censor to protect the public from the kind of "misinformation" they believe tilted the 2016 election.  We've heard the line repeated so often that it's easy to forget what the Wikileaks releases revealed.  We were told not to believe the evidence because it came from a Russian hacking operation.

Google Announces 'Pre-Bunking' Censorship Tools for Behavioral 'Interventions'.  Big Tech giant Google has announced the development of its new "pre-bunking" censorship tools that seek to manage behavioral "interventions."  Google has dubbed its project "Info Interventions" and claims it is based on behavioral science.  The tools are effectively aimed at predicting so-called "misinformation" and "disinformation."  By "pre-bunking" information, Google hopes it can block it before it is viewed by anyone online.

The Ministry of Truth was far more sinister than we were told.  It would appear that Alejandro Mayorkas has "some 'splainin to do," as the kids like to say these days.  As you may recall, the Biden administration briefly attempted to set up a Ministry of Truth under the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year.  The quickly abandoned office was fancifully named the "Disinformation Governance Board" and it was planned to be headed by Nina Jankowicz, who quickly left the government after the effort was curtailed and went on to register as a foreign agent for Great Britain.  When Congress looked into the attempt to establish the board, Mayorkas offered lengthy testimony as to what had been going on and sang lofty praises of Jankowicz.  But newly revealed documents presented by Senator Josh Hawley and others strongly suggest that the board had progressed far further than Mayorkas testified and he seemingly lied under oath about some of the details.

If You Have Not Been Taught to Think for Yourself, Then Disinformation is Scary.  There needs to be an open venue for all information.  Unfortunately, when we begin to apply labels or categorization to information, there's an opportunity for information to be manipulated — even weaponized.  Saul Alinsky spent decades pondering the best techniques to weaponize information and speech.  Alinsky's intentions in the endeavor to change society by changing how language and information was used were not good.  He devoted his completed rulebook book to Lucifer.  Be careful about anyone saying we need to label or categorize information in order to control or remove speech from the discussion.  You were not born with a requirement to believe everything you are told; rather, you were born with a God-given brain that allows you to process the information you receive and make independent decisions.

Let the Credits Roll.  I wrote about Matt Ofalea's brilliant four-and-a-half video below in "The playbook on the laptop."  The video compiles clips — mostly of news anchors and reporters — opining on air with mind-numbing certainty and Hive-like unanimity that the New York Post's reportage on Hunter Biden's laptop was "a lie," "altered or fake," "pure distractions," and of course, "RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION."  I have posted the video once again below.  [Video clip]

Are You Freer than You Were Two Years Ago?  Twenty twenty-two was an election in which authoritarians employed every sort of disinformation.  They ran on "character" while engaging in corruption on a multi-trillion-dollar scale.  They rolled out the old "take your Social Security away from you" fear-mongering for seniors.  And, this year in particular, they stoked fear of losing access to abortion when in fact the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade returns decisions on abortion to states.  More bizarre yet, Democrats attacked conservatives as "a threat to democracy," but the code word "democracy" in the progressive lexicon actually means "more government control" and less freedom.  Donald Trump is not a threat to democracy; he is a threat to those who continually undermine our democracy by limiting what we can say, read, listen to, discuss at work, hear at church, and learn in school.  Joe Biden used "threat to democracy" many times in the 2022 campaign, and in every case, it was not a threat to democracy he had in mind; it was a threat to his party's power and with it the enslavement of the American people by Big Government.

Would-be 'Disinformation Czar' Nina Jankowicz [is] Now a Registered Foreign Agent.  Nina Jankowicz, the would-be "disinformation czar" who was dropped from the Department of Homeland Security after public scrutiny, has now registered officially as a foreign agent, according to government records.  [Tweet]  Jankowicz, who was executive director of the Department of Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board, was at the center of controversy over the Biden administration's attempt to censor opposing views.  She also advised the British Parliament to set standards for speech on the Internet, telling it that the British government could find ways to suppress undesirable speech, ignoring "freedom of expression and fairy dust."

HHS Gives $1M to Researchers to Predict Vaccine Misinformation.  The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is giving $1 million to researchers who can predict what misinformation about vaccines might be spread on social media and how it can impact people's trust in vaccines.  The grant opportunity, "Developing a Public Health Tool to Predict the Virality of Vaccine Misinformation Narratives," will go to a single applicant to predict how "vaccine misinformation" can affect people's trust in vaccines, Fox News reported.

Obama says democracy under threat if Republicans win in Arizona.  Former (and sort of current) president Barack Obama used a rally in Phoenix Wednesday night to deliver a crazy remark about America's system of self-government.  The Anointed One asserted that if the Arizona Republican candidates are successful, "democracy as we know it may not survive" there.  He added, "That's not an exaggeration.  That is a fact."  Opinions are now facts, as facts are "disinformation" to the wannabe tyrants called Democrats.  Democrats have routinely asserted recently that "our democracy is in danger" if Republicans do well on a national scale in the upcoming midterm elections.  Now they are doing the same at the local level.  What will they claim next?  "If the Republican candidate wins in West Topeka, our democracy may not survive"?  What gall!

FBI Agent Who Pushed To Censor Hunter Biden Story Is Shaping Biden Admin's Response To 'Misinformation'.  An FBI agent who coordinated with Facebook to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story is advising the Biden administration in its push to suppress information on social media, according to leaked documents published by The Intercept.  Laura Dehmlow was involved in conversations between the FBI and Facebook ahead of the social media company's decision to censor the story surrounding the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop before the 2020 election, the Washington Free Beacon reported.  She was later involved in the Biden administration's efforts to suppress and censor content on social media platforms for misinformation-related purposes, according to The Intercept.  "We need a media infrastructure that is held accountable," she said during a March meeting attended by Twitter executives and executives from JP Morgan Chase, according to documents obtained by The Intercept.

Leaked Documents Outline DHS's Plans to Police Disinformation.  The Department of Homeland Security is quietly broadening its efforts to curb speech it considers dangerous, an investigation by The Intercept has found.  Years of internal DHS memos, emails, and documents — obtained via leaks and an ongoing lawsuit, as well as public documents — illustrate an expansive effort by the agency to influence tech platforms.  The work, much of which remains unknown to the American public, came into clearer view earlier this year when DHS announced a new "Disinformation Governance Board": a panel designed to police misinformation (false information spread unintentionally), disinformation (false information spread intentionally), and malinformation (factual information shared, typically out of context, with harmful intent) that allegedly threatens U.S. interests.  While the board was widely ridiculed, immediately scaled back, and then shut down within a few months, other initiatives are underway as DHS pivots to monitoring social media now that its original mandate — the war on terror — has been wound down.

Big Brother's Playbook.  The federal government's guidelines to counter "misinformation" and "disinformation" — what we might more accurately describe as Big Brother's Playbook — has been released.  The US government and its allies, including media gatekeepers and educational institutions and global corporations, have become the judges and juries of "misinformation."  And Big Tech is their executioner.  According to recently-filed court documents in Missouri v. Biden that were made available by The Intercept (big hat tip to Lee Fang and Ken Klippenstein), "The Department of Homeland Security is quietly broadening its efforts to curb speech it considers dangerous."

Leaked FBI document lists "misinformation" as an "election crime".  A whistleblower leaked a document to Project Veritas showing that the FBI is focusing on election misinformation ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.  The document lists what the agency should categorize as "election crimes."  Among the election crimes highlighted in the documents is "misinformation."  The document defines misinformation as "false or misleading information spread mistakenly or unintentionally."  Disinformation is also an election "crime," and is defined as "false or inaccurate information intended to mislead others."  It adds:  "Disinformation campaigns on social media are used to deliberately confuse, trick, or upset the public."  The document appears to be another effort by the federal government to determine what is true and what is false.

Seven Times the Media Lied about 'Disinformation' that was True.  Just about every time the mainstream media tells you that something is "disinformation," it turns out that it's the media that is pushing the lies.  Last week, Just the News put together a list of seven important times that the media told everyone something was "disinformation," but that later turned out to be true.  The list includes:
  •   Hunter Biden's Laptop
  •   The origins of COVID-19
  •   COVID-19 vaccines
  •   Pelosi's Jan. 6 role and calling in the National Guard
  •   The mistreatment of Jan. 6 defendants
  •   Irregularities in the 2020 election
  •   Critical race theory in schools

"Don't Trust Experts, Experts Say".  I'm worried.  "Is 'rainbow fentanyl' a threat to your kids this Halloween?  Experts say no," NPR assures me.  And if there's one thing we've learned in these past few years it's to believe the opposite of what experts say.  The media has given up trying to get people to trust it and now asks it to trust its handpicked experts.  And those experts say the same exact things that the media says.  Every subject is now tackled by experts.  Do you think that a Senate candidate who can barely grasp a sentence is worrisome?  "Fetterman's use of captions is common in stroke recovery, experts say," the Washington Post wheedles.  Experts tend to say that Democrats should be elected and Republicans shouldn't be.  They agree that when a Democrat does something it's very different than when a Republican does it.  And if you think the experts are biased, the experts will say that they're not.  Q.E.D.  Experts warn of the rise of "misinformation".  And misinformation has come to be defined by people disagreeing with experts.  Experts say that anyone who disagrees should be deplatformed.  If you disagree with the deplatforming, they say you should be deplatformed too.

Government Using Big Tech To Control Citizens' Speech Means The End Of Free And Fair Elections.  "When the government controls the information, then it also controls the people and therefore, the electoral processes," said Federalist Executive Editor Joy Pullmann during an interview on OANN.  "What that has the effect of is making elections a sham because people cannot make informed decisions about who they're voting for if the government controls what they can know about the candidates before them."  [Video clip]

When Corporate America Pulls A PayPal, There's No Escaping The Digital Gulag.  Last week, PayPal published a new user agreement that would allow the company to debit up to $2,500 from a user's account for engaging in "restricted activities," including spreading "misinformation." [...] Many angry users posted screenshots of them closing their PayPal accounts in protest of the company's anti-free speech policy and caused #BankruptPayPal to trend.  It seemed that the backlash had been severe enough that on Sunday, PayPal walked back the policy, claiming the new user agreement "went out in error" and the company wouldn't punish users for spreading misinformation.  That said, people who cherish free speech should not declare victory.  After all, PayPal only partially reversed its policy.  The company will still fine users up to $2,500 for other offenses listed under its user agreement, including activities presumably promoting "hate" and "intolerance."  After all, PayPal has a long history of labeling speech disagreeing with the woke ideology as "hateful" and "intolerant."

The PayPal Fiasco Was No Accident.  PayPal on Oct. 8 sent out an update to its terms of use, or acceptable use policy (AUP), that included a shocking addition.  It reserved the right to confiscate $2,500 from people's accounts if they spread "misinformation."  It was a clear announcement of what many already suspected: PayPal has enlisted in the information war.  This comes weeks after PayPal blocked several important accounts in the UK, including Toby Young's personal account, the Free Speech Union, and the DailySceptic.  These are hugely important venues for the English-speaking world in countering the COVID propaganda narrative.  It was no accident that they were targeted.  After global protests and news coverage from alternative sources, PayPal relented and restored their accounts without explanation.  In a similar vein, protests all over the world poured in about PayPal's new policy.  Twitter filled up with announcements from people who were canceling their accounts.  By the following day, PayPal reversed itself, claiming that the banning of "misinformation" was just a mistake.

Searches for 'delete PayPal' spike as shares plummet amid 'misinformation' controversy.  Searches for "delete PayPal" skyrocketed as controversy reigned this weekend over a policy saying users would be fined $2,500 for promoting "misinformation," which the payment platform quickly retracted and claimed was posted in error.  Searches for the phrase exploded by 1,392% over the past few days, according to Google Trends data.  Related searches of "how to cancel PayPal," "cancel PayPal account," "delete PayPal account," and "how do I delete a PayPal account" spiked as well, according to Market Watch.  The search interest surge was accompanied by real-world results, as PayPal's stock plummeted by over 6% on Monday.  The company's stock crashed by two-thirds of its value at the beginning of this year.

California makes it illegal for doctors to disagree with politicians.  Conformity of thought is now required whether it is online, on college campuses, or, if you are in California, in a physician-patient relationship.  PayPal recently introduced a $2,500 fine for anyone involved in "the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials" that — in "PayPal's sole discretion" — "promote misinformation."  After a firestorm of criticism, PayPal withdrew the policy, claiming the whole thing was a misunderstanding and was not official policy — hardly a convincing explanation from a site with a history of banning those it considers politically incorrect.  But California physicians have had no such relief.  Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed California Assembly Bill 2098, making it the first state to attempt to censor what physicians can say about COVID-19 to their patients.  This is a dangerous, and likely unconstitutional, effort that other states must resist.

Dem Operatives Behind Network Of Fake News Pop-Up Sites In Battleground States: Report.  Democratic operatives are flooding battleground states with more than 50 supposedly local media outlets that are really designed to promote liberal candidates, according to a bombshell investigation by Axios.  One man linked to the scheme is David Brock, the one-time conservative journalist who did a 180-degree turn and founded Media Matters For America, the controversial nonprofit that attacks conservative news sites.  Axios' investigative reporters Lachlan Markay and Thomas Wheatley say the operation uses a "patina of independent local news content designed to put a sheen of original reporting on partisan messaging."  The 51 pop-up sites have names such as the Milwaukee Metro Times, Macomb Digest, Mecklenburg Herald, and the Tri-City Record, and are aimed at key swing states Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin, according to the report.

PayPal Updates User Policy to Include Possible $2,500 Fine For Speech It Doesn't Like.  It's no big secret that Big Tech's tentacles have a vast reach, with platforms like Facebook and Twitter admitting in so many words after the fact to deliberately suppressing news content prior to the 2020 presidential election that portrayed then-Democratic nominee for president Joe Biden and his international wheelin' and dealin' son Hunter in a less than flattering light being one of the more notable examples.  But as has already been made clear by online payment systems like PayPal and Venmo, even more silencing of alternative points of view is needed in the form of financial strangulation if necessary, which can occur via shutting down accounts entirely or, in PayPal's case, will soon also potentially include $2,500 fines for WrongThink, according to a recently updated acceptable use policy set to take effect in November.

PayPal to expand its speech restriction rules in November.  PayPal's clause about taking users' funds for a violation of its rules has long been established.  But, as published on September 26th and to be effective on November 3rd, 2022, PayPal will add restrictions to its acceptable use policy that go beyond illegal activities and fraud and into the realm of policing speech.  The updated policy prohibits users from using PayPal for activities that:  "Involve the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials that, in PayPal's sole discretion, (a) are harmful, obscene, harassing, or objectionable ... (e) depict, promote, or incite hatred or discrimination of protected groups or of individuals or groups based on protected characteristics (e.g. race, religion, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.) ... (g) are fraudulent, promote misinformation ... or (i) are otherwise unfit for publication."  Big Tech platforms are increasingly finding ways to punish people's speech under the guise of banning [Emoji] "misinformation," and making themselves as the arbiters of truth in deciding what is and isn't true.

Update:
PayPal Pulls Back, Says It Won't Fine Customers $2,500 for 'Misinformation' after Backlash.  PayPal has backtracked on a published policy that would have fined users $2,500 for spreading "misinformation," claiming the update had gone out "in error."  "An AUP notice recently went out in error that included incorrect information.  PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy.  Our teams are working to correct our policy pages.  We're sorry for the confusion this has caused," a spokesperson told National Review in a written statement.

Additional update:
PayPal claims policy of $2,500 'misinformation' fines was posted in error.  PayPal faced criticism online for a policy that would have fined users $2,500 for spreading "misinformation" — a policy that the payment platform later said was released in error.  An "Acceptable Use Policy," which the post said was to go into effect Nov. 3, included "prohibited activities" such as the "ending, posting, or publication of messages, content, or materials that meet certain criteria."  Anything that was found to "promote misinformation" would be punished with "liquidated damages" of $2,500.00.  But now, references to misinformation do not appear in the current policy, and a representative for PayPal said the post about the fine was made by mistake, as backlash mounted on Saturday.

The Editor says...
Others before me have pointed out that any changes to PayPal's terms and conditions are carefully reviewed by a team of lawyers before they are posted.  They are never accidentally published.

Outsourced censorship: Feds used private entity to target millions of social posts in 2020.  A consortium of four private groups worked with the departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and State to censor massive numbers of social media posts they considered misinformation during the 2020 election, and its members then got rewarded with millions of federal dollars from the Biden administration afterwards, according to interviews and documents obtained by Just the News.  The Election Integrity Partnership is back in action again for the 2022 midterm elections, raising concerns among civil libertarians that a chilling new form of public-private partnership to evade the First Amendment's prohibition of government censorship may be expanding.  The consortium is comprised of four member organizations: Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public, the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, and social media analytics firm Graphika.  It set up a concierge-like service in 2020 that allowed federal agencies like Homeland's Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and State's Global Engagement Center to file "tickets" requesting that online story links and social media posts be censored or flagged by Big Tech.

Report: 'Election Integrity' Project Worked with Feds to Censor News Sites in 2020.  A coalition of globalist nonprofits, academic institutions, and one private company reportedly worked with arms of the federal government and Democrat activist organizations to censor news websites in the runup to the 2020 election, and plans to do so again in 2022.  The consortium, called the Election Integrity Partnership, is made up of four organizations:  the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public, the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, and Graphika, a social media analytics company.

Political Censorship Campaign Unconstitutionally Targeted Millions of Americans.  The United States government is unconstitutionally targeting millions of Americans for their political speech by directly contracting with private 'third parties' that flag their viewpoints for alleged 'misinformation.'  The federal government has contracted with at least five private companies or public non-profits to 'flag' Americans' views on everything from Covid-19 to the 2020 election.  In an editorial at Just the News, John Solomon and Greg Piper reported on four of these groups, but the report suggests that the radical left's operation to chill free speech is just the tip of the iceberg.  "A consortium of four private groups worked with the departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and State to censor massive numbers of social media posts they considered misinformation during the 2020 election, and its members then got rewarded with millions of federal dollars from the Biden administration afterwards, according to interviews and documents obtained by Just the News."

Some Helpful Ideas For Biden's Impeachment.  [Scroll down] Maybe they could also get to the bottom of the FBI's role in limiting speech on social media platforms during the 2020 election.  The White House, after all, has proven to be quite comfortable attempting to dictate speech.  In July 2021, the White House admitted it was "flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation."  The White House not-so-subtly threatened social media platforms to suppress certain political opinions and stories.  Under what constitutional power does the president get to dictate what should be considered mis- or dis-information?  And under what power does Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas get to create an Orwellian "Disinformation Governance Board?"  How pervasive is the law enforcement agency's contact with media companies?

New Zealand prime minister shows why gun rights matter.  Following the deadly shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand enacted a series of gun control measures that removed AR-15s and similar rifles from law-abiding citizens.  This was touted as a necessary measure required to prevent such another horrific event from happening.  However, many of us have long argued that such measures are actually a first step on the road toward tyranny.  New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern probably doesn't agree with that.  In fact, I suspect that she disagrees with it so strongly that she'd like to ban anyone from saying that.

Traitors: NBC News slammed after suggesting that the Feds should begin censoring text messages.  NBC News has proven yet again that 'mainstream' media outlets in America are nothing but propagandists for the deep state, which is exactly the opposite of the vision our founders had for a "free press."  NBC published a story exaggerating the issue of supposed "disinformation" going out via text messages, citing one campaign that nearly ended what the outlet described as "abortion protections" in Kansas to make its point.  In addition, the 'story' referenced a former Obama campaign official, Scott Goodstein, who "built the bulk text messaging apparatus for" the former president's 2008 campaign, who now claims that Americans are being inundated with text message "disinformation."

New Zealand's Jacinda Ardern at the U.N.: 'Disinformation' Should Be Controlled Like Guns, Bombs, and Nukes.  New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called for more "collective" action in her address to the U.N. General Assembly on Friday, especially on the issues of climate change, nuclear non-proliferation, pandemic response, and opposing wars of aggression such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine.  Ardern's authoritarian impulses were on display in her call for tighter regulations on Internet speech, although she insisted she values free speech and merely wishes to cleanse "disinformation" from international discourse.  Ardern portrayed the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, which New Zealand addressed with some of the heaviest lockdowns to be found outside of communist China, as a painful lesson that "schooled" mankind in the importance of "collective action."  "It forced us to acknowledge how interconnected, and therefore how reliant we are on one another," she said of the pandemic.

Senator Ron Johnson Blasts Big Tech Execs for Double Standards on Misinformation.  Thursday, Senator Ron Johnson took it to Big Tech for their practices of silencing and banning one side of the vaccine debate while letting the pro-vaccine crowd get away with mis and disinformation.  His presentation left them silent.  "During that time period when President Biden lied to the American public, 'This was a pandemic of the unvaxed.  And if you got vaccinated, you're not going to go the hospital.  You're not going to be in [an] ICU unit, and you're not going to die.'  Well, 63.5 % of the people fully vaccinated were dying in England at the exact same time.  Why didn't you pull this?  Have you ever labeled the President the United States' comment as misinformation?  Have you ever done that?"  Silence ensues.  "Any of you?  I'll take that as a no."

Shut up, they explained.  President Biden has already mused that the US government has F-15s ready to go should they be needed to suppress the MAGA crowd.  They have even invented a term for people who think and talk like you and me: stochastic terrorists.  A quick search on Google for the term "stochastic terrorism" (the neologism being used to describe the violence of unapproved speech) shows a disturbing growth in the use of the term.  (Stochastic terrorism:  "The use of mass public communication, usually against a particular individual or group, which incites or inspires acts of terrorism which are statistically probable but happen seemingly at random.")  [Illustration]  Fear not, readers.  The Brookings Institution is here to root out stochastic terrorism and aid in its suppression.  And since we live in the Internet age, it may yet be possible to avoid the use of using Hellfire missiles and drones and resort to less kinetic tactics, such as deplatforming the offenders.  After all, hunting down and killing these dangerous free thinkers should only be a last resort.  They are now rating podcasts in a manner that is reminiscent of the Chinese Social Credit score.

Mayorkas officially cancels DHS disinformation board.  Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas put the final kibosh on his disinformation governance board on Wednesday [8/24/2022], after a review he ordered came back with a firm recommendation that the idea was a stinker.  The board had been on hold since May, when Mr. Mayorkas hit pause after a botched rollout that saw critics accusing him of Orwellian attempts to silence people who had competing views on issues of the day.  Mr. Mayorkas had insisted that wasn't his goal.  But the pick of Nina Jankowicz, who had a history of spreading dodgy information, to lead the board, as well as revelations that the board had been trying to coordinate directly with major tech companies had fatally damaged the secretary's plans.

Biden Administration calls for censorship on energy.  This is shocking, or would be in a sane world:  Gina McCarthy, the Biden administration's National Climate Advisor, is openly calling on tech companies like Facebook and Twitter to censor any dissent from the administration's "green" fantasies.  McCarthy says the tech companies "have to stop allowing" people to disagree with Biden. [...] We wrote [elsew]here about the lawsuit that the states of Missouri and Louisiana have brought against the Biden administration, accusing it of coercing, or colluding with, tech companies to violate Americans' First Amendment rights.  Watch for Gina McCarthy's open call for censorship to be an exhibit in that case.

Republicans declare victory after panel finds Homeland Security disinformation board unnecessary.  A Homeland Security panel has recommended against the controversial Disinformation Governance Board, calling the body needless.  While not final, the recommendation from a Homeland Security Advisory Council subcommittee prompted Republicans on social media to declare victory.  While the council subcommittee said it had not decided how best to counter disinformation while "protect[ing] civil rights, civil liberties and privacy ... we have concluded there is no need for a Disinformation Governance Board."

Stelter Allows Former Ministry of Truth Head to Spread Disinformation.  On Sunday's Reliable Sources on CNN, host Brian Stelter spent the opening monologue of his show in a tizzy over the amount of disinformation on the internet and in American politics in general.  So naturally, Stelter decided to bring the former head of President Joe Biden's Ministry of Truth Nina Jankowicz to help her rehabilitate her image.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jankowicz spread disinformation herself during the interview.  Predictably, Stelter opened the segment by sucking up to her and failed to correct her on any of her lies. [...] She purposefully lied about former President Trump's ties to the Russian Alfa Bank and that he had two secret email servers to communicate with the Russians.  Both claims were and are flat-out false.  Screenshots are forever, Nina!  Of course, Stelter never confronted her about this either.

Missouri Attorney General Files Landmark Lawsuit Against Biden for Colluding with Big Tech.  Totally overlooked by the mainstream press, at the beginning of May 2022, Missouri Attorney General (AG) Eric Schmitt's office filed a landmark lawsuit against the Biden Administration.  Then, just last week, Attorney General Schmitt landed a big blow against Biden by filing a motion to prohibit the censorship conspiracy immediately. [...] The suit, brought along with the Louisiana Attorney General's Office, is filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.  In the suit, Missouri Attorney General Schmitt pounds away on the Biden regime for both conspiring with and also compelling Big Tech social media companies, to censor millions of Americans on their social media accounts through a governmentally created social media censorship program.

Kamala: the new grand inquisitor.  In short, what cannot be done by revoking the First Amendment will be done by a new government entity which, unfathomably, says nothing on behalf of straight white men and women.  I guess they are rarely victims.  This is the old (last month) "Disinformation Board" reimagined and revivified.  Our achievement-challenged VPOTUS is going to head up a group whose sole job it is to find people who claim to be harmed in some way.  The government will then wield their sword to shut down and maybe imprison anyone who dares bring up the Left's perverse, deviant, and anti-white racist policies, or an alt-position about masking or vaxxing.  The radical Left have created a new "task force" to fight back against the parents who have risen up en masse on behalf of their children who are being maleducated and sexualized in government schools.

Good News!  Harris to Head New Biden Disinformation Task Force.  The bad news is that the Biden administration's notorious Disinformation Governance Board, a flagrantly unconstitutional effort to restrict the freedom of speech that was "paused" in May after an avalanche of criticism, is back (although its Orwellian name is still on ice).  The good news is that heading up Biden's handlers' new foray into authoritarianism is none other than Vice President Kamala Harris.  This is good news because Harris has handled the previous jobs she has been given with spectacular ineptitude.  If she stays true to form this time, she may end up actually strengthening speech protections, rather than destroying them as she has been tasked to do.

Kamala Harris is Now Taking on the Big Job of Censoring the Democrats' Critics.  Kamala Harris was once rated the most radical member of the entire Senate.  Now, she's taking on the big job of policing the Internet for 'misinformation.'  And by 'misinformation,' that means political opinions that extremely partisan Democrats don't like.  [Tweet]  Kamala Harris will be heading up a new internet policy task force, the Biden administration announced on Thursday.  Its goals including "developing programs and policies" to protect "political figures" and journalists from "disinformation," "abuse" and "harassment."

Dems want to ban telling the truth.  In a virtual Axios event on Thursday, Gina McCarthy, Joe Biden's top climate official, urged tech companies to suppress truthful information about climate issues:  "The tech companies have to stop allowing specific individuals over and over again to spread disinformation," she told Axios' Alexi McCammond at a virtual event that aired Thursday.  "We need the tech companies to really jump in," McCarthy said.  "Really jump in" means to ban, suspend, delete and censor views on climate issues different from those of the Biden administration's extremists, like McCarthy.  ["]McCarthy said that overall, the problem of disinformation has shifted from disputing the reality of climate change...["]  No one has disputed the "reality of climate change." [...] The issue is not climate change per se, but rather the theory of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming that is in dispute.  On that issue, the realists are winning out over the alarmists.

It is time to admit that the American left is malevolent.  The Biden administration, the FBI, and the DOJ are willfully ignoring the Constitution and countless laws regarding the border, medical freedom, election integrity, the protection of the Supreme Court Justices, and our freedom of speech.  They abhor the views and values of conservatives and mean to squelch them.  They call any speech with which they disagree "disinformation."  Thus, their campaign against what they call "the big lie," that the 2020 election was stolen.

Mayorkas misled under oath about DHS disinfo board, GOP senators charge.  Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has been accused of misleading top Republican senators about the purposes of the controversial Disinformation Governance Board.  Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Josh Hawley argue the board was designed with more power than the top Biden official admitted during testimony.  Mayorkas repeatedly downplayed the power and role of the group during congressional testimony, telling the Senate Homeland Security Committee last month it was "established with the explicit goal of ensuring that the protection of free speech, privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties is incorporated into all of the department's disinformation work."  He contended that "we're not the truth police" and said the board "does not have any operational authority or capability."

Whistleblower said Biden's 'disinformation' board would have acted on what the government determined to be factual, would.  Senior Republicans are keeping up their attacks on the Biden administration's attempts to tackle misinformation, claiming internal documents show the Department of Homeland Security's disinformation board would have ruled on what was true and what wasn't across a broad range of issues.  Republican Senators Chuck Grassley and Josh Hawley on Wednesday [6/8/2022] wrote to the department demanding more information about how it would have worked.  They released a string of internal documents, provided by a whistleblower, they said showed the Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) would have worked with social media platforms to enable the removal of user content.

Hawley and Grassley Receive Evidence from Whistleblower Showing DHS Intent to Weaponize Social Media to Control Information.  Thanks to a DHS whistleblower who has come forward to Senators Josh Hawley and Chuck Grassley, we are now seeing the direct evidence of how the Fourth Branch of Government, specifically the Dept of Homeland Security, were planning to take control over public discussion on Big Tech platforms.  Previously the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced a new Dept of Homeland Security priority to combat disinformation on technology platforms including social media.  Many eyebrows were raised as the original CISA announcement appeared to be an open admission that the U.S. government was going to control information by applying labels, that would align with allies in social media, who need a legal justification for censorship and content removal.  The whistleblower leak confirms exactly that.  This CISA announcement was quickly followed by various government officials and agencies saying it was critical to combat Russian disinformation, as the events in Ukraine unfolded.  In essence, Ukraine was the justification for search engines like Google, DuckDuckGo, and social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to begin targeting information and content that did not align with the official U.S. government narrative.

Ill-fated DHS disinformation board pursued partnership with social-media platforms to censor content.  The Department of Homeland Security's ill-fated disinformation board would have been part of an effort to work with private social-media platforms to police their content, two senators revealed Wednesday, citing new documents provided to them by a whistleblower.  The documents described the issues that led DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to want to create the board.  Among them were such heated topics as debates over the coronavirus pandemic and efficacy of vaccines, and what Homeland Security described as "conspiracy theories about the validity and security of elections."  The documents also suggested the board would play the role of policy cop at Homeland Security, with input on disinformation budgets and a role in how the department engages with "private sector stakeholders."

The Biden Regime Claimed That Their 'Disinformation Board' Was Just For Advisory Purposes; Newly Released Documents Paint A Darker Picture.  The Biden regime's now-defunct 'disinformation board' was supposed to serve an advisory role, according to DHS officials.  The board was disbanded after the person who was supposed to lead it, Nina Jankowicz, was harshly criticized for statements on social media and promoting disinformation of her own, including the discredited Russiagate scandal.  The Board also came under fire by Republican politicians and the general public for bearing an eerie resemblance to the 'Ministry of Truth' in George Orwell's "1984".  Newly released documents indicate that those accusations were correct.

Grassley, Hawley demand details on Disinfo Board after whistleblower revelations.  The Associated Press reported yesterday that GOP senators Chuck Grassley (Iowa) and Josh Hawley (Missouri) are demanding that the Department of Homeland Security provide them with specifics on how it planned to coordinate its Disinformation Governance Board with social media companies to remove user content after a whistleblower provided them with key documents about the board. [...] The public learned about the Disinformation Governance Board when Mayorkas testified about its existence in April.  Observers were troubled by the appointment of Nina Jankowicz as the head of the board.  Jankowicz has an abominable relationship with the truth.  Back in 2020, she dismissed news about Hunter Biden's infamous laptop as "Russian disinformation."  She was an advocate of the discredited Steele dossier, funded by the Clinton campaign, that was the source of the Russian Collusion hoax.  She is also a blatant partisan with a history of embracing and spreading disinformation to undermine political opponents.  Observers were also concerned that Mayorkas wasn't explicit about the powers of the Disinformation Governance Board.  Was the board meant to be a supervisory body that would order social media firms to add disclaimers or warnings about "disinformation" and deplatform frequent peddlers of "disinformation"?  Was the board empowered to act on the ground and direct law enforcement to conduct arrests and searches?  Was the board authorized to initiate legal proceedings?

Former Obama Adviser Lets Cat out of the Bag on What Dems Want to Do to Control Us.  Former White House Communications Director for the Obama administration Dan Pfeiffer appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Monday [6/6/2022] and what he said was revealing, threatening, and great — all at the same time.  Pfeiffer claimed that the people who listen to "right-wing media" were "more likely to believe conspiracy theories about vaccines, conspiracy theories about elections. [...] He put out what was the constant theme of the segment — attacking Facebook for purveying "news," which Mika laughingly said was "not where you get news."  Because how dare you not listen to mainstream outlets like hers?  That was quietly hilarious, when you think about all the conspiracy theories that Democrats and MSNBC have pushed over the last few years, with Russia collusion, paid for and spread by the DNC, with the Clinton campaign top of the list.  People on the left believe all kinds of crazy things about pee tapes and Ginni Thomas (Justice Clarence Thomas' wife) trying to "overthrow" the government (big scoop: she did no such thing) because of the crazy pushed by liberal mainstream media.  Meanwhile, while there's a lot from the mainstream against conspiracy theories on the right, there's not so much targeted at deflating the conspiracy theories that flourish on the left.

Unchecked by Courts, Government Censorship of Social Media Platforms Will Prove Fatal to Free Speech.  The Biden administration's increasingly aggressive efforts to combat so-called misinformation, along with the prospective acquisition of Twitter by free speech advocate Elon Musk, have sparked a national debate about what role, if any, the government should play in censoring social media.  While some have applauded the administration's campaign to police online "misinformation" about COVID-19 and other subjects, including through its recent creation of a "Disinformation Governance Board" within the Department of Homeland Security, others have harshly criticized the notion that the government should be the arbiter of truth.  As these critics have observed, many views derided as COVID-19 "misinformation" in 2020 or 2021 — for instance, that the virus originated in a lab and that community masking appears to be relatively ineffective — are now gaining traction in mainstream circles.

One Way Government.  As the Biden administration attempted to create its own Ministry of Truth with the Disinformation Governance Board this month, it was common to hear conservatives and Republicans saying things like "just wait until President Trump or President DeSantis is the one appointing the head of that agency, then you'll be sorry." [...] The fear of a weapon in the hands of the enemy is supposed to govern the desire to wield it yourself.  Self-preservation limits the aspirations of the country's ruling class.  This check and balance that the mechanism of democracy is meant to provide may have functioned at some point in the country's past, but that's not how the United States government actually operates today.  The majority of our government's day-to-day decisions are not made by the legislature or even the President.  The elected officeholder is not even the one regularly exercising discretion.  Today, those decisions are handled by the technocracy, which is safely tucked away in our government agencies, i.e. the permanent bureaucracy that has come to be known as the deep state.

Biden Disinfo Board Advisor Once Hinted Discouraging 'Conflicting Views' Was Bad.  An advisor for the Biden administration's Ministry of Truth once suggested that discouraging differences in opinion at the government level was a bad thing.  Irony abounds!  Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) advisor Michael Chertoff signed a letter in 2016 criticizing then-presidential candidate Donald Trump for apparently discouraging "conflicting views."  Signers of the letter said regarding a potential Trump presidency:  "In our experience, a President must be willing to listen to his advisors and department heads; must encourage consideration of conflicting views; and must acknowledge errors and learn from them."

Biden's Disinformation Board may be 'paused,' but that's a sketchy claim.  [Scroll down]  The Biden administration's record on honoring democratic values (by respecting political opponents) hasn't exactly been stellar.  The protesters of January 6 are being subjected to draconian punishment.  The partisan January 6 Select Committee's sole function is to harass and intimidate political opponents.  Parents concerned about their children being indoctrinated with Critical Race Theory were branded as domestic terrorists.  Biden branded the "MAGA crowd" as "the most extreme political organization that's existed in recent American history."  Government works for the citizen.  It is a citizen's function to sit in judgment of the government, not the other way around.  When the government assumes that role and places the citizen under the microscope, it ceases to be democratic.  There were also several open questions about the Board.  The obvious question was how it was going to define "disinformation."  There were questions and concerns about the authority the board would have and whether it would be constitutional.  Would it be just within the realms of social media platforms, or would they collaborate with law enforcement to conduct arrests?  Even their most ardent fans of the Democrats — i.e., the mainstream media found it hard to defend the disinformation board.

A Cabinency of Dunces.  [Scroll down]  But one area of agreement is the sheer craziness of Biden's cabinet appointments, who have translated his incoherent ideology into catastrophic governance.  Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has essentially nullified federal immigration law.  Over 2 million foreign nationals have illegally crossed the southern border without audit — and without COVID vaccinations and tests during a pandemic.  Mayorkas either cannot or will not follow federal law.  But he did create a new Disinformation Governance Board.  To head his new Orwellian Ministry of Truth, he appointed Nina Jankowicz — an arch disinformationist who helped peddle the Russian collusion, Steele dossier, and Alfa Bank hoaxes.  While Jankowicz's adolescent videos and past tweets finally forced her resignation, Mayorkas promises his board will carry on.

Biden Is Already Plotting To Restart His 'Disinformation Board'.  [A]ll the huzzahs about the demise of the Biden administration's Orwellian "Disinformation Governance Board" are premature. [...] For starters, team Biden said it would only put a "pause" on the board in the wake of a furious backlash from the public and revelations that the woman chosen to head it had herself peddled disinformation on numerous occasions.  During this 75-day "pause," the Homeland Security Advisory Council will review the board and make "recommendations on how the department can garner public trust surrounding its disinformation efforts."  (Note statement says "how" not "if.")  Meanwhile, a Department of Homeland Security official said "the Department's critical work across several administrations to address disinformation that threatens the security of our country will continue."  The White House has also been completely unapologetic about creating the board, calling criticism of it "smears leveled by bad-faith, right-wing actors."

Caitlin Johnstone:  They Fear Information, Not Disinformation.  We're in the final countdown to British Home Secretary Priti Patel's decision on the fate of Julian Assange, with the WikiLeaks founder's extradition to the United States due to be approved or rejected by the end of the month.  Joe Lauria has an article out with Consortium News on the various pressures that Patel is facing from both sides of this history-making issue at this crucial time.  And I can't stop thinking, as this situation comes to a boil, about how absurd it is that the U.S. empire is working to set a precedent that essentially outlaws information-sharing that the U.S. doesn't like at the same time Western news media are full of hand-wringing headlines about the dangerous threat of "disinformation."  Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) has an article "'Disinformation' Label Serves to Marginalize Crucial Ukraine Facts" about the way the mass media have been spinning that label to mean not merely the knowing distribution of false information but also of information that is true but inconvenient to imperial narrative-weaving.

Homeland Security's Rebooted Disinformation Plan Is No Better Than the First.  Constitutionalists, free-speech lovers, and sane people alike cheered upon hearing the announcements that the Department of Homeland Security was disbanding its nascent Disinformation Governance Board and the board's designated head, Nina Jankowicz, was resigning.  The reasons why are obvious:  The federal government has no business determining what is truth, it is nowhere near the mission of Homeland Security, and Jankowicz had a consistently wrong record of identifying "disinformation."  But Americans should take no comfort in the fact that the Biden administration's efforts to censor information from within DHS and elsewhere will end.  In fact, the administration has announced that former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick will take the baton from Jankowicz and continue down the disinformation track.  This plan is no better than the first one.

The 'Mary Poppins of Disinformation' Inadvertently Spills the Truth About What the Board Was Going to Do.  Nina Jankowicz, the self-proclaimed "Mary Poppins of Disinformation" who was up until recently supposed to become the chief of Joe Biden's Orwellian and ominous Disinformation Governance Board, can't seem to stop herself from stepping on rakes.  She has complained, now that the Board has been "paused," that the Board itself was a victim of "disinformation," which casts into question how effective it could possibly have ever been, if Jankowicz couldn't even manage to counter false statements about what it was supposed to be doing.  On Monday, she made matters even worse by remarking off-handedly that the Board was meant to do something that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had said it would not be doing: countering "disinformation" not just from foreign sources, but from Americans.

Homeland Security Pick To Clean Up 'Disinfo Board' Pushed Disinfo Himself.  The Biden administration is calling in backup to bail out its Disinformation Governance Board just days after a disastrous launch.  Their ringer is a former government official who blamed Russia for the Hunter Biden laptop story.  Department of Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas this week tapped former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff to advise the board.  Its executive director, Nina Jankowicz, had come under fire after she asserted the release of Biden's emails was a "Russian influence op." Chertoff has made similar claims, arguing after the 2020 election that "human intelligence sources" — referring to Russian spies — likely obtained emails from Hunter Biden's computer.  Chertoff dismissed as "preposterous" the claim that the emails were recovered after Biden abandoned his laptop at a computer repair shop.  Chertoff's appointment could signal more trouble for the board, which has come under intense scrutiny from Republicans.

The Typhoid Mary of Disinformation.  The most blatant and shameless liars from the first term of the Bush/Cheney administration have, revealingly, enjoyed great success in media and journalism.  That is because serial deceit is not a liability for a thriving career in corporate journalism but rather a vital asset — provided that the lies are in service of ruling class policies.  Tawdry propagandists who helped drive post-9/11 America into a bottomless pit of lies and self-destruction have become the most highly-paid and beloved stars of liberal media.

Obama Supercharged the Left's Embrace of Censorship.  It seems every day some notable Democrat is pushing for censorship.  After the horrific Buffalo mass murder on May 14, New York Governor Hochul threatened social media companies for not purging "hate speech," that dangerously elusive term that has the potential to cover anything Democrats don't like.  Former New York mayor Bill de Blasio demanded that Congress pass legislation to "reign in the spread of hate" on the Internet.  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had the audacity to send a formal letter to Fox News ordering the network to "immediately cease the reckless amplification" of ideas he blamed for the Buffalo shooting.  MSNBC's Carl Cameron insisted that "it's time to actually start doing things" to control speech, such as "maybe taking some names and putting people in jail."  And all of these attacks on free speech are occurring while President Biden is flirting with the creation of a "Ministry of Truth" and the Democratic National Committee is "working with" Big Tech to "enforce a comprehensive political misinformation policy."

Disinformation Board Paused, 'Mary Poppins' Director Out, but Biden Suppression of Free Speech Continues.  After only a few weeks, the unconstitutional, correctly criticized federal Disinformation Governance Board has been "paused" and "Minister of Truth" Nina Jankowicz has resigned.  It is appropriate to celebrate, but amid statements from the White House saying the "work is going to continue," we should beware that some version of the board will quietly pop up again in the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies.  And we should be ready to expose the suppression of free speech wherever it continues.  As many have pointed out, this effort was entirely unconstitutional from the start and violated the First Amendment.  The board even opened President Joe Biden and Jankowicz up to robust lawsuits from two states.  The Constitution clearly states that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech."  The executive branch cannot abridge free speech either, nor can the federal government collude with Big Tech to censor free speech, as they are wont to do.

Biden's 'disinformation board' is paused after just three weeks following outrage over its head Nina Jankowicz pushing debunked Russian collusion claims.  The controversial head of the Department of Homeland Security's disinformation board resigned on Wednesday following weeks of attacks on her appointment and as it emerged that the panel was being 'paused' only three weeks after it was set up.  The board was intended to combat misinformation but critics quickly homed in on the role of its chief, Nina Jankowicz, and her history fighting disinformation and extremism.  In particular, they questioned her expertise after it emerged she had dismissed the 2020 discovery of Hunter Biden's laptop as being a 'Trump campaign product.'

Disinformation Czar Resigns, Board On 'Pause' Following Criticism She Spread Disinformation.  The Department of Homeland Security put a "pause" Monday on its disinformation board after the truth czar, who resigned Wednesday [5/18/2022], came under fire for spreading disinformation herself, The Washington Post reported.  DHS shut the board down Monday and Nina Jankowicz, who was tapped to lead the department, drafted a resignation letter Tuesday, according to The Washington Post.  Jankowicz was reportedly pulled into a meeting late Tuesday night, however, with officials giving her the chance to stay on as the department determines whether to move forward with the highly polarized board.  Jankowicz formally resigned Wednesday, according to The Washington Post's Taylor Lorenz.

Executive Director of Biden's Ministry of Truth Resigns.  After a rough three weeks in which conservatives landed significant hits on and exposed major flaws with the Department of Homeland Security's "Disinformation Governance Board," the much-mocked Ministry of Truth has been "paused" and Disinfo Czar Nina Jankowicz is looking to the exits.  This news, comes from a new "scoop" reported by none other than The Washington Post's Taylor Lorenz.  Most of permanent-victim Lorenz's post is the same pablum we've seen from the mainstream media about how extremely qualified Jankowicz is and how critical the threat of so-called disinformation is to democracy — all without mentioning that Jankowicz has been a leading voice pushing debunked narratives and outright false information.

Wicked witch of the woke Nina Jankowicz resigns as Disinformation Governance Board is put on 'pause'.  Just when I thought the Biden administration was beyond shame, it (at least temporarily) pulled the plug on the Disinformation Governance Board, causing the buffoonish Nina Jankowicz to resign.  I can't recall a speedier and more embarrassing belly flop of a government initiative than the announcement of this transparently Orwellian state organ, headed by a cringeworthy exhibitionist besotted with her own musical talent and purported wisdom.

The Editor says...
I wonder who will be the next person to hire Nina Jankowicz.

Biden Regime Hires Michael Chertoff to Lead Disinformation Board.  The Biden regime announced on Wednesday they hired Michael Chertoff, another Hunter Biden laptop truther to lead the government's Disinformation Board.  Chertoff has worked as an attorney at Covington & Burling.  Chertoff is the co-author of the Patriot Act that allowed the federal government to spy on its citizens.  Michael Chertoff was a board member of a website Alliance for Securing Democracy that claimed it was tracking Russian disinformation during the Trump years.  Its real purpose is to smear websites supportive of Donald Trump and his accomplishments as Russian propaganda.  In this venture, Chertoff and his colleagues labeled The Gateway Pundit and Breitbart as top Russia disinformation websites because we did not believe the media lies on the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.

The Clownish Disinfo Czar Got The Boot, But Biden's 'Ministry Of Truth' Hired Monster Replacements.  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) hired the co-author of the PATRIOT Act, arguably the harshest crackdown on civil liberties in modern American history, and an official under former President Bill Clinton to head the Disinformation Governance Board during its "pause."  The DHS shut the board down Monday after just several weeks and its head, Nina Jankowicz, wrote a resignation letter Tuesday, according to The Washington Post.  Jankowicz was scrutinized for pushing disinformation about Hunter Biden's laptop and the now-discredited Steele Dossier, which Daniel Hoffman, a former CIA officer, said was possibly "part of a Russian espionage disinformation plot." She also called Republicans who criticize critical race theory (CRT) "disinformers." Videos of her singing as the "Mary Poppins of disinformation," "[...]" and satirical, sexualized renditions of Harry Potter themes have also raised eyebrows.  The department announced Wednesday former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff and former U.S. Deputy Secretary General Jamie Gorelick under Clinton "will lead a thorough review and assessment" of the board that was "grossly and intentionally mischaracterized."

DHS Says [the] Disinformation Board [is] Being 'Paused' Due to Harassment of Its Chief Enforcer.  Is there hope for freedom of speech in America after all, despite all of the Left's efforts to destroy it?  Maybe:  the Washington Post announced Wednesday [5/18/2022] that "just three weeks after its announcement, the Disinformation Governance Board is being 'paused,' according to multiple employees at DHS, capping a back-and-forth week of decisions that changed during the course of reporting of this story." [...] However, there are plenty of enemies of the First Amendment within the DHS, and so after the Board was killed, it became undead: [...]

Cowardly Dems Can No Longer Defend Their Idiotic 'Disinformation' Czar; Decide To Cancel Her Senate Hearing.  Democrats' decision to appoint a 'Disinformation Czar' to work in the Department of Homeland Security has generated significant controversy since the decision was made last month.  Many people have taken to calling the newly created disinformation board the 'Ministry of Truth', the name given to a propaganda ministry in George Orwell's book '1984'.  If the creation of the new board wasn't controversial enough, the Disinformation Czar, Nina Jankowicz, has landed herself in hot water for incendiary political comments she made prior to her appointment.  Last week, she said that verified Twitter users such as herself should be able to edit other users' Tweets so that they can add context to them.

Did the Disinformation Governance Board originate in a D.C. think tank?  The Department of Homeland Security's new and controversial Disinformation Governance Board may have originated from an under-the-radar think tank report that called on the department to change its focus by prioritizing "nonmilitary threats," such as white supremacism and disinformation.  The report, titled "Future of DHS Project:  Key Findings and Recommendations," was published in September 2020 by the Atlantic Council, which is headquartered in Washington, D.C. and committed to a mission of "shaping the global future together."  Thomas Warrick and Caitlin Durkovich, the report's authors, both served in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) but left their posts during the Trump administration.  Durkovich currently serves on the White House National Security Council.

Former Fox News reporter wants Biden to start putting people in jail for 'misinformation'.  A face you're surely to recognize, former Fox News reporter Carl Cameron, was on MSNBC bashing Fox News and Republicans as purveyors of misinformation today in the aftermath of the massacre in Buffalo.  Not only did Cameron accuse Republicans of being the purveyors of misinformation, essentially blaming them and Fox News for the shooting, but he suggested that it's time for Biden to start putting them in jail for it.

Biden Tries Controlling (Dis)Information.  The goal of tyrants, dictators, and oppressive governments is to gain power and then stay in power.  They largely do this by controlling information — the information available and who has access to it.  Information is power, and tyrants use information to gain power. [...] State-sponsored media in countries like the Soviet Union, North Korea, China, Turkey, and Iran insured the people heard only what the government allowed.  All other information was labeled "disinformation" and was banned.  Facts that made the government look bad were banned as dangerous misinformation, were not allowed to be disseminated, and became a crime to share. [...] Leftists in America have long been enthralled with communists, tyrants, and dictators; largely because those regimes control information, and thus control the people.

Biden's "Minster of Truth" Nina Jankowicz Participated in Secret NATO-Funded Cabal to Subvert Western Democracies Using Disinformation as Cover.  As Revolver and others have covered, Nina "Moaning Myrtle" Jankowicz is a joke.  The Harry Potter superfan-turned-propagandrix is now the Biden Administration's chosen head for the "Disinformation Governance Board."  Among many other embarrassing videos in circulation is the following clip of Nina Jankowicz bizarrely and emphatically dismissing the notion of the so-called "deep state."  [Video clip] [...] Whatever one thinks of the precise term "deep state," Nina badly wants everyone to dismiss the very concept of secret groups operating within Washington.  She works "with and around" them after all, and she says such a cabal or network of cabals does not exist.  In fact, Nina does know the truth, and it's the opposite of what she claims above.  Nina's name appeared in one of the most explosive and aggressively censored national security leaks of the century.  The leak in question exposed the "Integrity Initiative," a dark government-funded NGO that appears to have engaged in political meddling and covert influence operations in Western countries under the guise of fighting "disinformation."

Fauci Gets the Giggles When Asked Why White House is Spreading Disinformation About COVID Vaccine Availability.  Fake News CNN's Jake Tapper asks White House Chief Medical Advisor Anthony Fauci why the White House is sending out false information, aka 'disinformation', about when the COVID vaccines were available.  Fauci giggles, laughs and says "I have no idea."  [Video clip]

Meet the Head of Biden's New "Disinformation Governing Board".  Late last month, the Joe Biden administration publicly confirmed that a "Disinformation Governing Board" working group had been created within the Department of Homeland Security.  The news prompted a flood of concern about the impact of such an Orwellian organ on America.  But there's no need to engage in hypotheticals to understand the dangers.  One has to only consider the past of Nina Jankowicz, the head of the new disinformation board.  Jankowicz's experience as a disinformation warrior includes her work with StopFake, a US government-funded "anti-disinformation" organization founded in March 2014 and lauded as a model of how to combat Kremlin lies.  Four years later, StopFake began aggressively whitewashing two Ukrainian neo-Nazi groups with a long track record of violence, including war crimes.  Today, StopFake is an official Facebook fact-checking partner, which gives it the power to censor news, while Jankowicz is America's disinformation czar.

This sounds like disinformation:
White House falsely claims 'no vaccine' was available when Biden took office.  The official White House Twitter account posted false COVID-19 information Thursday [5/12/2022], wrongly claiming there was "no vaccine available" when President Biden took office in January 2021.  "When President Biden took office, millions were unemployed and there was no vaccine available," the verified account tweeted to its 7 million followers Thursday.  "In the last 15 months, the economy has created 8.3 [million] jobs and the unemployment rate stands at 3.6% — the fastest decline in unemployment to start a President's term ever recorded," the tweet concluded.  But eagle-eyed critics were quick to point out that the 79-year-old Biden actually received his first dose of the vaccine on December 2020 — a month before he moved in at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Meet the Head of Biden's New "Disinformation Governing Board".  Late last month, the Joe Biden administration publicly confirmed that a "Disinformation Governing Board" working group had been created within the Department of Homeland Security.  The news prompted a flood of concern about the impact of such an Orwellian organ on America.  But there's no need to engage in hypotheticals to understand the dangers.  One has to only consider the past of Nina Jankowicz, the head of the new disinformation board.  Jankowicz's experience as a disinformation warrior includes her work with StopFake, a US government-funded "anti-disinformation" organization founded in March 2014 and lauded as a model of how to combat Kremlin lies.  Four years later, StopFake began aggressively whitewashing two Ukrainian neo-Nazi groups with a long track record of violence, including war crimes.

Fauci, Biden, Psaki Sued in Major Big Tech Collusion Lawsuit!  Things continue to get worse for the apparatchiks of the ruling regime:  now, in addition to losing the abortion battle and much of the mask battle in the courts at the same time that Elon Musk is taking a hammer to the censorship regime by buying Twitter, Fauci and Biden just got rocked by a massive lawsuit.  That lawsuit, filed last Thursday by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, names Biden, Psaki, Dr. Fauci, and Nina Jankowicz (the Disinformation Board woman) as defendants and accuses them of colluding with Big Tech to crush certain messages on platforms like Facebook and YouTube under the guise of fighting "misinformation".

Head of Biden's 'Ministry of Truth' Previously Compared Free Speech to "Fairy Dust".  The head of what has been dubbed the Biden administration's 'Ministry of Truth' previously compared free speech to "fairy dust" during testimony about social media censorship in front of the UK Parliament. [...] Nina Jankowicz, recently appointed DHS 'disinformation czar,' made the comments while providing oral evidence regarding the implementation of the UK's controversial Online Safety Bill, which will ban legal content which has "the potential to cause harm."  After agreeing that the government should set minimum speech standards which ban "misogyny," Jankowicz blasted alternative social media platforms for supporting "freedom of expression and fairy dust."  She also said that government-connected communications regulators such as Ofcom should "be able to establish the minimum standards that would be applied to all platforms and incur fines."

Power-Drunk Disinfo Czar Wants to Control People's Tweets.  Joe Biden's new disinformation czar, Nina Jankowicz, wallowing in the authoritarian power that the role has given her, has proclaimed that she wants "verified" people to edit the Twitter posts of other people.  As part of a Zoom call with fellow leftists, Jankowicz explained how she wants Twitter to operate similar to Wikipedia, which allows anyone to edit and add information about a topic — but only if they have been verified, as she has been, reported Summit News.  "I am eligible for it because I am verified," she explained about her sainted status on Wiki and how, presumably, it would translate to other social media under her directives.

Clueless, pharma-infested FDA now says independent media is "leading cause of death in US".  The leading cause of death in the United States today is not heart disease but rather "independent media," according to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) chief Dr. Robert Cardiff.  A Joe Biden appointee, Califf claimed during a recent appearance on CNN that independent media outlets must be purged from existence immediately if there is to be any hope of ending the scourge of death throughout the country.  Only corporate-controlled, government-approved fake news outlets like CNN should be allowed to exist and spread information online, Califf maintains.  Allowing free speech, he says, will result in "deadly misinformation" spreading and influencing people's health decisions.

At Last We're Getting Some (Chilling) Hints About What the Disinformation Chief Wants to Do.  Old Joe Biden's handlers haven't been able to give us a clear answer about what the Department of Homeland Security's ominous new Disinformation Governance Board is actually going to do.  But now its censorship power-drunk chief, Nina Jankowicz, has provided a detailed description of an authority she wants to have in order to fight this alleged disinformation, and it's downright chilling.  So far, the powers behind the Disinformation Board haven't been able to get their stories straight about exactly what "disinformation" the Board would supposedly combat.  When Politico first revealed the existence of the Board, it said it would be "countering misinformation related to homeland security, focused specifically on irregular migration and Russia."  Then DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas went further, saying it would "combat this threat not only to election security, but to our homeland security."  Jen Psaki then suggested that it would be dealing with supposed disinformation about "COVID for example, and also elections and eligibility."  Under fire over this brazen assault on the First Amendment, Mayorkas claimed that the Board would not be dealing with the statements of American citizens at all.

Conservatives question true motives of Biden's DHS disinformation board.  Conservatives who oppose the controversial Disinformation Governance Board doubt the Biden administration's claims that it is narrowly focused on foreign threats and not censorship, saying the board would then be housed by a different federal agency.  The Biden administration says the Department of Homeland Security's new disinformation board is focused on noncontroversial foreign threats that both parties agree should be combated, but conservatives are fiercely skeptical.  Republicans see the board as a vessel for the government to determine what information is considered true and false and thereby censor conservative speech.  Some top House Republicans are even eager to threaten a government shutdown to nix the board if necessary.

Disinformation Chief Jankowicz Defended Hunter's Corrupt Burisma Deals.  President Biden's DHS disinformation chief Nina Jankowicz defended Hunter Biden's corrupt dealings with Burisma Holdings during a July 2020 book interview — calling the Biden scion, known for crack addiction and selling influence, a "foreign expert."  Hunter sat on the board of the Ukrainian Burisma Holdings company from 2014 to 2019, while Joe Biden was vice president and campaigned for president during the 2020 election cycle.  Hunter was compensated $83,000 per month as a board director, which raises questions if Hunter was selling influence to his father in the Obama administration.  Joe Biden and his staff have denied at least seven times that Biden has been involved in his son's dealings.  But evidence shows Joe Biden was involved in Hunter's business affairs at least eleven times.

American Matrix:  Biden's Disinformation Governance Board.  The Biden administration's announcement of creating a new 'Disinformation Governance Board' reveals desperation in the face of Americans waking up to overwhelming evidence of coverup and deceit by mainstream and social media on life and death matters.  First, people are coming to realize the truth behind the so-called COVID-19 pandemic, with all the attendant life-threatening bad advice and loss of Constitutional freedoms and rights that took place.  Second, people are now seeing documentary proof of undeniable evidence of industrial-scale vote fraud that drove an illegitimate result in the November 2020 elections.  Many have drawn parallels between Biden's 'Disinformation Governance Board' and George Orwell's 'Ministry of Truth,' arguing that it's a threat to First Amendment free speech.  But wait.  Haven't we already been living in the matrix of an Orwellian world, with freedom of speech in America hanging by a thread even before this crazy Disinformation Governance Board was hatched?

Ministry of Misinformation:  Freedom is Slavery!  Since Elon Musk, who I think is one strange person, started buying Twitter stock, and overnight became the largest stock holder of the company, the media world went nuts.  When he bought it, the media world, leftists, Democrats, government bureaucrats, RINO's, pundits and lunatic Hollywood Stars, went apoplectic.  They're outraged that "an independent-thinking billionaire like Elon Musk could ever get control of a media outlet".  Amazing, since not one of them were outraged at leftist billionaires like "Michael Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and the Google billionaires running media outlets:
  •   CEO Jeff Bezos reinvented the failing, Washington Post he bought for $250 million.
  •   CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post, the New York Times, ABC, NBC, and CBS continually collude on what to report and how to report.  They all suppressed the true story about Hunter Biden's laptop because they were campaigning for his dad.
  •   They intentionally interfered in the election.
  •   They all intentionally spread the lies about Russian collusion as they colluded with the Democrats.
  •   They all suppress anyone who dared disagree with Dr. Anthony Fauci and the CDC.

20 States Threaten Legal Action Over the Ministry of Truth.  The attorneys general of 20 states have threatened legal action against the US government unless they disband the newly formed Disinformation Governance Board.  We shared with you recently an article about the people behind the DGB, who have a history of trying to curb dissenting speech by calling it "disinformation." [...] In a letter addressed to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the Attorney General of Virginia, Jason Miyares, spoke for the AGs of 19 other states and shared his concerns about the overreach.

5 Signals Of Government Disinformationists.  The lies of politicians and federal agency bureaucrats are particularly dangerous because we want to believe these groups.  Few want to accept the notion our fabled FBI, DOJ, or HHS are corrupt [or] dishonest.  Pundits, often from government, blame social media and extremist groups for spreading falsehoods.  But we expect outlets like Slate, the Daily Beast, or The Blaze, and Newsmax to be biased.  When we watch them, we know we what we are getting.  Twitter personalities, no matter how many followers they gain, will never hold the clout of the federal government.  Because of its outsized reach through its agencies, NGO's, big tech, association publications, paid "fact-checkers", and the legacy media, government is the most effective disseminator of disinformation and the greatest threat to our safety and security.

More Evidence the Biden Administration Does Not Care About Misinformation.  The Biden administration has once again shown that it does not truly care about misinformation.  While Democrats and their comrades in the activist media have railed against false narratives — except for the ones they promote — it has become clear that their fixation on misinformation is nothing more than a cover for their true agenda:  Suppressing voices they don't like.  Last week, the White House announced it was enlisting Karine Jean-Pierre to replace press secretary Jen Psaki after she resigns on May 13th.  It was touted as a historic moment.  The nation would finally have its first black homosexual official tasked with lying to the public about the many failings of the president.  The announcement came about a week after it was revealed that the administration had created a Disinformation Governance Board ostensibly to counter false information coming from foreign actors like Russia and Mexican cartels.

Biden FDA Chief Insists "Misinformation" is Impacting Life Expectancy in the US.  So much for COVID, abortions, cancer, heart attacks, violent crime, or fentanyl killing off people like the plague.  They all need to move aside.  There's a new threat that has been identified by the 'experts.'  Now, the Biden regime says that online "misinformation" — a/k/a the exercising of free speech rights — is impacting life expectancy in the United States, according to Biden's FDA chief Robert Califf.  And no, he isn't talking about all of the "safe and effective" propaganda that has been force-fed to populations around the globe by elitist tyrants who are hellbent on jabbing them full of experimental mRNA treatments — actually, it's quite the opposite.

Official Co-Leading Biden Disinfo Board Worked for George Soros.  A member of President Joe Biden's Orwellian Disinformation Governance Board has close ties to liberal billionaire activist George Soros.  Disinformation Governance Board leader Jennifer Daskal has at least three connections to Soros.  Daskal previously served as an Open Society Institute fellow "working on issues related to privacy and law enforcement access to data across borders."  Daskal also worked as senior counterterrorism counsel for the anti-Semitic Human Rights Watch.  HRW received at least $32,106,746 from Soros between 2000 and 2014 alone.  Daskal was also founding editor of the Just Security blog.  Soros' Open Society Foundations gave $675,000 to Just Security between 2017 and 2019.  Daskal's involvement with the censorship board fits right in with the Soros agenda.  Soros has been involved in funding a litany of so-called fact-checking operations, making the revelation of Daskal's Soros-tie par for the course.

This sounds like disinformation:
NPR's Nina Totenberg: 'Leading theory' is conservative clerk leaked abortion opinion.  One of the Supreme Court's longtime reporters said the "leading theory" is that a conservative clerk leaked the majority draft opinion indicating the high court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade.  Nina Totenberg, a legal affairs correspondent for NPR, said the only theory that makes sense is that the leak came from someone who "was afraid that this majority might not hold."

Biden's New Press Secretary Turns out to Be a Big Fan of Conspiracy Theories.  Remember when denying the legitimacy of any election was not only disqualifying but also got you kicked off Jake Tapper's low-rated CNN show?  I wonder if that rule will hold for Karine Jean-Pierre, who is set to take over as Joe Biden's press secretary on May 13th.  I think we all know the answer to that.  Apparently, Jean-Pierre has a colorful history on social media, and now some of her old tweets are painting a far different picture than the one she's tried to present since joining the White House.  Far from the level-headed, straight shooter that she wants people to believe she is, Jean-Pierre is apparently a conspiratorial lunatic.

This sounds like disinformation:
Biden's new WH press secretary claimed Trump, GA Gov. Kemp 'stole' elections.  President Biden's new White House press secretary has previously claimed the 2016 presidential election was "stolen" from Hillary Clinton and that Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp "stole" the 2018 gubernatorial election from Stacey Abrams.  "Stolen emails, stolen drone, stolen election .....welcome to the world of #unpresidented Trump," Karine Jean-Pierre tweeted after former President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential win, repeating Clinton's claims that Trump was illegitimately elected.  "Reminder:  Brian Kemp stole the gubernatorial election from Georgians and Stacey Abrams," Jean-Pierre tweeted on April 2, 2020, reacting to a news story about Kemp saying he only just learned that asymptomatic people can spread COVID-19.

Biden FEC pick claimed Georgia voting machines 'switched' votes from Abrams to Kemp in 2018.  President Biden's recent nominee to serve on the Federal Election Commission represented a Stacey Abrams-backed nonprofit in a lawsuit that made several unproven allegations of voter suppression.  Nominee Dara Lindenbaum also signed on to court papers alleging voting machines "switched" votes during the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race.  The Senate Rules and Administration Committee held a confirmation hearing for Lindenbaum, a lawyer with the Washington firm of Sandler, Reiff, Lamb, Rosenstein & Birkenstock, to be a commissioner on the FEC.  Days later, the Georgia trial for Fair Fight Action and Care in Action v. Raffensperger began in U.S. District Court in Atlanta.  Lindenbaum's name appears as the third signature on the original complaint in the lawsuit alleging voter suppression in the race that saw then-Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp defeat Abrams by 55,000 votes statewide in the governor's race.

Biden's Disinformation Board is a Gift to Republicans.  If you worked really hard, you might be able to come up with an idea as unappealing as a government disinformation board.  Voters already distrust the government and are especially concerned about its excessive intrusion and unchecked regulatory power.  If you worked even harder, you might find as bad a person to lead it as Nina Jankowicz, a self-styled "disinformation expert" whose real specialty seems to be spreading disinformation to support her left-wing views.  If you tried hard to justify this mess, you might come up with a defender as ineffective as Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security.  The secretary, already in deep trouble because of the porous southern border, faced a hostile Senate hearing and admitted he knew nothing about Ms. Jankowicz's dismal history of ideological fulminations and partisan statements.  He refused to say whose bright idea it was to hire her — only that he was clueless about her background.

Biden's new 'Disinformation' czar pushed debunked Russia collusion claims from Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign.  The head of President Joe Biden's new Disinformation Governance Board has a history of pushing now-debunked claims that there are ties between Russia and Donald Trump, old and recently resurfaced tweets reveal.  Nina Jankowicz promoted several claims from Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign on Twitter, including allegations that are now being looked into by special counsel John Durham.

175 House Republicans want answers on DHS disinfo board and chief.  At least 175 House Republicans are demanding answers from Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas about his department's new Disinformation Governance Board as he struggles to defend the group's creation and the choice of Nina Jankowicz as its first director.  Jankowicz, a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, will be the executive director of the Department of Homeland Security's new anti-disinformation effort.  She has a history of either labeling claims as disinformation that were later found to have credibility or giving credence to assertions that were later discredited, including those related to Hunter Biden, Christopher Steele, Iranian election meddling, the Wuhan, China, lab leak hypothesis, and more.  The House Republicans told Mayorkas in a Thursday letter they are "concerned" about Jankowicz's appointment to head the board, in part because she has "on several occasions, displayed questionable judgment on matters of disinformation and freedom of speech."  The letter was organized by Rep. Scott Franklin (R-FL).

Biden DOJ sets up a new 'Office of Environmental Justice' — headed by another fanatic.  As if we didn't need yet another government agency in this age of behemoth federal spending, the Biden administration has saddled the U.S. with a new one, the Office of Environmental Justice.  The $1.4 million monstrosity will be buried within the U.S. Department of Justice under the authority of U.S. associate attorney general, Vanita Gupta, who set up the new bureaucracy-enforcer arm.  It will be headed by one Cynthia M. Ferguson, whose title is acting director.  And you can bet it's going to be a problem. [...] We already know that activist groups have conspired with the Environmental Protection Agency for millions in payouts as well as the 'right' to write regulations themselves in exchange for not protesting the agency.  We saw the details of that scandal in the late Obama years, after President Trump's officials came to power and put a stop to it.

Bill Barr Throws Cold Water On Biden's 'Disinformation' Board And Its 'Radical' Head.  Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr denounced the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) new Disinformation Governance Board, characterizing its leader as an unqualified "radical."  "I don't think that it's the government's function to set up a panel on disinformation," Barr told the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) about the board.  DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced the disinformation board on April 27.  The board's purpose is to address disinformation and misinformation against minority communities, according to the secretary.  Nina Jankowicz, who worked at the Wilson Center as a global fellow and a disinformation fellow, is the executive director of the board.  She "joined the Biden administration to lead a new initiative" in early March, according to her LinkedIn.  "She doesn't seem qualified," Barr said about Jankowicz.  "She seems to be a radical."

Disinformation Panels, Control over Social Media Content and Now DOJ Environmental Justice.  Barack Obama and Eric Holder did not create a weaponized DOJ and FBI; instead, what they did was take the preexisting system and retool it, so the weapons only targeted one side of the political continuum.  This point is where many people get confused.  Prior to 9/11/01 the greatest threat to government was considered to be from outside the U.S, vis-a-vis terrorism.  After 9/11/01 the greatest threat was redefined, Americans were now considered the threat, the enemy tracking radar was turned around to look inside America.  In the era shortly after 9/11, the DC national security apparatus was constructed to preserve continuity of government and simultaneously view all Americans as potential threats.  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were created specifically for this purpose.  DHS and ODNI were created because Americans were now the threat to government.  Stop.  Pause.  Think.  You are taking off your shoes at the airports because YOU are the threat.  You pass through body scanners because YOU are the threat.  Stop.  Pause.  Think.  How does that define your relationship with government?

The Disinformation Governance Board Has Nothing to Do With Disinformation.  This whole Disinformation Governance Board idea isn't going over too well.  When it was announced that the Biden administration was creating an entire agency whose supposed purpose is to root out and address "disinformation," folks on both the left and right criticized the move.  As time went on and people learned more about the board's function, people became even more incensed.  In a Senate hearing Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul made Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas wish for a stiff drink as he gave him a grilling that would make even Joe Friday cringe.  The senator's questions helped to expose why the creation of such an entity is not only unnecessary but terrifying to those who value the First Amendment and the spirit behind it.

Rand Paul devours Mayorkas on disinformation.  Actor James Woods thoroughly enjoyed Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) tearing into Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the formation of a newly-announced Orwellian "Disinformation Governance Board," comparing it to a lion dining on a gazelle.  [Tweet]  "You say your new disinformation board is going to help the public with disinformation," he told Mayorkas referring to what is being seen as a "Ministry of Truth" by many.  "You claim it is not going to be about domestic, it is going to be about foreigners.  Those evil Russians."  "Here's my question:  The FBI concludes that the Steele dossier was full of Russian disinformation.  CNN propagated this disinformation gladly for years and years.  The difference between your opinion and our opinion is that no matter how despicable it is that CNN propagated this disinformation, I wouldn't lecture them, I wouldn't put it on a government website that CNN is wrong for propagating disinformation," Paul continued.

States Sue Biden Administration for 'Pressuring and Colluding' With Big Tech to Censor Free Speech.  Two Republican-led states have filed a lawsuit against President Joe Biden, White House press secretary Jen Psaki, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and other top administration officials for allegedly pressuring and colluding with social media giants with the aim of censoring and suppressing free speech.  Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana on April 5, they announced in separate statements on Thursday [5/5/2022].  The attorneys claim that Biden and other government officials worked with big tech companies like Meta, Twitter, and YouTube to censor conversation around matters relating to everything from COVID-19 and election integrity to the Hunter Biden laptop story, doing so under the guise of combating "misinformation."  Others named in the lawsuit include Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and the executive director of DHS's newly established "Disinformation Governance Board," Nina Jankowicz.

Ministry of Truth Director Shares Thoughts on 'Gender Disinformation' in Eyebrow Lifting Video.  Governance Disinformation Board Dir.  Nina Jankowicz is an "expert."  I've been assured of it by the Biden administration and the news media.  What are her credentials?  Apparently, taking part in biased academic studies any undergraduate student could do and making TikTok videos.  In other words, for being such an "expert" on disinformation, Jankowicz sure can't seem to understand what it is and what it isn't.  Another video has emerged where she deals with "gender disinformation."  [Video clip]  Two things stick out to me when I watch this, and I think they illustrate why she's supremely unqualified to hold a position that shouldn't exist in the first place.  To start, every single example she gives is done in defense of someone on the left.  It's as if "disinformation" about right-leaning figures simply doesn't exist.

We Can't Let Ourselves Be Oppressed by Weirdos, Losers, and Mutations.  All leftists are insufferable, but this current crop is insufferable in many diverse ways.  It's not just the ones who defile or mutilate themselves to get their parents' attention.  It also includes ones that don't tatt up, who appear normal until they open up their kale holes.  Think Nina Jankowicz.  On the surface, she looks like any other childless, middle-aged Chardonnay-guzzler who is pushing 40 but has failed thus far to earn the love of a man.  But when she starts talking, yikes.  And just look at the antics of that fascist disinformation girl.  She sings show tunes.  She's into Harry Potter — non-threatening sensitive and magical boys are sooooo dreamy.  She's also eager to shove you into a train car headed to a gulag, and as it pulls away from the station she'll be shouting at you ruffians to use your inside voices.  That's right — the mediocre girl who played the lead in your high school's production of "Hello, Dolly!" [...] is the harbinger of tyranny.

DHS Secretary Threatened with Prison Time If 'Ministry of Truth' is Illegal and is Not Abolished.  The Ministry of Truth is now running up against a harsh political reality:  Americans across the political spectrum have no desire to be censored by their own government.  Both Republicans and vulnerable Democrats facing midterm elections are under increasing pressure to ensure voters are not silenced by the Department of Homeland Security's new 'Disinformation Board.'  Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee, sent a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this week outlining why the Disinformation Board is probably illegal.  "Hagerty wrote that the board may violate the Antideficiency Act, which says the executive branch can't spend money unless Congress authorizes it, and that its creation also may be subject to the Congressional Review Act," the New York Post reported.

Missouri and Louisiana File Suit Against Biden Administration Over Collusion With Tech Giants to Suppress Free Speech.  On Thursday, the states of Missouri and Louisiana filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana against numerous Biden Administration officials and agencies alleging that they colluded with social media companies to suppress and censor free speech on several topics, including Hunter Biden's "laptop from hell" and the Wuhan lab leak theory surrounding the origins of COVID-19.

Sen. Kennedy Takes Mayorkas Apart Over Nina Jankowicz, Exposes a Larger Problem.  Joe Biden and the DHS have been getting justifiably pummeled over their new "Disinformation Governance Board" — a truly Orwellian idea that the Biden Administration announced to prevent the spread of "disinformation," including in minority communities "ahead of the midterms."  An astonishing thing on multiple levels — for treating minorities like children who need to be told what they should believe, as well as the government deciding what qualifies as "disinformation," particularly since they are big purveyors of disinformation themselves.

Biden's new disinformation czar said fears about CRT in Loudoun County schools are 'disinformation for profit'.  Joe Biden's new 'disinformation czar' dismissed concerns about Critical Race Theory in schools as 'disinformation for profit' — despite parents across the country being worried about the teaching of the philosophy in their children's classrooms.  Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation expert who has worked throughout Eastern Europe, was hired on April 27 to lead a Homeland Security Department working group designed to help its different agencies in dealing with disinformation on topics ranging from migration to plots from Russia and Iran.  But her appointment has angered Republicans.  The Republican National Committee dubbed the committee she heads 'Ministry of Truth' in a nod to George Orwell's novel '1984,' and raised fears that the group will deem as disinformation 'any speech we don't like.'

Spreading Roe disinformation:  Where are the disinformation police?  For decades, scholars on both sides of the issue have said Roe v Wade was wrongly decided by the Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court is supposed to determine if laws are constitutional and Roe V Wade created law, instead of interpreting law.  Now that it looks like the Supreme Court may correct the wrong, and send the issue back to the states or Congress, the media and other Democrats are having a collective cow and colluding to just make [stuff] up to scare the public.  In other words, they are intentionally spreading misinformation to influence and interfere in the election.

1984 is Here Today.  Thought it could never happen in America?  Welcome to 1984, written by George Orwell (written as a warning but now being used as a "how-to" manual), and being promoted by, who else, Joe Biden and his extreme lefts cadre of handlers and stooges. [...] Joe announced a new government watchdog department titled, now get this, the Disinformation Governance Board. [...] This is the Left's blatant speech, thought and mind control machine being put into practice under the control of the most unethical anti-American values bunch ever to gain power in this nation.  The only reason they resort to this is that their endless lists of failures, destructive policies, absurd spending, devaluing our dollars, and general shortages, have American voters turning against them so they need a weapon of mass social destruction to try to stay in power.  This is their answer to the people's cry for relief and desire for common sense in government.

Motherboard suggests women could take horse meds to induce abortions, not banned for disinformation.  Some of the same far-left voices who mocked popular podcaster Joe Rogan for using a so-called "horse de-wormer" to cure his COVID last year are now actively encouraging women to use horse ulcer medication to induce an abortion.  "Misoprostol is relatively easy to acquire from veterinary sources, since in addition to medically inducing abortions, it's also used to treat ulcers in horses," a Tuesday tweet from the far-left "news" publication Vice's tech department, Motherboard, reads.  The tweet links to a full-blown Vice piece on the subject.  "With the Supreme Court poised to overturn the constitutional right to abortion, an anarchist collective that makes DIY medicine has released detailed instructions for making abortion pills," the piece states.  [Tweet]

Either the Secretary is spreading some misinformation of his own, or he doesn't do his homework before hiring someone.
'I Was Not Aware': Mayorkas Says He Didn't Know About Truth Czar's Viral Videos.  Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Wednesday [5/4/2022] he was unaware that the Biden administration's new truth czar was making TikTok videos.  While testifying before the Senator Judiciary Committee, Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy asked "when the department picked [Nina Jankowicz], was the department aware of her TikTok videos?"  "They're really quite precocious," Kennedy said, alluding to Jankowicz now viral video.  Mayorkas then admitted he "was not aware of those videos."

When Nina Met Joey.  [Scroll down]  As Roger Kimball explains, Nina Jankowicz is an "anti-Trump hack," already on record that Hunter Biden's laptop is a "Trump campaign product" and "Russian influence op."  Jankowicz is also a big fan of Christopher Steele, author of the pissing prostitutes dossier, a Clinton campaign product now exposed as pure disinformation.  Jankowicz also criticized Trump Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe for his declassification decisions.  According to our new government disinformation chief, Ratcliffe "dredged up the whole Hillary Clinton email scandal and the hack and leak operation perpetrated by the Russians, and again, that seemed like a political decision designed to help President Trump."  Such faithful service is doubtless the primary reason for the selection of Jankowicz.  On the other hand, another possibility cannot be discounted.  Nina Jankowicz is a wannabe chanteuse who croons "I want to be rich, famous and powerful, step on all my enemies and never do a thing," on YouTube.

Beyond a Slush Fund, Biden $33 Billion Ukraine Package Includes $8.8 Billion to Establish State Dept Global Disinformation Bureau.  The details of the Joe Biden $33 billion supplemental budget allocation have been released.  I would strongly urge everyone to read the proposal which now heads to congress for passage.  The spending request outlines a massive amount of money for various ideological foreign policy initiatives under the guise of Ukraine relief (it isn't).  The proposal outlines a kickback and bribery scheme.  Some of the spending includes an allocation of funds to the State Dept including funds to USAID to "provide $8.8 billion to the Department of State for economic support and assistance to the people of Ukraine and other affected countries, including direct budgetary support, as well as support for food security, democracy, anticorruption, cybersecurity, counter-disinformation, human rights, atrocity documentation, energy, and emergency infrastructure needs."  The request specifically authorizes the transfer of these funds globally, outside of Ukraine.

Ri-i-i-ight.  That's what they said about the Patriot Act.
Biden administration says disinfo board about foreign threats, not censorship.  The Biden administration is insisting that its controversial Disinformation Governance Board will protect the country from outside threats and won't impinge on people's civil liberties amid criticism that the initiative could prompt increased government censorship.  President Joe Biden's press secretary defended the Orwellian-sounding board Monday, attempting to position it as a nonpartisan coordinating body for the Department of Homeland Security's work responding to disinformation.  "It's continuing work that was done by CISA back to 2020," Jen Psaki said, referring to the federal cybersecurity agency that is a component of DHS, adding that the board "would help coordinate internal activities from the department related to disinformation that poses a threat to the homeland."

Obama's Fundamental Manipulation of Free Speech.  Setting the stage for the DHS announcement of the Biden Administration's Disinformation Governance Board recently, at a Stanford University Cyber Policy Center symposium entitled, "Challenges to Democracy in the Digital Information Realm," deceptive mind-control specialist Barack Obama emerged from behind his Joe Biden mask to deliver the keynote speech.  According to the anonymous author of the 2009 Department of Homeland Security treatise on "right-wing extremism," government needs to help companies better "...recognize the often-dangerous relationship between social media, nationalism [and] domestic hate groups" like pro-lifers, ex-military, Second Amendment supporters, Christians, and America-First patriots.  Well aware that the voice of the people threatens the trajectory of the global elite agenda, the former president used the opportunity to double down on what he does best, which is to manipulate minds with clever word games.

A Language Mauled In Service Of Power.  We've heard since we were school kids that control of the language means control of thought.  Anyone who has doubts that this is exactly what the Democrats have in mind must have missed the news last week when the White House named Nina Jankowicz to be the first disinformation czarina in U.S. history.  Their objective is to regulate our thinking. [...] Understanding how truly depraved the Democrats have become requires little more than a glimpse of Jankowicz's logic twisting.  She has argued that it should be against the law to mock women online.  Taking her insanity one step further, she claimed — yes, she really did — that "gender disinformation" used to criticize Vice President Kamala Harris is a "national security concern."  Of course, these protections wouldn't apply to Sarah Palin, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was White House press secretary under Donald Trump and is now running for governor in Arkansas, or any other GOP women.  They have been "othered" by Democrats and the media due to their party affiliation, and therefore deserve any disinformation and misinformation that's heaped upon them.

FNC's Turley:  Biden 'Arguably the Most Anti-Free Speech President Since John Adams'.  Monday [5/2/2022], Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley reacted to the Department of Homeland Security's appointment of Nina Jankowicz to run its so-called "Disinformation Governance Board."  Turley said the Biden administration tabbing "one of the most outspoken critics of free speech" to police what it deemed "disinformation" was "telling."  He argued that President Joe Biden was "arguably the most anti-free speech president since John Adams."  "I think it's telling that the Biden administration went out and recruited one of the most outspoken critics of free speech," Turley stated on "America Reports."

US officials admit routinely spreading false information about Russia-Ukraine war.  Following many years of government and legacy media lies across broad spectrums of topics, perhaps intensifying most recently with regard to the COVID-19 phenomenon and the relentless pushing of its dangerous and ineffective experimental gene-based "vaccines," many may wonder if they can trust government information on other significant matters, particularly the current war in Ukraine.  Remarkably, according to NBC News, government officials have answered this question in the negative by admitting that they regularly circulate war-related "intelligence" which they rate as "low-confidence," "based more on analysis than hard evidence," or which is just simply false, as a means of fighting an "information war against Russia."

How Republican Senators Can Defund Biden's Dystopic 'Disinformation Board'.  In an apparent homage to George Orwell's dystopian novel "1984" — one the rest of us realize is a pointed political allegory but the Biden administration apparently views as a handbook — the Biden White House is establishing a Disinformation Governance Board.  Yes, you read that correctly.  The government is going to decide what's true and what's false, and punish disseminators accordingly.  The bureaucrats who run the Department of Homeland security, where this board will be housed, are going to be parsing fact from fiction, obviously to keep us all safe from the scourge of independent judgment and thought.  Naturally, Nina Jankowicz, the woman they've put in charge of this board, thinks America is a little too "free spirited."  Apparently, her life's work has been focused on doing something about that.  White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has cited Jankowicz's "extensive qualifications," which include being a disinformation fellow (whatever that is) at the Wilson Center and advising the Ukrainian foreign minister (about who knows what, exactly).

Do We Draw the Line at a US Ministry of Truth?  This aspiring dictatorship is getting desperate and dangerous.  Imagine having complete control over America's corporate news propaganda arm and still feeling vulnerable when it comes to "securing the narrative."  Imagine having all the Big Tech censors working for the U.S. Intelligence Community, and the masters of disinformation are still unsure whether they can amply manipulate American opinion.  Imagine dedicating a year and a half to persecuting anyone who questions the legitimacy of the 2020 election and learning that more Americans than ever now view that monstrosity as tainted by fraud.  Imagine shamelessly spinning the Capitol breach into an attempted coup d'état only to find that half the country believes that the federal government is in the business of imprisoning political protesters. [...] When propaganda, domestic espionage, malicious prosecution, blackmail, and an organized terror campaign of burn-loot-murder mayhem directed against ordinary Americans fail to subdue the citizen population, what do aspiring totalitarians do next?  That's right, friends, come on down: it's Ministry of Truth time!  The same Department of Homeland Security that has never had any interest in securing the homeland (come right over, international terrorists and drug-runners, the border's wide open!) will now dedicate its malignant resources to censoring so much truth that only the government's lies can be heard!

Mayorkas on Jankowicz:  She Is a 'Tremendous Authority' We 'Are Very Fortunate to Have Her'.  Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said on this week's broadcast of "Fox News Sunday" that the recently announced head of the so-called Disinformation Governance Board, Nina Jankowicz was a "tremendous authority."  Anchor Bret Baier said, "The president picked to lead this is Nina Jankowicz.  She is taking heat for tweets and comments about major news stories, the Hunter Biden laptop story, others.  The laptop story obviously was blocked from social media outlets because it was called Russian propaganda until it wasn't.  Do you really think Jankowicz is anywhere near objective enough for this particular job?"  Mayorkas said, "Yes, I do, and by the way, highly regarded is a subject matter expert, and I don't question her objectivity.  There are people and the department who have a diverse range of views, and they are incredibly dedicated to mission.  We are not the opinion police.  She has testified before Congress and number of times.  She is recognized as a tremendous authority, and we are very fortunate to have her."

Mayorkas's oily assurances about his Disinformation Governance Board fall flat.  Following the announcement of his "Disinformation Governance Board," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas found himself scrambling to spin the hideous new speech enforcer, claiming it was not as Orwellian as any normal person would think. [...] Like any Biden administration official, he claimed that anyone who saw problems with this was responding to a "messaging" problem rather than a real problem: [...] He also claimed that his choice for his rhymes-with-KGB board, Nina Jankowicz, was completely objective. [...] Not one word of it is to be believed.  [Bret] Baier did a pretty good objective-effort interview but one thing he didn't mention was the strange timing of the DGB rollout:  It was right when Elon Musk decided to purchase Twitter in order to restore its free speech orientation.  The left had an absolute meltdown about that, as they had benefited politically from Twitter's outrageous censorship practices which were ongoing.

The Nurse Ratched of Disinformation.  When we first heard Alejandro Mayorkas announce a Department of Homeland Security "Disinformation Governance Board," we thought he was trolling.  Then he said Nina Jankowicz, best known as TikTok's "Mary Poppins of Disinformation," would head it.  LOL, as the kids say.  Right out of the gate, Jankowicz trumpeted her "committment [sic] to protecting free speech."  Apparently Mayorkas is serious, and the administration is rolling out Jankowicz, author of the new book "How to Be a Woman Online," as a "renowned expert in the field of disinformation."  That's true, though she's more a practitioner of the craft than an expert in combating it.  Jankowicz condemned the New York Post's reporting on Hunter Biden's laptop as a "Russian influence op" and fanned the bogus claim that the Steele dossier began as a "Republican opposition research project."

CNN Guest Gives the Game Away in Deranged Rant on Controlling Speech.  Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter has made all the right people mad, and that includes a lot of the talking heads within the mainstream media.  Initial reactions were as overwrought as you'd expect, with cable news setting its collective hair on fire.  But, if anyone thought the passage of time would bring about some moderation, I can assure you that hasn't happened.  CNN held a hilariously composed roundtable on Sunday morning with figures like Brian Stelter, April Ryan, and someone named David Zurawik.  While obviously being an avid political observer, I'll admit to having no idea who Zurawik is.  Yet, my first exposure to him has certainly left an impression.  Namely, that he's deranged.  While discussing Musk's acquisition, Zurawik lit into a hysterical rant about the supposed dangers of unabridged free speech.  In doing so, he managed to give the game away on what about this deal is actually driving the media so insane.

Biden's 'Mary Poppins of Disinformation' the perfect nanny to tidy up mess of free speech?  "You can just call me the Mary Poppins of disinformation."  That Twitter intro to a TikTok parody of the song "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" is now indelibly connected to Nina Jankowicz, the new head of the federal government's announced Disinformation Governance Board.  Given her record of spreading disinformation and advocating censorship, Jankowicz hardly needed the musical-inspired persona.  Yet, for the Biden administration, Jankowicz — like Mary Poppins — is "practically perfect in every way" to keep track of whether we all "measure up" in our public statements.  It is still unclear from the administration's public statements what authority the board will wield, but White House press secretary Jen Psaki described the board as intended "to prevent disinformation and misinformation from traveling around the country in a range of communities."

Ukraine passes "disinformation" law, begins making arrests.  It would appear that it's not just Alejandro Mayorkas who is setting up a Ministry of Truth in a supposedly free and democratic country and policing the speech of citizens.  It turns out that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thought that was a fine idea as well, so he worked with his country's legislature to put a similar program in place following Russia's invasion of his country.  His government is seeking to identify "traitors" who have expressed support for Russia and its war against "Nazis" in Ukraine.  Anyone who has been materially aiding the enemy is of course subject to prosecution, but people have been arrested just for expressing their support for Moscow on social media.  That's what happened to a man known only as "Victor" this month.  Ukrainian security officers in full riot gear showed up at his apartment in Kharkiv to talk to him about some of his social media posts before hauling him off to jail.

Democrats' attacks on what they call "disinformation" have their roots in Barack Obama's Truth Squad.  While calling public figures "Orwellian" goes back decades, usually it's an exaggeration.  Not so with the new Misinformation and Disinformation Governance Board, whose existence was revealed by the soulless hack Alejandro Mayorkas, Joe Biden's secretary of Homeland Security.  The board's executive director is Nina Jankowicz, a misinformationist.  Among other things, Jankowicz in 2020 called into question the veracity of the Hunter Biden laptop revelations.  George Orwell's "Ministry of Truth" in 1984 of course propagandized lies.  The Democrats' Orwellian attacks on their opponents began during Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, when he created groups such as "The Truth Squad."

Truth Social under 'direct attack' by Biden's disinformation board.  Truth Social is a target of the Biden administration's new Disinformation Governance Board, according to the man running former President Donald Trump's nascent social network.  Devin Nunes, the congressman who left office to become the CEO of the Trump Media & Technology Group, posed the government as the most significant threat to freedom of speech now that "Big Tech tyrants" can't silence people's voices.  "I think it's so Orwellian, so dystopian, something you only see in dictatorships that now, they're going to set up some type of disinformation board.  I think that's a direct attack on what we are doing at Truth Social, because we can no longer be canceled," Nunes told Maria Bartiromo on her Fox News show Sunday Morning Futures [5/1/2022].

Who else should serve on the Government Disinformation Board?  The Department of Homeland Security has decided to create a "Disinformation Governance Board," Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stated in congressional hearings held last week.  Though Mayorkas attempted to link it to efforts to combat misinformation from human smugglers and to counter Russian cyber and election misinformation, no one really knows the extent of the board's mission. [...] The administration's choice of an executive director to head the board, Nina Jankowicz, has not inspired confidence in the integrity of the DGB, either.  Jankowicz has historically been a staunch supporter of Democrats.  And she believed the shocking Hunter Biden laptop story was fabricated, part of a Kremlin influence operation.  She has been wrong about numerous other things, as well, while seemingly labeling anything with which she disagrees as "disinformation."

The last people anyone should trust to tell or determine the truth are journalists and government officials.  There are many examples of where the media colluded with the Democrats to intentionally spread misinformation to the public.  Here is a small sample:  Democrats in Congress have repeatedly challenged elections where they lost yet they weren't called treasonous, weren't said to be against democracy, where we didn't have endless hearings, and they weren't silenced.  Obama, Biden, Pelosi, and others repeatedly lied to the public about Obamacare, but the media not only didn't silence them, but they also supported them.  Obama and Hillary concocted a lie about Benghazi, as Americans were killed, and the media never silenced them.  The Obama administration used the media to spread lies to get support for the Iran deal, yet the media never silenced them.  Most of the media still supports the deal that enriched Iran, which continues to spread terrorism and pledge death to America.  The media and others intentionally spread the lie of "Hands up Don't Shoot" that ginned up racial hate against cops.  How many cops have been killed and injured because of that intentional lie?  Yet, no one who spread the lie has been silenced.  The media, DNC, the Hillary campaign and government employees colluded to spread the lie about Russian collusion to destroy Trump and they have not been silenced.

A Bridge Too Far, the Demise of the Democrats.  [Scroll down]  The other devastating part of the demise of the Democrats is their totalitarian, tyrannical nature when it comes to squelching any dissenting thought, perspective, opinions, and assessment.  The fact that the left wants to establish a Disinformation Board in the Department of Homeland Security is highly disturbing.  And that is true especially when you consider the Secretary of Homeland Defense's assertion that the southern border is being well managed.  The left in America has gone too far, but will constitutional conservatives rise to the occasion and crush them at the ballot box?  The Republican party must realize that this is not the time for bipartisanship, compromise, or any other forms of weakness.  This is the time to resoundingly defeat leftism in America.

Democrats place American democracy in grave peril.  The past few weeks have been extremely troubling for those who value democracy, freedom, human rights, and civil liberties within the United States of America.  Democrats have made unprecedented power grabs.  If left unchecked, democracy will wither away in favor of a sinister police state.  Recently, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified that a Disinformation Governance Board has been set up to counter disinformation coming from Russia, China, Iran, the cartels, and other hostile actors, rebutting their misleading information.  Critics have rightly slammed this as Biden's Ministry of Truth.  In recent days, Mayorkas didn't state the specific powers the board may have, he only said that the board would "tackle the threat, not only to election security, but to our homeland security," and would work with platforms to stop it.  Will they be able to prosecute people for spreading 'disinformation?  Will this board be restricted to focus on social media only as its tool, or will the powers also apply to 'right-wing media' directly?  We do not know.

A Government Disinformation Board?  You Don't say!  Just as the internet has been roiled by the news that Elon Musk is buying Twitter and plans to turn it into a free speech forum, the administration announced its nifty plan to stifle free speech.  Of course, the creation of such an office is a tell that their ideas cannot withstand the sunlight of open debate.  It's also a distraction from the real issues a competent administration would be dealing with. [...] The Disinformation Governance Board, announced this week, is a mysterious creation with no known purpose or need and will be headed by a highly eccentric gal who has a weird history of denouncing as disinformation things that are true while insisting on things that are demonstrably false. [...] To head this mysterious operation, Mayorkas has named Nina Jankowicz, [...] She claimed there are many non-binary people who give birth.  Actually, I think that is "gender disinformation," not mockery of women officeholders.

The Ministry of Truth Is Where the Rubber Meets the Road.  Is this the hill that patriots will die on?  Is this the moment when MAGA nation says, "[...], no"?  Is this the time when hardworking blue-collar Americans say with a unified voice:  "We will not comply"?  Is this the legal case where the Supreme Court acts as if it is ...the Supreme Court and declares Mr. Biden's newly created Bureau of Disinformation unconstitutional from its inception?  Is this the final straw, where a clear plurality of Republicans "man up" and act as the opposition party should, and refuse to fund Mr. Biden's "Ministry of Truth"?  I think America and the rest of the world will know the answers to these questions soon.  If the answers are yes, we still have a country based on the U.S. Constitution.  If the answers are no, we are done as a democratic republic, and the Constitution has no teeth.

The Disinformation Governance Machine.  In Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell called the enforcement mechanism of his totalitarian propaganda regime the "Ministry of Truth."  Appearing before the House Appropriations Subcommittee, the ironically named Department of Homeland Security was slightly more subtle.  Too many people have read Nineteen Eighty-Four.  Calling a government-funded effort to suppress criticism of the regime the "Ministry of Truth" would cause people to worry and complain.  Instead, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced the creation of the "Disinformation Governance Board."  No, I am not making that up.  I sympathize with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who said he wondered whether this new assault on free expression was a "belated April Fools' joke."  Unfortunately, it's not.

Mayorkas: Disinformation Board Won't Infringe on Free Speech, Monitor Americans.  Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that the Disinformation Governance Board would not infringe on free speech or monitor Americans.  Anchor Dana Bash said, "Let's talk about what your department is calling, The Disinformation Governance Board that you unveiled this week.  Republicans are calling it Orwellian and comparing it to the ministry of truth in the novel 1984.  Can you clarify what exactly is this?  What exactly will this disinformation governance board do?  Will it monitor American citizens?"  [Mayorkas reply omitted for brevity, among other things.] [...] Bash asked, "Will American citizens be monitored?"  Mayorkas said, "No, no, the board does not have any operational capability.  What it will do is gather together best practices in addressing the threat of disinformation from foreign state adversaries, from the cartels and disseminate those best practices to the operators that have been executing and addressing this threat for years."

J.D. Vance:  Joe Biden's 'Propaganda Ministry' Is About Enforcing Speech Codes on Americans.  J.D. Vance, the best-selling author of Hillbilly Elegy, says President Joe Biden's "propaganda ministry," referencing the administration's new Disinformation Governance Board, is all about enforcing speech codes on American citizens.  Vance, [... told] Breitbart News Daily that Biden's Disinformation Governance Board is a blatant attempt to silence Americans on social media companies controlled by a handful of billion-dollar tech corporations.

Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas praises Biden's new disinformation czar calling her 'eminently qualified and neutral' despite fact she dismissed Hunter laptop as 'Trump campaign product'.  Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sunday praised President Joe Biden's new disinformation czar as 'qualified and neutral' despite a slew of Republicans criticizing her as partisan.  Asked about that criticism on CNN's State of the Union, Mayorkas called Nina Jankowicz 'eminently qualified, a renowned expert in the field of disinformation.'  'And neutral?' host Dana Bash asked.  Mayorkas answered, 'Absolutely so.'  He also pledged the White House's new Disinformation Governance Board will not be used to monitor American citizens, despite mounting right-wing concerns that it will be a tool for censorship and surveillance.

On April 21 Obama Said Social Media Censors "Don't Go Far Enough" — 6 Days Later Puppet Joe Biden Rolls Out "Ministry of Truth".  It is clear that Barack Obama is calling the shots and Joe Biden is just a puppet.  On April 21, Barack Obama delivered a speech at Stanford University and blamed Big Tech for failing to stop the spread of 'disinformation' on their platforms.  Obama said people are dying because of so-called misinformation about the Covid vaccines.

On April 21 Obama Said Social Media Censors "Don't Go Far Enough" — 6 Days Later Puppet Joe Biden Rolls Out "Ministry of Truth".  It is clear that Barack Obama is calling the shots and Joe Biden is just a puppet.  On April 21, Barack Obama delivered a speech at Stanford University and blamed Big Tech for failing to stop the spread of 'disinformation' on their platforms.  Obama said people are dying because of so-called misinformation about the Covid vaccines.

DHS secretary defends disinformation board and its 'neutral' leader.  Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas defended his agency's controversial new Disinformation Governance Board.  Mayorkas said the board would not be used to monitor U.S. citizens and praised its new leader, who has come under fire, during a Sunday [5/1/2022] interview on CNN's State of the Union.  "The board does not have any operational authority or capability," Mayorkas told CNN's Dana Bash.  "What it will do is gather together best practices in addressing the threat of disinformation from foreign state adversaries, from the cartels, and disseminate those best practices to the operators that have been executing in addressing this threat for years."  The secretary said "no" when asked if the board will monitor U.S. citizens.

Biden's Ministry of Truth will spy on American citizens.  In a disturbing development for freedom of speech, the Biden administration announced that it will collaborate with social media to crack down on any information that is critical of Biden's vaccination policy.  Disinformation, said Tucker Carlson, "seems to be anything the Biden administration does not want the people to know including, for example, how effective the COVID vaccines actually are and what the potential side effects might be from taking them."  You would no longer be allowed to text such information to other people.  Your private conversations would be controlled by Joe Biden and the Democrats.  "The Biden administration considers censorship applicable to private speech," said Carlson.  To add insult to injury, we have a new development that frankly is beyond my comprehension.  The president has created an information czar to spy on American citizens.  Biden is establishing what he calls the Disinformation Governance Board as part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Biden's New Disinformation Governance Board Is Already Expanding Its Scope.  Old Joe Biden's ominous Disinformation Governance Board has just been announced, and it's already expanding the scope of its responsibilities. [...] But in this case, the expansion makes the agency in question even more dangerous to the American people than it was already.  When Politico revealed the existence of the Board in an offhanded statement buried 60 paragraphs down in its Wednesday "Politico Playbook," it said that the Department of Homeland Security was "standing up a new Disinformation Governance Board to coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security, focused specifically on irregular migration and Russia." DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, however, went farther than that almost immediately, saying on Thursday:  "We have just established a mis- and disinformation governance board in the Department of Homeland Security to more effectively combat this threat not only to election security, but to our homeland security."  And when Jen Psaki defended Biden's new Ministry of Truth on Thursday, she went farther still:  "We know there has been a range of [disinformation] out there about a range of topics, I mean, including COVID for example, and also elections and eligibility."

Biden's Controversial Ministry of Truth Czar Offered Advice to New President in 2020: Disinformation Is 'an American Pathology'.  Long before Nina Jankowicz was tapped by Joe Biden to head the Disinformation Governance Board in the Department of Homeland Security, she offered advice to the new president and claimed disinformation is "an American pathology" that has to be cured.  In her piece "How to Defeat Disinformation:  An Agenda for the Biden Administration" in Foreign Affairs magazine in November of 2020, Jankowicz spelled out what she believed should be done at the White House, including creating her job to quash conspiracy theories about the outcome of the election.  The author of books on disinformation not only offered advice to Biden but promoted the idea of a new federal post by saying that Biden should use "new governmental structures and legislation" to fight back.

Why Does the Left Have Such a Difficult Time With the Concept of 'Free Speech'?  [Scroll down]  This is one of those truths that appear to be self-evident.  But today, only some speech is considered "free."  The rest must comport with a dizzying number of rules, conventions, and arbitrary guidelines that makes a mockery of the concept of free speech.  The left just doesn't get it.  They have lost sight of the beautiful simplicity of the concept of free speech.  "If you can think it, you can speak it," is no longer operative in America.  It's been lost.  And if we don't find it ... Get in line my fellow sheep.

Naomi Wolf Eloquently Deconstructs the Terms Dis, Mis, and Malinformation.  The first principle in battling against the Alinsky crew is to not to accept their terminology.  Controlling language is a specific tactic of the professional political left.  We used to call it labeling, but modern leftists moved beyond labels into the creation of new definitions.  Modern leftists now use two different strategies depending on their target:  (1) create new words, the traditional labeling; and (2) redefine existing words.  In this interview Naomi Wolf is one of the few people I have seen who correctly starts her discussion by dispatching the linguistics and framing her own baseline argument.  All politicians and candidates for office should watch how Wolf responds to the first question from Tucker Carlson, and then makes the better argument.  Wolf doesn't waste time debating "misinformation", "disinformation", or "malinformation", instead she accurately just says those things do not exist.  Information stands undefined.  From that position there are truth and lies.  Her approach is exactly correct.  Do not accept the insanity of the Alinsky language effort.  [Video clip]

Guys... I think we just got a Ministry of Truth.  There's a lady in the Department of Homeland Security that now runs something called the "Disinformation Governance Board." [...] Seriously, it is not the government's job to determine truth.  It is the government's job to protect the rights of its people, provide strong borders and defense for its people, and promote the values of its people.  All under the explicit authority of the people.  When government starts determining truth claims, it becomes a religious entity.  Change my mind.

White House defends disinformation board: 'I'm not sure who opposes that'.  The White House on Thursday [4/28/2022] defended the newly announced Disinformation Governance Board that critics say will be led by someone with a history of making controversial and misleading statements.  Nina Jankowicz, who was a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center and adviser to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry as part of the Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship, confirmed a report Wednesday that she has been named executive director of the Department of Homeland Security's new panel.

Biden appoints "Disinformation Czar".  As we learned under the administration of Barack Obama, you can never have too many "czars" running around the White House.  (It's a rather odd choice of words when we're teetering on the brink of war with Russia, but here we are.)  Now, thanks to President Joe Biden, we're getting a brand new one.  Inside the Department of Homeland Security, there will be a "Disinformation Governance Board" that will be led by our new "Disinformation Czar."  That person is Nina Jankowicz, a former "disinformation fellow" at the Wilson Center who previously served as an advisor to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.  I'm not sure how many people had the chance to review this new office, but the unintentionally hilarious nature of the name they selected is pretty hard to ignore.

Biden's Disinformation Chief Nina Jankowicz:  Online Mockery of Kamala Harris a Threat to Democracy and National Security.  President Joe Biden's new disinformation chief Nina Jankowicz argued online mockery of Vice President Kamala Harris and other women in public life was a threat to national security.  "Platforms and governments aren't doing enough," she wrote on social media.  "It's time to act.  Our national security and democracy are at stake."  The Department of Homeland Security announced the creation of the new Disinformation Governance Board led by Jankowicz on Wednesday [4/27/2022].  Jankowicz argued that Congress should create new laws to block mockery of women online, citing the volume of "gender disinformation" used to criticize Harris.

WH Response on 'Disinformation Board' Shows Just How Desperate for Control They Are.  It was not a coincidence that you had Elon Musk buying Twitter and then all of sudden, the Biden team found the need to form a Ministry of Truth run by the DHS — otherwise known as a creepy-sounding "Disinformation Governance Board."  Now, the first reaction to such an effort by the Biden Administration that most people would have to this is how incredibly Orwellian it is.  The second might be that it's exactly what the First Amendment was designed to protect against.  The third might be to take notice this says "governance," and is being run by the Department of Homeland Security, which usually is pursuing threats and crimes.  So, can fully-declared speech crimes be far away, when you start to have things like this?

Disinformation and Censorship.  As Scott noted yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security has established a "Disinformation Governance Board" to combat misinformation ahead of the 2022 midterms.  Administration spokespeople have widened the alleged portfolio of this group to include covid, election integrity, and much else.  The announcement has been greeted with both outrage and ridicule.  In a press conference earlier today [4/29/2022], Florida Governor Ron DeSantis took on the Disinformation Governance Board along with a broader indictment of the Biden administration.  I think it is a good example of DeSantis's skill at communication:  he talks in a way that everyone can understand, and just about everyone will agree with.  [Video clip]

Psaki gives full-throated defense of Biden's new 'disinformation' czar.  White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Friday defended the head of President Joe Biden's 'Disinformation Governance Board' and slammed the board's critics, noting its existence goes back to the Donald Trump administration.  Republicans have attacked Nina Jankowicz, who was chosen to head the board, as a 'Russia expert' and one senator released a video of her singing about 'misinformation' to the tune of the Mary Poppins song 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.'  Psaki pushed back, noting Jankowicz is 'an expert on online disinformation.'

The Ministry of Truth Is Real.  Things got pretty weird, pretty quickly in the wake of Elon Musk's trial balloon about buying Twitter[.] [...] The Biden administration and progressive activists (including former President Obama) sprang into action following Monday's [4/25/2022] announcement and — quite literally — began the process of defining disinformation and calling for its regulation to make sure bad speech was addressed and eliminated from the collective safe space. [...] But the Biden administration, feeble as it is, was just doing the hard job laid out for it by former president Barack Obama[,] who was just doing the job laid out for him by the Aspen Institute's disinformation commission.  Obama gave a speech at Stanford University on April 21st outlining the threats of disinformation online and how unfettered speech is a threat to democracy (Musk was already well in the throes of figuring out how to convince Twitter to sell by this point, of course).  And the former president painted a very frightening picture, indeed.  One that ultimately pointed a finger back at "companies that have come to dominate the internet generally, and social media platforms in particular."

Meet Biden's New Head Of The Ministry Of Truth, Nina Jankowicz.  [Apparently quoting Tucker Carlson:] So, one of our biggest law enforcement agencies has men with guns around the country doing so many things to stop disinformation and false narratives.  Those aren't even lies.  They're just deviations from the approved script.  Mayorkas told us again that men with guns planned to "identify individuals who could be descending into violence."  Could be descending.  Not people who've committed violence or even been accused of any crime at all.  DHS is instead using law enforcement powers to identify and punish people who think the wrong things.  That would be opponents of the Biden administration.  Is this dystopian fiction?  No.  It's happening right in front of us.  That means that Joe Biden's partisan political enemies are now officially enemies of the state.  How is this happening in America?  [Video clip]

DHS Sec. Mayorkas claims he didn't know about new 'disinformation' czar's past.  Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claimed he didn't know the Biden administration's newly appointed "disinformation" czar had actively pushed faked news regarding the now-infamous Steele Dossier, used to smear former President Donald Trump, and Hunter Biden's "laptop from hell."  Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, Mayorkas was asked by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) if he knew who Nina Jankowicz is, the woman Fox News's Tucker Carlson on Thursday called, "the most ridiculous of all in [President Joe] Biden's Ministry of Truth."  "She is the executive director of the Disinformation Governance Board," Mayorkas correctly stated.  "Is this the same individual who said the Dossier was real and the Hunter Biden laptop story was false?" asked Rep. Jordan.  "Is that the individual who's now running the Disinformation Governance Board?"  "I'm not familiar with those statements," Mayorkas responded.

Joe Biden's Disinformation Chief Nina Jankowicz Called Herself the 'Mary Poppins of Disinformation' on Tik-Tok.  President Joe Biden's new disinformation chief Nina Jankowicz once described herself as the "Mary Poppins of Disinformation," using Tik-Tok to warn people about 'atrocious' online content.  Jankowicz made her Tik-Tok video private after it was featured on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show Thursday night [4/28/2022], but a version of it still exists on Twitter.

Biden's New "Minister Of Truth" Sang In Unbearably Cringe Music Videos.  The ease with which insane leftists confidently, albeit horrendously and erroneously, go through life is something worthy of a larger study.  How can self-confidence and attachment to reality be so far removed?  It is simply a marvel.  The Biden administration's — indeed, the entire left's — gaslighting efforts went into overdrive this week when it was announced that, under the Department of Homeland Security (yes, the same institution that labeled concerned parents at school board meetings as "domestic terrorists") would be forming a separate entity with the truly Orwellian title of Disinformation Governance Board.  The Ministry of Truth is easier to say and is simply more accurate.

Biden Forms 'Disinformation Board' to Go After Critics [and the] Official Heading It Played Role in Shutting Down [the] Hunter Biden Story.  The Biden administration is abandoning all semblance of Constitutional government by forming a "Disinformation Board" within the Department of Homeland Security to target the Democratic Party's critics.  The provocative move — carried out in the aftermath of Elon Musk's stunning purchase of Big Tech platform Twitter — appears to be a desperate attempt to rein in growing discontent at the Biden administration online.  The political intentions behind the maneuver are revealed by the DHS official that has been tapped to lead the administration's version of the 'Ministry of Truth.'

U.S. joins 55 nations to set new global rules for the internet.  The United States and 55 other nations on Thursday [4/28/2022] signed a political commitment to push rules for the internet that are underpinned by democratic values, at a time when the U.S. has accused Russia of wielding internet disruptions as a part of its escalating attacks on Ukraine.  The commitment, called the "Declaration for the Future of the Internet" — the first such effort of its kind — protects human rights, promotes free flow of information, protects the privacy of users, and sets rules for a growing global digital economy among steps to counter what two Biden administration officials called a "dangerous new model" of internet policy from countries such as Russia and China.

The Editor says...
Ri-i-i-ight.  Joe Biden wants to "promote [the] free flow of information" while he sets up a "Disinformation Governance Board" to filter out the information he doesn't like.

Should we be alarmed by Biden's new Disinformation Governance Board?  On Wednesday [4/27/2022], Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified to Congress that a Disinformation Governance Board had recently been set up.  This news comes a week after former President Obama talked about disinformation and even called for censorship of social media at Stanford University[.]  It was also announced that Nina Jankowicz will head the Department of Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board as executive director.  The expectation usually is that such a department would be headed by an individual with a consistent track record of being factual and a proclivity of spotting false information.  But since it is the Biden administration, you must expect the contrary of what is required.

The comical buffoonery of Biden's new disinformation czarina.  I confess to alternating between fear and scornful laughter when it comes to the newly announced Disinformation Governance Board that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced April 27 in a Senate hearing.  The blatant violation of the First Amendment, the lack of Congressional authorization, the blatant choice of topics of focus (immigration and Russia in Spanish Language media) right before an election and the utter ridiculousness of the woman named to head, it all make it hard for me to take this Orwellian state organ seriously.  Yet, Joe Biden sits on the Oval Office and commands the federal bureaucracy, which is seeming eager to accommodate plans that would expand their powers over the citizenry.  Still, the selection of Nina Jankowicz to head the organization inclines me to laughter.  Tucker Carlson began his April 28, 2022 show with a segment on Jankowicz that was alternately horrifying and hilarious.

Biden's Ministry of Truth.  Earlier this week, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told Congress that his agency is creating a "Disinformation Governance Board" to combat "misinformation" coming from Russia as we near this year's midterm elections.  The Biden administration's new Committee on Public Information will be led by Nina Jankowicz, "a disinformation fellow" who, perfectly enough, comes to the administration from a think tank named after Woodrow Wilson.  Like Wilson, Mayorkas, himself a font of untruths, does not explain under what constitutional power he proposes to oversee speech.  It gets tedious to point this out, but you can vividly imagine the thermonuclear meltdown the country would be (rightly) subjected to if a Republican president assembled a government panel tasked with weeding out "disinformation."  To our technocrats' dismay, this isn't Europe, where the state can dictate allowable speech and sometimes arrests those who don't abide.  Here, citizens are the ones who call out the state for peddling misinformation, not the other way around.

DHS Sec Mayorkas announces Orwellian 'Disinformation Governance Board' with a leader that dismissed Hunter's laptop as disinformation.  What could better epitomize the dystopian nature of a governmental organ called the "Disinformation Governance Board" than putting it under the command of a bureaucrat who questioned the validity of Hunter Biden's laptop, calling it "a Trump campaign product," and who served as an advisor to the corrupt Ukrainian regime? [Numerous tweets]

WH pick for Big Brother-like disinformation board spread lie about Hunter Biden laptop.  President Biden's pick to lead his Department of Homeland Security's Big Brother-like Disinformation Governance Board has her own history of posting disinformation online.  Nina Jankowicz, who was a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, has repeatedly cast doubt on The Post's reporting about Hunter Biden's laptop.  During a series of live tweets during the presidential debate between Biden and Donald Trump in October 2020, Jankowicz had referenced the laptop.  "Back on the 'laptop from hell,' apparently — Biden notes 50 former natsec officials and 5 former CIA heads that believe the laptop is a Russian influence op," Jankowicz tweeted.

A Society Convinced It Needs Seeing Eye Dogs.  As everyone who has used badly programmed graphics programs knows, artifacts occur when narrative objects left over from the last rendering intrude on the current view.  To deal with artifacts, George Orwell coined the phrase "memory hole."  "A memory hole is any mechanism for the deliberate alteration or disappearance of inconvenient or embarrassing documents, photographs, transcripts or other records, such as from a website or other archive, particularly as part of an attempt to give the impression that something never happened."  Often audiences of mediated views simply pretend not to see the artifacts, even though they have not yet been refreshed away, because by convention that is the way the game works.  Lastly, there is pixelization, caused by mediation's ability to portray an event in arbitrarily fine detail.  In social media, these often appear as slogan-categories like 'climate denier', 'Nazi', 'Karen', 'oligarch' etc.

Biden Regime Announces Creation of "Disinformation Governance Board" Under the Authority of Homeland Security with a Lunatic in Charge.  Following Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter last week, which was a triumphant victory in the ongoing war over free speech, the Biden Regime announced the creation of a "Disinformation Governance Board" that will be tasked with silencing anything deemed to be misinformation that's related to homeland security.  And, yes.  It's just as dystopian and creepy as it sounds.  The new board will operate under the authority of the Department of Homeland security with a special focus on Russia and "irregular migration," according to the Post Millennial.

Deep State Response, Dept of Homeland Security Will Establish Disinformation Board with Obvious Agenda.  I think we are now seeing the outlines of how the Fourth Branch of Government are planning to keep control over information, specifically public discussion on Big Tech platforms, even as Elon Musk moves to open the valves of information from the social media platform Twitter.  Previously the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced a new Dept of Homeland Security priority to combat disinformation {LINK} on technology platforms including social media.  Many eyebrows were raised as the announcement appeared to be an open admission that the U.S. government was going to control information by applying labels, that would align with allies in social media, who need a legal justification for censorship and content removal.

Biden sets up 'Disinformation Board' to combat midterm fake news headed by Russia expert who called Hunter's laptop a 'Trump campaign product'.  President Biden has set up a 'disinformation' board headed-up by a woke so-called expert who's against free speech and tried to pour cold water on the Hunter laptop scandal.  Nina Jankowicz will head The Department of Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board as executive director, Politico Playbook reported Wednesday morning [4/27/2022].  Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas did not disclose any powers that would be granted to the dystopian-sounding board while addressing lawmakers on Wednesday.  He explained that the board would work to tackle disinformation ahead of the November midterms, particularly in Hispanic communities.

Biden's 'disinformation' chief Trump dossier author fan and Hunter Biden laptop doubter.  The Biden administration's new czar to combat disinformation has a history of sharing misleading claims about British ex-spy Christopher Steele's discredited dossier and downplaying controversy embroiling President Joe Biden's son.  Nina Jankowicz, who was a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center and adviser to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry as part of the Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship, confirmed a report Wednesday that she has been named executive director of the Department of Homeland Security's new "Disinformation Governance Board." [...] But there's a lot to unpack before she even gets started in her new role.  The Washington Examiner dove into her comments in recent years.

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