Censorship Industrial Complex
Newly Released Documents Reveal Big Tech Limited Millions of Posts During EU Elections
From Reclaim The Net
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Ah, elections—the pinnacle of democracy where the common folk cast their ballots and, ideally, choose their fate. But hold onto your hats, because behind the grandeur of the European Parliament elections this year lurked a very different sort of governance, one executed not in the open streets but in algorithmic backrooms. Welcome to the Age of Censorship-as-a-Service, brought to you by our ever-dependable friends at Meta, Google, and TikTok.
Meta’s Mission: Make the Truth More… Manageable
Let’s begin with Meta. In a move that feels like something out of a dystopian satire, Meta proudly announced they had reduced the reach of tens of millions of posts across Europe. They wielded over 150,000 Facebook fact-checking articles to de-escalate the virality of 30 million pieces of content.
According to Meta, this wasn’t censorship—no, it was a mere “scaling of the work of independent fact-checkers.” The way they tell it, this was all in the name of maintaining “informed and reliable discussions.” Ah, reliable discussions, where only pre-approved, EU-certified opinions are allowed to flow freely.
Of course, official government statements and the edicts from the holy temples of global health organizations were entirely exempt from Meta’s moderating fervor. After all, why impede the credibility of those who are never wrong—except, of course, when they are, but let’s not get hung up on inconvenient details like that.
On Instagram, another Meta product, this brave new moderation mission persisted. The platform used 39,000 fact-checking articles to put the brakes on nearly a million posts. That’s right—one million “potentially hazardous” thoughts and opinions that, for the good of humanity, needed a little algorithmic throttle. And if you were wondering, it wasn’t just the memes of conspiracy theorists—they made sure that you, your grandma, and that neighbor with too many political opinions got the message too: “Play nice, or we’ll see to it no one hears you.”
TikTok: Suppressing, But Make It Fashionable
Meta wasn’t the only digital nanny keeping Europeans in line. Over at TikTok, the playbook got even hazier. The platform took pride in admitting that it restricted misleading posts—though, unlike Meta, TikTok kept the numbers conveniently vague. You see, their strategy was more about “awareness,” guiding content creators with a gentle algorithmic shove away from the tempting edges of disinformation. How thoughtful.
As if to prove their dedication to curated reality, TikTok also pointed Irish users in the direction of fact-checks from TheJournal.ie, an outlet that coincidentally receives EU funding. No conflict of interest there, right? Just an honest effort to “raise awareness.” And while TikTok didn’t offer up the numbers, we can be assured that plenty of thumbs danced across phone screens only to find their intended messages conveniently dulled down or disappeared.
Google: Where Terms of Service Are Optional
And then we have Google, that beacon of a supposedly neutral search engine—except when it isn’t. Reports show that YouTube, under Google’s magnanimous ownership, automatically deboosted videos that complied with their very own terms of service. Yes, you read that right. Even when content passed muster by their own rulebook, some unseen hand deemed it “unworthy.” Google tells us this was to curb the spread of misinformation. A noble aim, except for that pesky issue of who gets to decide what counts as misinformation—and why.
Critics, like Tom Vandendriessche, an MEP for Patriots for Europe, have not been fooled by the big, earnest proclamations of “integrity protection.”
Vandendriessche—whose party has fought and won against Big Tech’s silencing efforts—paints a stark picture of unchecked power: tech companies with unprecedented influence, deciding who gets heard and who doesn’t.
“This could lead to an era of ‘techno-communism,'” Vandendriessche argued to Brussels Signal, where an unelected cabal decides what constitutes reality for the rest of us. A “techno-communism” where, if your thoughts don’t align with the given narrative, they might as well not exist.
It’s not like Vandendriessche is shouting into the void, either. His criticism comes backed by experience, his party having already tasted the bitter fruits of deplatforming. If a democratically elected official can’t even get his voice out there without tech giants intervening, what hope is there for the average citizen with an inconvenient truth?
The EU’s Seal of Approval: Trust Us, We’re Here to Help
But let’s not forget the EU brass, who are, predictably, patting Big Tech on the back. Věra Jourová seems to believe they’ve stumbled onto some grand new way to “protect the integrity of elections.” Their stance on Big Tech’s secretive influence campaign was remarkably sunny—because nothing says “protecting democracy” like a few ultra-rich corporations quietly deciding what can or cannot be said during election season.
What’s fascinating is the conviction with which the EU spins this story. They genuinely believe—or want us to believe—that this centralized control is for our benefit, a way to combat the terrifying specter of “disinformation.” Clearly, the best way to fight misinformation is to silence millions of voices, all while exempting the officials and organizations whose statements are apparently beyond reproach. Trust us, they say: We’re only limiting the information you receive for your own good.
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Censorship Industrial Complex
Julian Assange laments growing censorship, suppression of truth in the West upon release
Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, attends the European council on October 1, 2024, in Strasbourg, France
From LifeSiteNews
By Frank Wright
Speaking after 12 years of confinement, Julian Assange warned of the erosion of free speech in the West, linking his own prosecution to global censorship, political corruption, and attacks on honest journalism.
On October 1, Julian Assange made his first major speech since his release. In it, he delivered a verdict on how we are governed which is as damning as it is revealing.
“I am not free today because the system worked,” Assange said, “I am free today because after years of incarceration I pled guilty to journalism.”
Julian Assange was convicted under the U.S. Espionage Act and spent 12 years in confinement, first taking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012, followed by five years in Britain’s maximum-security prison in Belmarsh.
Had his plea not been accepted he faced a sentence of 175 years in prison. He was speaking in Strasbourg, France, at a hearing convened by the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Council – which recognized Assange as a “political prisoner.”
Saying how “incarceration has taken its toll,” Assange noted how the world he had rejoined had changed – for the worse:
I regret how much ground has been lost during that time period. How expressing the truth has been undermined, attacked, weakened, and diminished.
Assange gave a chilling account of the state of the Western world today, saying he now sees “more impunity, more secrecy, more retaliation for telling the truth, and more self-censorship.”
He believes that his own treatment was a turning point for the suppression of freedom of speech in the West:
It is hard not to draw a line from the U.S. government’s prosecution of me – its crossing the Rubicon by internationally criminalizing journalism – to the chill climate for freedom of expression that exists now.
During his speech, Assange alleged that former CIA director Mike Pompeo devised a plan to kill him, following Wikileaks’ revelation in 2017 of CIA operations in Europe.
Citing the testimony of “more than 30 former and current U.S. intelligence officials,” Assange said that “it is a matter of public record that under Pompeo’s explicit direction the CIA drew up plans to kidnap and to assassinate me” while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
The revelations published by Wikileaks which prompted the plot included evidence of CIA espionage on European governments and industries. In addition, Wikileaks reports “revealed the CIA’s vast production of malware [spy software] and viruses, its subversion of supply chains, its subversion of antivirus software, cars, smart TVs, and iPhones.”
Assange was originally pursued for having publicized U.S. actions in Guantanamo Bay, and alleged war crimes in Iraq, which he explains intensified following Wikileaks’ CIA revelations.
Cracks in our system
Assange’s case and his extraordinary testimony reveals one of many fault lines in the Western world.
“Today, the free world is no longer free.” said Salvadorean President Nayib Bukele, describing also how the West is becoming “more pessimistic,” adding that, “[t]ragically, we can see more evidence of this decline every day.” Speaking at the United Nations on September 30, he said:
When the Free World became free it was due to freedom of expression, freedom before the law. But once a nation abandons the principles that make it free it’s only a question of time before it completely loses its freedom.
The “Free World” is no longer free.
El “Mundo Libre” ya no es libre. pic.twitter.com/IOrLv33KbW
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) September 30, 2024
His observations are echoed by statements from across the political divide in the U.S.
The former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard warned on October 5 that the party she left now seeks to undermine the First Amendment. She said on X, “People like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris do not believe in the First Amendment because they see it as an obstacle to achieving their real goal: ‘total control.’”
Her remarks followed those made by Hillary Clinton in a recent video interview, in which Clinton said “whether it’s Facebook or Twitter/X or Instagram or TikTok … if they don’t moderate and monitor the content, we lose total control.”
Hillary said it: when you allow free speech, “we lose total control.” People like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris do not believe in the First Amendment because they see it as an obstacle to achieving their real goal: “total control.” https://t.co/euQJgAVxV4
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) October 5, 2024
Clinton’s remarks about losing “total control” come after Sen. John Kerry spoke at the World Economic Forum on September 25, saying “our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to just hammer [disinformation] out of existence.”
Kerry argued that opposition to the polices of the WEF was fueled by “disinformation” when critics in fact simply dislike its policies. Populism generally is described as a threat to democracy in the West, when it is also simply the preference for popular policies, against the unpopular ones of the current ruling elite.
“Disinformation,” and “misinformation” are terms invented and used by the language and ideological police to hide their malicious intent.
It appears that unpopular policies such as those of permanent war, Net Zero, deindustrialization, and denationalization can only be pursued with “total control” of the information seen by the public.
The meaningful political debate is not about left and right. It is about the meaning of what is right, and the outrage at what is obviously wrong. Assange says “it is uncertain what we can do” about the “impunity” of our leadership, which as yet has faced no meaningful consequences for its pursuit of deeply unpopular policies at the expense of widespread corruption and defended by censorship.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk said Vice President Kamala Harris will launch “lawfare” in an effort to shut down X “by any means possible” if she wins the 2024 presidential election.
Musk sat down for a two-hour interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a co-founder of the Daily Caller and Daily Caller News Foundation, released on Monday. Musk said that should Harris win the presidency, he anticipated that he and his companies would face legal action.
“If she wins, how can they let X continue in its current form, in its current role in American society?” Carlson asked Musk about the future of the social network if Harris wins the presidency.
“They won’t,” Musk responded. “They will try to shut it down by any means possible.”
WATCH:
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for Americans to be “criminally charged” for spreading what she viewed as disinformation during a Sept. 17 interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, and warned that a lack of censorship was causing a loss of “total control” in a Saturday interview with CNN host Mike Smerconish.
Carlson asked Musk to explain what he meant when he said a Harris administration would use “any means possible” to shut down X.
“They might try to pass laws,” Musk said. “They’ll try to prosecute the company, prosecute me. The amount of lawfare we’ve seen taking place is outrageous.”
Musk noted the Biden administration had sued SpaceX for failing to hire asylum seekers
“I mean… the Department of Justice, for example, launched a huge lawsuit against SpaceX for failing to hire asylum seekers,” Musk continued as Carlson expressed shock. “Not those granted asylum, but asylum seekers. Now, there’s also a law called International Traffic in Arms Regulations that because SpaceX develops advancements in technology that can be used in nuclear ICBMs… we have to be careful who we hire. We can only hire a permanent resident or a citizen.”
The Justice Department announced the suit against SpaceX in August 2023, claiming the company “discouraged asylees and refugees from applying to the company” in legal documents. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued Tesla in September 20203. claiming black employees faced harassment and threats, including nooses.
The Biden administration launched other investigations and lawsuits into companies Musk is tied to, including Tesla, since he purchased Twitter in 2022. Musk predicted a dirty tricks campaign in May 2022, as his purchase of Twitter was in progress.
Musk has been an outspoken supporter of former President Donald Trump’s bid to return to the White House, funding America PAC, speaking at Trump’s Saturday rally at Butler, Pennsylvania, at the site of an attempted assassination of the former president and donating to efforts to elected House GOP candidates.
Harris did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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