Articles featuring analysis of the global censorship industrial complex, impacts on public health, free trade, liberty, and policy.
All Brownstone Institute articles on censorship are translated into multiple languages.
Will the ABC course-correct with Williams at the helm? Now that trust in legacy media is at historical lows, the ABC’s partnership with TNI does little to assuage fears that the network has passed the point of no return.
New ABC Fact-Checkers, Same Problems? Read More »
Somehow – call me naive – I just didn’t expect the New York Times to be all-in on the immediate establishment of the surveillance state and universal censorship by the “awesome” Deep State. But think of this. If the NYT can be fully captured by this ideology, and probably captured by the money that goes with it, so can any other institution. You have probably noticed a similar editorial line being pushed by Wired, Mother Jones, Rolling Stone, Salon, Slate, and other venues, including the entire suite of publications owned by Conde Nast including Vogue and GQ magazine.
Now We Are Supposed to Cheer Government Surveillance? Read More »
What to do about it? I would suggest a simple answer. Forget the model, which might be completely misconstrued in any case. Just say what is true, with sincerity, without malice, without convoluted hopes of manipulating others. It’s a time for truth, which earns trust. Only that will blow the window wide open and finally demolish it forever.
Is the Overton Window Real, Imagined, or Constructed? Read More »
When the government heaves the law and Constitution overboard, euphemisms become the coin of the realm. During the Bush era, it wasn’t torture—it was merely “enhanced interrogation” (see Last Rights: The Death of American Liberty – https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B0CP9WF634&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_N9W1GZ337XCCPPHF8D60). Nowadays, the issue is not “censorship”—but merely “content moderation.” And “moderation” is such a virtue that it happened millions of times a year thanks to the feds arm-twisting social media companies, according to federal court decisions.
Is Censorship the Biden Era’s Torture Issue? Read More »
We must fight with everything we have against governments that behave in a dictatorial manner, against the evidence, using substandard experts, “for our own good,” as they say. The best way forward is to learn as much as possible about the methods governments used to suppress and distort the science. The Great Barrington Declaration, which has received almost a million signatures, was an important milestone. We need to establish an international cooperation of scientists at the highest level who will stand together and never again accept to be silenced when the next pandemic hits us.
The Death and Resurrection of Science Read More »
The slogan became popular about ten years ago: the revolution will be decentralized with the creation of robust parallel institutions. There is no other path. The intellectual parlor game is over. This is a real-life struggle for freedom itself. It’s resist and rebuild or doom.
Did Lockdowns Set a Global Revolt in Motion? Read More »
The majority of the court appeared to favor eliminating Chevron. It would be the height of hypocrisy – and one the most culturally devastating decisions since Dred Scott – to not see the parallels and to rule any other way than against the government in Murthy. With that ruling, we can begin to gather in the tentacles of the censorship monster.
Chevron, Murthy, and ‘Supreme’ Hypocrisy Read More »
If the justices want to distinguish between persuasion and coercion in the injunction, they need to appreciate that social media companies operate in a very different relationship with government than traditional print media. These asymmetrical power dynamics create a relationship ripe for unconstitutional government coercion.
Justices’ Grave Error in Murthy v. Missouri Read More »
That is what the once vaunted now openly vile Poynter Institute – a pivot point of the international censorship-industrial complex – wishes to “strengthen…around the globe.” Pointedly, not “free speech,” but “fact-based expression.”
Poynter’s Creepy ‘Fact-Based Expression’ Read More »
How ironic that in both these cases, it was the government—the body suggested by the medical leaders to be best qualified to police against “misinformation” in healthcare—which actually fostered “misinformation.”
Medical Leadership Cannot Escape the ‘Misinformation’ Trap Read More »
Billed as one of the most consequential lawsuits of the last century, Murthy v. Missouri (formerly Missouri v Biden) is a legal battle that stands at the intersection of free speech protections and social media companies.
Censorship on Trial at the Supreme Court Read More »
If I’m a betting man, I’ll place my money (though not much money) that we’ll get a 5-4 or 6-3 decision upholding some kind of injunction. And while I hate to admit it, things could also go the other way. I think it will be close. Supreme Court decisions are notoriously difficult to predict, and it appears there are enemies of free speech on the bench even in the highest Court in the land.
Supreme Court Divided on Censorship Read More »
