Censorship

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.

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White House censors

They Censored at the Behest of the White House: More Reporting from Tracy Beanz

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Social media companies acted in direct response to the White House calling out the so-called “Disinformation Dozen.” Evidence in the case proves that they acted to deplatform those branded within 24 hours of the White House publicly identifying them.

They Censored at the Behest of the White House: More Reporting from Tracy Beanz Read Journal Article

Missouri vs Biden

The Censors are Exposed: Major Update to Missouri v. Biden from Tracy Beanz

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The judge has done the right thing the entire time. The appeals court has done the right thing the entire time. The depositions were granted, the discovery was granted, the motion to dismiss was denied—the judge has expressed several times his shock at what the plaintiffs have exposed. The judge plays by the rules and both he and the appellate court are significantly alarmed by what has come out. This isn’t what we are used to, namely, a weak judge capitulating to the government. In fact, the judge hasn’t capitulated ONCE. Neither has the appellate court and neither has a DC court. 

The Censors are Exposed: Major Update to Missouri v. Biden from Tracy Beanz Read Journal Article

Australian censorship

The Covid Censorship Requests of Australia’s Department of Home Affairs

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The Australian stereotype of mocking self-important authorities was tepid at best during the crisis, and what questioning of authority did take place appears to have been quickly memory-holed by the spell-checkers-turned-fact-checkers at the Department of Home Affairs “Extremsim” team. With each passing day, Idiocracy is looking more and more like prophecy.

The Covid Censorship Requests of Australia’s Department of Home Affairs Read Journal Article

censorship powers

Meet the VLOPs! The EU Extends its Censorship Powers

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The European Commission announced its first list of designated Very Large Online Platforms – or VLOPs – that will be subject to “content moderation” requirements and obligations to combat “disinformation” under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). As VLOPs, the designated services will be required “to assess and mitigate their systemic risks and to provide robust content moderation tools.”

Meet the VLOPs! The EU Extends its Censorship Powers Read Journal Article

Censorship-Industrial Complex

The Censorship Industrial Complex

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Big Media and Big Tech fell completely out of sync with material reality, smearing criticism that had previously been normal, and explicitly banning topics from social media such as discussion of a possible lab leak, or vaccines not stopping viral transmission. Polite society agreed with such bans, stayed silent, or even, as in the case of the Virality Project and its partners, led the censoring. A cadre of North American and European anti-disinformation elites meanwhile had been slowly convincing NGOs in Asia, Africa, and Latin America that their biggest problem was not too little but too much online freedom, the solution to which was more corporate and government control in order to protect human rights and democracy.

The Censorship Industrial Complex Read Journal Article

censorship disinformation

Censorship Masquerades and Disinformation Control

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The Virality Project however is just part of a broader cultural shift that reverses long standing liberal/left commitments to free expression and allows censorship in the name of protection and safety. However in suppressing “stories of true vaccine side effects” the Virality Project put people in danger. Rather than keeping people safe they exposed us to the depredations of BigPharma.

Censorship Masquerades and Disinformation Control Read Journal Article

podcast censorship

Censors Use AI to Target Podcasts

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The collapse of support for free speech among Western pseudo-elites is the foundation of so many other problems, from medicine to war. Misinformation is the natural state of the world. Open science and vigorous debate are the tools we deploy to become less wrong over time. Individual and collective decision-making depend on them.

Censors Use AI to Target Podcasts Read Journal Article

EU Twitter

The EU Files: What Elon Musk Is Not Telling You About Twitter Censorship

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So long as it wants to remain on the EU market, Twitter cannot say no to the demands of the European Commission. The enforcement mechanism that renders the Code of Practice obligatory is the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). The DSA gives the European Commission power to impose fines of up to 6% percent of global turnover on platforms that it finds to be in violation of the Code: n.b. global turnover, not just turnover on the EU market!

The EU Files: What Elon Musk Is Not Telling You About Twitter Censorship Read Journal Article

censorship operations

Censorship Operations: Covid, War, and More

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This all follows a similar pattern to the informational warfare of the Covid era: an inconvenient narrative arises, the government and lemmings in the media slander it as false and dangerous, and, months later, the dispute in question turns out to be true (or at least highly plausible). Arguments over natural immunity, vaccine efficacy, masks, the lab leak hypothesis, school shutdowns, lockdowns, and the scientific basis of social distancing are just a few examples that followed this cycle of reporting. 

Censorship Operations: Covid, War, and More Read Journal Article

disinformation and censorship

Disinformation, Censorship, and Information Warfare in the 21st Century

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It’s morally, legally, and intellectually repugnant that federal officials in the United States have constructed a vast apparatus for censoring legal speech, bypassing the First Amendment—without informing the public—on the pretext that the activities of foreign regimes which have been deliberately permitted on our online platforms have gotten so out of control.

Disinformation, Censorship, and Information Warfare in the 21st Century Read Journal Article