Articles covering censorship at Brownstone Institute feature opinion and analysis of the global censorship industrial complex and the impacts on social life, public health, free trade, liberty, and policy. All Brownstone Institute Censorship articles are translated into multiple languages.
History tells us that censorship regimes never end well, though it may take a generation for the deadliest consequences to play out. The draft legislation is now under review following a period of public consultation. Hopefully, the Australian Government will take the historical lesson and steer Australia off this treacherous path.
On July 20, our attorney John Sauer—a brilliant legal mind and a force of nature in the courtroom—testified before a Congressional hearing of the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Emma-Jo Morris, the journalist who originally broke the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was subsequently censored under pressure from the FBI, also testified. In a “you can’t make this stuff up moment,” one committee member began this hearing—a hearing on the topic of government censorship—by calling for a vote to censor the hearing itself, shielding it from public view and removing it from the public record.
If there were any remaining doubts about the federal government’s censorship activities, this new evidence should settle every question. During the Covid years, the government effectively nationalized all the main social media portals and converted them to become propaganda vehicles for bureaucrats while demoting or completely blocking contrary views. There is simply no way this practice can survive serious juridical scrutiny.
While the Lib Dems are benefiting from the Streisand effect for the time being, Member of the European Parliament, Christine Anderson, is dealing with YouTube censorship by suing the social media platform. Anderson reports that YouTube blocked two videos from parliamentary sessions in which she acted on the official Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic.
One naturally wants to believe that an issue one is involved in is of world-historical importance. But as the judge himself wrote in the decision, “If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.” That, my friends, is a strong claim, but as I have previously argued, an entirely accurate one.
At last this court action may finally provoke a debate about the administrative state that embarked on the great silencing. Its machinery seized control of the country in March 2020 in a great turning point in American history. It’s taken more than three years to finally observe a major pushback. The struggle to maintain freedom will always be with us as a great task of every generation.
This agency was created in the waning days of the Obama administration, supposedly to protect our digital infrastructure against cyberattacks from computer viruses and nefarious foreign actors. But less than one year into their existence, CISA decided that their remit also should include protecting our “cognitive infrastructure” from various threats.
Why would such a group all gather specifically around the question of “disinformation”? Is disinformation truly at such a level that it requires bringing together the world’s most popular author with military and intelligence leaders, the world’s biggest PR company, journalists, billionaires, Big Tech and more? Or is this work to build the case that there is a disinformation crisis, to then justify the creation of a massive infrastructure for censorship? A glimpse of the agenda offers clues.
The Department of Treasury also coordinated with CISA to censor information that undermines “public confidence” in “financial services” and “financial systems”. Consider: if you raised questions about our banking system or the behavior of the Federal Reserve on Twitter or Facebook, the government was attempting to censor this information. This is a truly Orwellian monster operating under the flimsy excuse of protecting the “national security” and the “safety” of Americans. If you aren’t sufficiently alarmed yet, you should be.
