Brownstone.org

History will remember this era as the moment when America’s most sacred principles collided with unprecedented institutional power – and lost. The systematic dismantling of fundamental rights didn’t happen through military force or executive decree, but through the quiet cooperation of tech platforms, media gatekeepers, and government agencies, all claiming to protect us from “misinformation.”

Meta’s sudden dismantling of its fact-checking program – announced by Zuckerberg as a “cultural tipping point towards prioritizing speech” – reads like a quiet footnote to what history may record as one of the most staggering violations of fundamental rights in recent memory. After eight years of increasingly aggressive content moderation, including nearly 100 fact-checking organizations operating in over 60 languages, Meta is now pivoting to a community-driven system similar to X’s model.

In his announcement, Zuckerberg first suggests that the censorship was purely a technical mistake, and then changes his tune near the end and admits what has long been litigated: “The only way that we can push back on this global trend is with the support of the US government. And that’s why it’s been so difficult over the past 4 years when even the US government has pushed for censorship. By going after us and other American companies, it has emboldened other governments to go even further.”

JustTheNews.com

This story is the first in a four-part series this month by Just the News on self-described watchdogs who push for censorship.)

“If we don’t have free speech, then we just don’t have a free country,” President-elect Donald Trump said in a video posted to social media just day after winning reelection on Nov. 5. “Today, I’m announcing my plan to shatter the left-wing censorship regime.”

Not mentioned by name, though alluded to, are the various non-profit and for-profit groups that have sprung up to battle “fake news” but typically target outlets that lean right of center. Those group include the Trusted News Initiative (TNI), Media Matters for America (MMFA), the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and NewsGuard.

“When I am president, this whole rotten system of censorship and information control will be ripped out of the system at large,” Trump also announced.

With his bold pronouncements in mind, the following is Part 1 of a four-part series – a deep dive into some of the organizations to which he was likely referring. Critics of their work say it leads to censorship and loss of advertising for the media outlets that dare challenge the legacy media’s approved narrative. 

Mike Benz: The Four-Letter Agencies are killing the ability to operate an independent website by selectively discriminating against anyone who disagrees with the U.S.

In order for the Deep State to create an effective censorship operation within the United States they had to park it in the only institution engaged in domestic intelligence that doesn't require an act that violates the law for it to expend federal resources to investigate it.  At a September 2021 conference, a senior advisor to DHS confessed on tape that what they have done if effectively created a "Domestic CIA" that combined foreign-facing CIA powers that are not allowed domestically with the domestic jurisdiction of the FBI but without the oversight.  One year later, in 2022, DHS created a domestic intelligence group headed by none other than James Clapper and John Brennan on the day Trump was inaugurated.

FUN FACT: There has been a Bush, a Clinton or a Biden on the ticket of every election since 1976.  Think about it.  There has been a person from those three families running for either President or Vice President for over the last 4 decades!

Infowars.com

Elon Musk exposed how the EU tried to install a backdoor censorship panel to X that would have blanket power to determine what information is allowed on the platform. Alex Jones breaks it all down!

BREAKING: Elon Musk Exposes Secret Illegal Global Censorship System@elonmusk pic.twitter.com/9kj2euqDtS

— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) July 12, 2024

ReclaimTheNet.org

Big Tech coalition Digital Trust & Safety Partnership (DTSP), the UK’s regulator OFCOM, and the World Economic Forum (WEF) have come together to produce a report.

The three entities, each in their own way, are known for advocating for or carrying out speech restrictions and policies that can result in undermining privacy and security.

DTSP says it is there to “address harmful content” and makes sure online age verification (“age assurance”) is enforced, while OFCOM states its mission to be establishing “online safety.”

Now they have co-authored a WEF (WEF Global Coalition for Digital Safety) report – a white paper – that puts forward the idea of closer cooperation with law enforcement in order to more effectively “measure” what they consider to be online digital safety and reduce what they identify to be risks.

The importance of this is explained by the need to properly allocate funds and ensure compliance with regulations. Yet again, “balancing” this with privacy and transparency concerns is mentioned several times in the report almost as a throwaway platitude.

WND.com

NewsGuard, which purportedly “rates” news organizations for their truthfulness, has been described in a Real Clear Wire report as “a powerful censorship tool.”

And constitutional expert Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University whose popular commentary regularly skewers the establishment, has warned against subjecting children in America’s schools to the left-leaning bias of “fact-checkers” like NewsGuard because it “raises the specter of a type of de facto state media.”

Now a report at RedState is revealing U.S. Rep. James Comer, chief of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, is beginning an investigation of the “supposed arbiter of media reliability.”

The goal? Determine the “impact of NewsGuard on protected First Amendment speech and its potential to serve as a non-transparent agent of censorship campaigns.

Revolver.news

Chances are, if you’ve been keeping tabs on the COVID “coverup,: you’ve come across this story that began to unfold in 2022. There was a sudden spike in SIDS cases in Ottawa, Canada, where nine babies died shortly after their mothers received the vaccine. One detective, named Helen Grus, took it upon herself to investigate these incidents. Yet, simply for doing her job and delving into the vaccine’s possible role, she found herself suspended and vilified.

The Ottawa police settled with one of the families who felt their privacy was breached, simply because a detective was determined to get to the bottom of their baby’s death, and that’s when Grus was suspended and her life was turned upside down.

Join Tucker Carlson and Mike Benz as they unveil the main driver of censorship in the United States in this eye-opening and informative video. Explore the hidden agendas and powerful forces at play behind the scenes that are shaping the landscape of free speech and expression in the modern age. Ep. 75 The national security state is the main driver of censorship and election interference in the United States. "What I’m describing is military rule," says Mike Benz. "It’s the inversion of democracy."

ActivistPost.com

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear. We must, therefore, be on our guard against extremists who urge us to adopt police state measures. Such persons advocate breaking down the guarantees of the Bill of Rights in order to get at the communists. They forget that if the Bill of Rights were to be broken down, all groups, even the most conservative, would be in danger from the arbitrary power of government.”

—Harry S. Truman, Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States (August 8, 1950)

Nothing good can come from allowing the government to sidestep the Constitution.

Unfortunately, the government has become an expert at disregarding constitutional roadblocks intended to protect the rights of the citizenry.