The U.S. Department of Homeland Security was founded by the Bush Administration in response to 9/11. As one of the country’s many ‘national security’ agencies, its original remit was counter-terrorism (i.e., to pre-empt threats from Al-Qaeda and other Islamist terror groups).
Since then, however, the DHS’s remit has expanded considerably – as a new investigation by the Intercept reveals.
Based on leaks and documents obtained from an ongoing lawsuit, Ken Klippenstein and Lee Fang lay bare what many have long suspected: Big Tech is collaborating with the DHS and other ‘national security’ agencies to censor social media – often with a nakedly partisan agenda.
Following the rise of ISIS in 2014, Big Tech began collaborating with the DHS to monitor and remove social media accounts linked to terrorism. So far, so good, you might say.
Yet the defeat of ISIS “left the homeland security apparatus without a target”, note Klippenstein and Fang. “Meanwhile, a new threat entered the discourse. The allegation that Russian agents had seeded disinformation on Facebook that tipped the 2016 election toward Donald Trump.”
This led to the formation of a ‘Foreign Influence Task Force’, which aims to curb “subversive data utilised to drive a wedge between the populace and the Government”.
The DHS remit then expanded beyond “disinformation” produced by foreign governments to include “disinformation” produced by domestic actors. Officials’ stated justification for this fairly blatant mission creep was that terror threats can be “exacerbated by misinformation and disinformation spread online”.
According to documents reviewed by Klippenstein and Fang, the DHS aims to counteract “inaccurate information” on a wide range of topics, including “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine”.
And one of the ways it does this is by coordinating with Big Tech, i.e., telling companies like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to censor information it considers “inaccurate”.
The Intercept even found evidence of a special-purpose portal that could be used by Government agents to make “requests” about information on Facebook to which they objected.
One of the most egregious cases of Big Tech censoring social media at the behest of the U.S. Government concerns the Hunter Biden laptop story – published in the New York Post shortly before the 2020 election.
Fifty former intelligence officials came out to say the story was “Russian disinformation”. (This allegation was later proven false when various emails from the laptop were authenticated.) Nevertheless, both Twitter and Facebook throttled users’ ability to view or share the story in the weeks leading up to election day.
Mark Zuckerberg later told Joe Rogan that Facebook had been contacted by the FBI and told to beware of “Russian disinformation”.
It’s increasingly obvious that terms like ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation’ are simply tools used by the U.S. Government and its allies in Big Tech to justify banning information that runs counter to prevailing narratives. Klippenstein and Fang’s exposé contains many other interesting details, and is worth reading in full.
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Obviously there just aren’t enough “terrorists”.
My knee-jerk response to the headline and the first sentence.
Like all bureaucratic organisations the DHS has to keep imagining more and more threats to keep their employee numbers and thus budget increases rising.
I don’t think the motivation here is to justify growing the organisation. More likely IMO is a desire to wield power by supporting chosen narratives in order to advance agendas, like preventing Trump being re-elected or silencing anyone questioning the vaccines.
And YouTube have announced they’re partnering with the WHO with the aim to “address the spread of misinformation and disinformation”. I think we’ll see a lot of our favourites disappearing soon, such as John Campbell, Dr Vinay Prasad etc. They need to follow in Russell Brand’s footsteps and get busy on an alternative platform.
https://ussanews.com/2022/10/30/youtube-announces-new-partnership-with-world-health-organisation/
Yes for example John Bowe’s film Safe and Effective a Second Opinion after significant views, has been taken down from the U bend/bent (YouTube).
This totalitarian style collaboration must be breaking the first amendment! And influencing elections by the global deep state.
Does this mean youtube is now at the disposal of the propagandist Susan Michie?
John Campbell has had a channel on Rumble since September. John Bowe’s film is on several platforms I’ve looked at (Rumble, Odysee, Bitchute, BNT, even Rokfin). You can usually find Vinay Prasad, Dr Been & others on those platforms from other content providers, plus they have their own websites too. Weaning off YT is relatively easy, although how long before alternative platforms are targeted is anyone’s guess.
YT pulls the biggest audiences though but I think once people with large followings go elsewhere then their followers will go with them. It’s predictable. Plus, if those people are like us, with their eyes wide open as to what is occurring, and it is an obvious strategy which was bound to happen sooner or later, then they’re not going to hang around using a platform that offers them nothing but narrative-promoting bilge which is, ironically, spreading the real “misinformation and disinformation”. As the article above states, it’s a complete inversion of the truth. The WHO and Big Tech have their toxic tentacles everywhere and won’t stop. No power is too much power it seems.
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
If you think the British Government are not aware of this and participating in it then I have a bridge to sell you. The EU too are openly cock-a-hoop over their own digital censorship legislation.
When a paranoia-based organisation like the DHS runs out of external threats, it turns on its own people. DHS has poisoned the USA and its baleful influence has spread throughout the Western world. It’s gone from defence of people to control-freakery. The post-9/11 organisations are where the political acceptability of lockdowns and restrictions come from: a desire to keep everyone ‘safe’ by wielding absolute control over their behaviour.
I find it quite staggering that this story isn’t the biggest news worldwide and for weeks on end.
Basically we have confirmed what we suspected that the Gov is curating the information the plebs are allowed to see and hear.
I don’t know why so few people don’t call it what it is … fascistic.
The collusion of private corporations and the state to the detriment of truth.