Mike Benz Profile picture
Dec 30, 2022 11 tweets 6 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
1. The DHS censorship scandal, which is far more shocking than the #TwitterFiles, is a tale of "Censorship Blackwater."

Just as DOD outsources "dirty work" overseas to private military contractors, DHS began outsourcing censorship "dirty work" to private mercenaries at home. Image
2. To help bring this DHS censorship scandal to life, it's instructive to see how DHS's "Blackwater" group, Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), sicced out and censored individual influential voices to take them out of the political influence equation for the 2020 election.
3. EIP and insiders at CISA (DHS's cyber agency) were freaking out in summer 2020 that Trump's social media megaphone was going to derail the political viability of using mass mail-in ballots for the election 5 months away.

June 22, 2020, this Trump tweet sent them into a tizzy:
4. On June 23, 2020, the very next day after Trump's tweet calling mass mail-in ballots "the scandal of our times," CISA & EIP had what they said was their "First discussion" of the censorship outsourcing operation EIP would do, mass flagging all criticism of mail-in ballots: Image
5. Again, I've played this clip a million times, but for those new here, CISA & EIP were explicit in confessing they knew CISA didn't have the legal authority to do the censorship directly, so EIP would be deputized to "fill the gaps" of things unconstitutional for DHS to do:
6. Now this part is EXTREMELY important:

EIP, DHS's "Blackwater" mercenary censorship group, didn't just mass flag posts. They did that. A ton. But it was way worse.

They COERCED (and bragged about it!) social media companies to EXPAND THEIR CENSORSHIP POLICIES:
7. I really can't emphasize this point enough.

DHS's "Censorship Blackwater" group didn't simply flag posts violating existing TOS.

They STRONG-ARMED the platforms into changing their TOS, and then mass flagged posts under the new policies they pressured them to adopt:
8. The man you heard confessing the whole plan above is Alex Stamos.

Thanks to EIP's status as DHS's formally deputized disinformation-flagger, Alex Stamos's censorship requests were given special priority, on par with the FBI and DHS itself. The latest TwitterFiles reveals: Image
9. There's so much more to this scandal but I started this thread bc I'll be talking about it on the Charlie Kirk Show & wanted to show examples of EIP targeting @charliekirk11 personally.

This is how DHS's "Blackwater" group justified censorship requests to Twitter censors: ImageImageImage
10. DHS's deputized attack dog EIP further targeted @charliekirk11 as a "repeat misinformation spreader" for "asking questions" about the Sharpiegate narrative, which EIP bragged about pressuring Twitter/Facebook/Insta/YouTube/TikTok to all jointly censor at the narrative level: ImageImageImage
11. More EIP targeting of Charlie Kirk @charliekirk11:

What democracy can survive a domestic intelligence agency, DHS, deploying private censorship squads to neutralize political opposition?

Democracy is a contest for hearts and minds. No access to hearts & minds, no democracy. ImageImageImage

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More from @MikeBenzCyber

Jun 1
DHS is prepping this for America.

This is the purpose of biometrics. This is why TSA (housed under DHS) is moving to facial recognition and iris scans.

Read any US counterinsurgency guide from Iraq occupation onward. They think this is the way to shut down any protest.
Iris-scanning you. Image
Databasing your eyes and face. Image
Read 5 tweets
May 31
It’s almost too much to believe.

Hitman special prosecutor Jack Smith is now going after the Trump admin’s firing of Chris Krebs, the man who CREATED the DHS domestic censorship machine:

thehill.com/homenews/40281…
However little trust, however much disgust, you have for the corruption of this DOJ, it is not enough.
The system protects its spooks & its censors. A thread on Chris Krebs’ myriad CIA connections:
Read 4 tweets
May 30
THREAD: Harvard’s top censorship magazine, The Misinformation Review, bragged that “mis/disinfo studies” is “Too Big To Fail,” owing in part to big money flowing from government.

foundationforfreedomonline.com/harvard-too-bi…
2. “Disinfo studies” merges social science (psycho, sociology, comms) w/ computer sciences (AI, machine learning), converging on a common target (law-abiding citizens) to censor on social media. Social science teams make “network maps” of targets for comp sci teams to take down. Image
3. Gov’t Money Sustains The Industry:

The Harvard Misinfo Review report begins its “Too Big To Fail” argument by citing “A broad range of funding bodies and governments [that] have devoted significant financial resources” to academic departments involved in censorship studies. ImageImage
Read 15 tweets
May 18
Sensitive subject. Hungary is home to a proud people under enormous pressure from the US & EU to adopt neoliberal beliefs & NATO control measures they strongly oppose.

China offers them value, without giving up their values. What does US offer?
I used to travel to Budapest every year. ~5 years ago, I remember being shocked that when you get off the plane to Budapest, the first thing you see is a giant sign promoting the Chinese Renmimbi. You see this ad before you even see a Hungarian flag or “welcome to Hungary” sign.
When you walk around Oktogon Square in downtown Budapest, the tallest building in the square has a sign for the Bank of China.

This can be quite surprising to see as a American, who instinctively assumes Western hegemony in Eastern Europe. ImageImage
Read 5 tweets
May 17
The state of Montana just banned TikTok.

It is now illegal to download the app there. Any platform that allows access to TikTok or ability to download it will have to pay a fine of $10,000 per DAY.

latimes.com/world-nation/s… ImageImage
I have many good NatSec friends who will disagree with me, but I see this as a dark day in history of the Internet.

The big winner here is Google/YouTube, who surely lobbied like hell to kill its competition.

What case will USG make to Europe about a “free & open Internet” now?
For years, US citizens heard dark stories of China’s “Great Firewall” & how deprived of freedom the Chinese are for being blocked from US sites.

Well guess what? Montana just made “freedom martyrs” out of every 16 y/o punished for trying to fit in w/ their friends in NYC & LA.
Read 6 tweets
May 15
My take on the censorship situation in Turkey
It’s hard to overstate how critical Turkey’s alliance (political capture) was to US interests during the Cold War.

Turkey is the gateway to the East. It’s the only entry point from Mediterranean to the Black Sea.

Vital transshipment for arms, drugs, & all trade in Eurasia. Image
Turkey played a crucial role in NATO’s Operation Gladio. It was the key country connecting US ops in Eurasia & SE Asia to NATO allies (both overworld & underworld) in Italy and France.

And Turkey’s gate over Black Sea makes it key to defense of Ukraine.

Read 6 tweets

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