Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Mar 9, 2023 41 tweets 8 min read Read on X
EXPOSED: America's Secret Censorship-Industrial Complex

U.S. government officials, agencies, and contractors are violating the First Amendment

My testimony to Congress

public.substack.com/p/exposed-amer…
Over the last three months, a small group of us have, thanks to the Twitter Files, exposed the ways in which social media platforms have, under pressure from U.S. government agencies, censored ordinary Americans and spread disinformation.
At 10 am ET, @mtaibbi & I will testify before Congress to share shocking new findings: a highly-organized network of government agencies and contractors has been creating blacklists and pressuring social media companies to censor Americans, often without them knowing it.
We have already reported on some of the actions by this complex.

But the extent of its censorship was unknown to us until very recently.

And, as importantly, we now understand the ways in which this complex simultaneously spreads disinformation and demands censorship.
My 68-page testimony to Congress lays out an effort by U.S. government intelligence and security agencies to wage “information warfare” against the American people.

(The full document can be downloaded here)

public.substack.com/p/exposed-amer…
I do not doubt that some people will try to justify the behaviors we have documented. They will say such censorship is necessary for “fighting disinformation.”
But there is no moral or legal justification for the acts of state-sponsored censorship we document, much less for the fundamentally unAmerican censorship-industrial complex.
I believe that any reasonable person reading our report, no matter their politics, will be horrified by what is taking place and demand an end to it.

With our testimony, we are calling on Congress to defund and dismantle the censorship-industrial complex immediately.
Democracy depends on freedom of speech. Both are under attack.
The Censorship-Industrial Complex

My verbal testimony to Congress

by Michael Shellenberger
In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower warned of “the acquisition of unwarranted influence… by the military-industrial complex.” Eisenhower feared that the size and power of the “complex,” or cluster, of government contractors and the Department of Defense… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
How? Through “domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money.” He feared public policy would “become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
Eisenhower’s fears were well-founded. Today, American taxpayers are unwittingly financing the growth and power of a censorship-industrial complex run by America’s scientific and technological elite, which endangers our liberties and democracy.
I am grateful for the opportunity to offer this testimony and sound the alarm over the shocking and disturbing emergence of state-sponsored censorship in the United States of America.
There is a large and growing network of government agencies, academic institutions, and nongovernmental organizations that are actively censoring American citizens, often without their knowledge, on a range of issues.
I offer some cautions. I do not know how much of the censorship is coordinated beyond what we have been able to document, and I will not speculate. I recognize that the law allows Facebook, Twitter, and other private companies to moderate content on their platforms. And I support… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
But government officials have been caught repeatedly pushing social media platforms to censor disfavored users and content. Often, these acts of censorship threaten the legal protection social media companies need to exist, Section 230.
“If government officials are directing or facilitating such censorship,” notes George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, “it raises serious First Amendment questions. It is axiomatic that the government cannot do indirectly what it is prohibited from doing… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Moreover, we know that the U.S. government has funded organizations that pressure advertisers to boycott news media organizations and social media platforms that a) refuse to censor and/or b) spread disinformation, including alleged conspiracy theories.
The Stanford Internet Observatory, the University of Washington, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, and Graphika all have inadequately-disclosed ties to the Department of Defense, the C.I.A., and other intelligence agencies.
They work with multiple U.S. government agencies to institutionalize censorship research and advocacy within dozens of other universities and think tanks.
It is important to understand how these groups function. They are not publicly engaging with their opponents in an open exchange of ideas. They aren’t asking for a national debate over the limits of the First Amendment.
Rather, they are creating blacklists of disfavored people and then pressuring, cajoling, and demanding that social media platforms censor, deamplify, and even ban the people on these blacklists.
Who are the censors? They are a familiar type. Overly confident in their ability to discern truth from falsity, good intention from bad intention, the instinct of these hall monitor-types is to complain to the teacher — and, if the teacher doesn’t comply, to go above them, to the… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Such an approach might work in middle school and many elite universities, but it is anathema to freedom and is an abuse of power.

These organizations and others are also running their own influence operations, often under the guise of “fact-checking.”
The intellectual leaders of the censorship complex have convinced journalists and social media executives that accurate information is disinformation, that valid hypotheses are conspiracy theories, and that greater self-censorship results in more accurate reporting.
In many instances, censorship, such as labeling social media posts, is part of the influence operation aimed at discrediting factual information.

The censorship industrial complex combines established methods of psychological manipulation, some developed by the U.S. military… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
The complex’s leaders are driven by the fear that the Internet and social media platforms empower populist, alternative, and fringe personalities and views, which they regard as destabilizing.
Federal government officials, agencies, and contractors have gone from fighting ISIS recruiters and Russian bots to censoring and deplatforming ordinary Americans and disfavored public figures.
Importantly, the bar for bringing in military-grade government monitoring and speech-countering techniques has moved from “countering terrorism” to “countering extremism” to countering simple misinformation.
The government no longer needs a predicate of calling you a terrorist or extremist to deploy government resources to counter your political activity. The only predicate it needs is simply the assertion that the opinion you expressed on social media is wrong.
These efforts extend to influencing and even directing conventional news media organizations. Since 1971, when the Washington Post and New York Times elected to publish classified Pentagon papers about the war in Vietnam, journalists understood that we have a professional… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
And yet, in 2020, the Aspen Institute and Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center urged journalists to “Break the Pentagon Papers principle” and not cover leaked information to prevent the spread of “disinformation.”
Government-funded censors frequently invoke the prevention of real-world harm to justify their demands for censorship, but the censors define harm far more expansively than the Supreme Court does.
The censors have defined harm so broadly, in fact, that they have justified Facebook censoring accurate information about COVID vaccines, for example, to prevent “vaccine hesitancy.”
Their goal, clearly, is not protecting the truth but rather persuading the public. That is the purpose of open debate and the free exchange of ideas.
And, increasingly, the censors say their goal is to restrict information that “delegitimizes” governmental, industrial, and news media organizations. That mandate is so sweeping that it could easily censor criticism of any part of the status quo, from elected officials to… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Congress should immediately cut off funding to the censors and investigate their activities. Second, it should mandate instant reporting of all conversations between social media executives, government employees, and contractors concerning content moderation. Third, Congress… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Whatever Congress does, it is incumbent upon the American people to wake up to the threat of government censorship. “Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry,” Eisenhower noted, “can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
All of the above is just a summary

To read the full, 68-page report/testimony, please visit Public

public.substack.com/p/exposed-amer…
And stay-tuned for a bombshell up-coming TWITTER FILES thread from @mtaibbi

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More from @shellenberger

Mar 26
You are not crazy, you are right: elites across the West are imposing a crackdown on speech. They have weaponized intelligence and security agencies. The news media are helping them. But they will lose in Ireland and could lose elsewhere. We will support your fight for freedom.
The same characters are attacking free speech in Brazil:

public.substack.com/p/fbi-soros-an…
Read 8 tweets
Mar 24
We should trust @BBC to fight misinformation, it says. But we shouldn't. Last year it spread false information about hate speech, Nigel Farage, and Israel-Gaza. Now, a former BBC reporter says it killed a major story about the coverup of medical mistreatment of gender confusion. Image
The former BBC reporter @hannahsbee went on to write a book, "A Time To Think," about the scandal of giving drugs and surgeries to gender-confused kids. Last year, her book was short-listed for the prestigious "Orwell Prize."

amazon.com/Time-Think-Col…
Here's what happened, as reported in The Times Of London, today:

Barnes "was editing [BBC flagship program] Newsnight on the night she revealed that the [gender clinic hospital] Tavistock trust’s medical director, Dr Dinesh Sinha, had failed to mention a number of safeguarding concerns raised by [gender clinic] Gids staff in a review he had published of the service.

"It was a turning point in the story: a revelation that prompted the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to conduct its own review, in which Gids would ultimately be rated 'inadequate.' Barnes had worked a 16-hour shift, editing the package down so that the story could air on the various news bulletins. None of it ran. 'It wasn’t anywhere on the BBC. The online piece was so buried that even though I had written it, I couldn’t find it.'"Image
Read 5 tweets
Mar 23
For years, experts said we should give drugs and surgeries to kids confused about their gender. Given the sterility, loss of sexual function, and regret, that's been changing. Now, a French Senate report calls it “one of the greatest ethical scandals in the history of medicine." Image
"Maud Vasselle, a mother whose daughter underwent gender transition treatment, told Le Figaro: 'A child is not old enough to ask to have her body altered.

"'My daughter just needed the certificate of a psychiatrist, which she obtained after a one-hour consultation. But doctors don’t explain the consequences of puberty blockers,' she added.

“'My daughter didn’t realise that life wasn’t going to be so easy with all these treatments... She was a brilliant little girl but now she’s failing at school. And she is far from having found the solution to her problems.'"

telegraph.co.uk/world-news/202…
The French Senate report comes in the wake of leaked WPATH Files, which show that "gender medicine" doctors, therapists, and activists know they're causing harm and not getting informed consent from their victims.

Read 9 tweets
Mar 19
Victory! Quack trans group @WPATH has deleted its pseudoscientific "Standards of Care v8" from its website!

This comes two weeks after the release of the WPATH Files, which revealed widespread medical mistreatment and fraud

WPATH yesterday:

WPATH today:
h/t @JanedoeordontImage
Image
WPATH may also have removed its president, Marci Bowers.

Here's WPATH's website yesterday:

Here's WPATH's web site today:Image
Image
Everyone from the New York Times to the American Medical Association has, for years, relied on WPATH. Neither @NYT nor @AmerMedicalAssn has responded to the WPATH Files, despite growing evidence that "gender medicine" is the largest medical mistreatment scandal in history.Image
Image
Read 13 tweets
Mar 18
The Internet means we should rethink the First Amendment, say the media. But it doesn't. Telegraphs, radio, and TV didn't require restricting free speech. There's something wrong with anyone so intolerant of their fellow citizens that they want the government to censor them. Image
Jeff Kosseff: "Hey, Let's Not Rethink The First Amendment"

Leading free speech scholar pushes back against widespread claim that "peer-to-peer misinformation" on the Internet justifies government censorship

by @shellenberger

Many journalists, university professors, and Democrats say we must change how we think about the First Amendment for the Internet age. Maybe the government had no role in regulating speech before there existed social media platforms like X and Facebook, where “peer-to-peer misinformation” thrives. But now, given the threat such misinformation poses to democracy, we need the government to restrict what can be said on the Internet, claim Stanford researchers, the New York Times, and the Biden administration.

All of that is dangerous nonsense, according to Jeff Kosseff, a cybersecurity law professor at the U.S. Naval Academy and author of a new book, Liar In A Crowded Theater. “Starting about a century ago,” he told me in a new podcast, “the Supreme Court gradually developed robust [free speech] protections for all but a handful of exceptions…. And I think that, for the Internet, it needs to be the same, where we start off with the premise that this speech is not subject to regulation.”

Kosseff recognizes the Internet’s massive impact and the limits to freedom of speech. “I think, obviously, you need to have some somewhat different rules to make [the First Amendment] make sense on the Internet,” he explains. “And you can't [for example] lie in court and then say, ‘My rights are protected by the First Amendment.’”

However, the Supreme Court already ruled in Reno v. ACLU in 1997 that the First Amendment applied to speech on the Internet. After the Communications Decency Act passed in 1996, an aspect of it was challenged as unconstitutional. “The government's defense of it was, ‘Well, the Internet is not really like your average speech.' You don't get the full scope of First Amendment protections for the Internet. Instead, you get lesser protections, kind of like you get for radio and TV because the FCC can regulate cursing and pornography.’

“The Supreme Court very soundly and clearly rejected that. It said, ‘No, the Internet is not like broadcast because broadcast has scarce spectrum that has to be regulated by the government. The Internet is this new medium. ' It's a beautiful opinion. Justice Stevens wrote it, and most of it was joined by all of the justices. There were two minor dissents. I think that principle needs to carry on.”

I wanted to interview Kosseff before tomorrow’s Supreme Court hearing on Murthy v. Missouri, a potentially landmark First Amendment case involving government demands for online censorship....
Please subscribe now to support the fight for free speech, read the full article, and hear the full podcast!

Read 5 tweets
Mar 14
Gender medicine looked like the future. Now, the Times of London, one of the most respected newspapers in the world, calls it "Quack Medicine," and is urging that it be "reined in entirely." US media, medical associations, and politicians should follow the UK's lead. Image
"Quack Medicine"

Citing WPATH Files, The Times of London denounces "gender-affirming care"
Well, somebody had to say it. All the better that it’s one of the most respected newspapers in the world.

The prescription of puberty blockers to children is “Quack Medicine,” thunders The Times of London, one of the most influential center-left newspapers in the West:

"In the Western world at least, it is normal for new treatments to undergo rigorous testing before being accepted into mainstream medicine. Often, the complaint from those who might benefit from therapies is that approval takes too long. This ­excess of caution may be frustrating for those who need help but far worse would be a system in which patients became guinea pigs in unregulated mass experiments with potentially life-altering and irremediable consequences. Such is the case with puberty blockers, which for years have been fed to children in this country who are confused about their identity and sexuality."

The editorial accompanies a long news story and a column by Janice Turner. “One day, we’ll look back on the era of puberty blockers with horror,” Turner writes. “This shocking chapter in medical history, where the ideological objectives of trans rights campaigners trumped the welfare of disturbed children, is coming to an end worldwide.”

Turner cites the WPATH Files as evidence. “Leaks from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the body which formulates guidance on “trans healthcare,” reveal doctors perplexed at how they should explain to an 11-year-old child that drugs will render them infertile.”...Image
Please subscribe now to support our world-changing investigative reporting and to read the rest of the article!

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