Thread by @Eric_Schmitt

The Left spent the past decade building a vast censorship enterprise.

A shadowy network of NGOs, tech groups and governments working to censor the Left's enemies—not just in America, but across the West.

Over the next four years, the GOP must expose + dismantle this system. 🧵

The censorship-industrial complex wasn't built overnight. It's been festering for years.

But the Biden administration mobilized an unholy alliance of government power, taxpayer dollars, NGOs and Big Tech companies to build it into a global censorship powerhouse.

Seemingly every agency was a partner in building this system: FBI, CIA, NSA, DHS, State Department, Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, USAID—even FEMA.

Through grants and partnerships, these agencies funneled countless tax dollars to censorship groups.

What you have to understand is that these groups operate as one cohesive class. There's a revolving door between the "public" and "private" spheres.

Former government officials populate the advisory boards of these "disinformation" groups—and vice versa.

https://x.com/shellenberger/status/1699119143096836237

Biden's transition team was STACKED with tech insiders. They staffed the entire executive branch—State, Treasury, EPA, OMB, etc.

Many of them were Obama alumni. When Obama left office, they went to work in tech. When Biden's presidency began, they transitioned right back in.

So it should come as no surprise that these worlds are in constant communication with one another. Remember Jen Psaki boasting that they were "flagging problematic posts" for Facebook?

These weren't independent actors. Under the Biden administration, it was one system.

And Biden officials didn't just "flag" content. They pushed platforms to transform their algorithms to suppress ideas they disliked.

In an email, Biden's Digital Director told YouTube that "this is a concern that is shared at the highest (and I mean highest) levels of the WH."

Those are just a few minor examples of a trend that accelerated over the past decade: Western governments creating, funding or coordinating with powerful outside groups to clamp down on (mostly right-wing) dissent.

Just look at the State Department's "Global Engagement Center."

Between 2020 and 2021, two State Department-backed entities—the Global Engagement Center (GEC) and the National Endowment for Democracy—funneled $665,000 to the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a British nonprofit which creates secretive blacklists of conservative media.

GDI's blacklists were stealthily fed to advertising companies to financially cripple targeted news outlets.

The top 10 outlets on its "disinformation" list are all conservative.

GDI's CEO openly boasted that this had "a significant impact on" the outlets' "advertising revenue."

The GEC was created to combat FOREIGN propaganda aimed at undermining US security.

But instead, it was turned inwards on our own citizens.

We've seen this stuff happen across our intelligence and security agencies.

I fought to shutter the GEC—for good.

https://x.com/SenEricSchmitt/status/1869799875149476182

During the 2020 election—under President Trump's first term—the Department of Homeland Security's CISA formed a "counter-disinformation" coalition with powerful outside censorship groups.

Here's what that network did during that election cycle alone, per @FFO_Freedom's analysis:

This system operates across the borders of the West—giving it yet another way around our Constitution.

When their censorship machine faced legal challenges in the US, Biden officials and their nonprofit allies began using foreign censorship laws to crack down on American speech.

At least 23 US-funded NGOs, nonprofits and "disinformation" groups have received nearly $15.5 million of your tax dollars to help enforce the EU's draconian new Digital Services Act—which levies hefty fines on tech platforms (including US platforms) for allowing "disinformation."

In other words: Using these groups, our government was helping European bureaucrats bully US tech companies into censoring American speech.

That includes groups like NewsGuard—whose advisory board has boasted the former heads of the CIA and NSA, DHS, and the GEC, respectively.

To sum things up: American and European bureaucrats, along with their friends in the NGOs and the tech companies, have been working together to wage a war of censorship and suppression against their own citizens across the West.

I fought this censorship-industrial complex as Attorney General of Missouri, where I sued the Biden admin for pressuring tech platforms into censoring conservatives—and took them to the Supreme Court.

Now it's time to work with President Trump to end this once and for all.

Thankfully, President Trump is dismantling the government arm of this regime. The State Department's Global Engagement Center has been shut down. Funding streams for "disinformation" groups have been cut.

But many of the "private" censorship NGOs are still operating as we speak.

The stories I've shared in this thread are just the tip of the iceberg.

Stay tuned.

This fight is just getting started.

We’re going to continue this NGO investigation. I discussed today with @dbongino: