Caitlin Johnstone

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The US Government Threatens Tech Companies To Push Censorship Agendas

Listen to a reading of this article: ❖ The elephant in the room with the ongoing controversy about the Biden administration’s push for more internet censorship is the fact that both the US government and the Silicon Valley tech companies who are being pushed to censor are acutely aware that those companies can be brought…

Caitlin Johnstone
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Listen to a reading of this article:

❖

The elephant in the room with the ongoing controversy about the Biden administration’s push for more internet censorship is the fact that both the US government and the Silicon Valley tech companies who are being pushed to censor are acutely aware that those companies can be brought to their knees by antitrust cases and other regulation if they don’t censor people’s voices in accordance with the government’s wishes.

After Press Secretary Jen Psaki admitted on Thursday that the administration has given Facebook a list of accounts to ban for spreading “misinformation” about the Covid vaccine, she has now doubled down saying that people who circulate such materials online should be banned from not just one but all social media platforms.

“You shouldn’t be banned from one platform and not others for providing misinformation out there,” Psaki told the press on Friday.

When asked by the press for his thoughts on companies like Facebook, President Biden said the failure of those platforms to adequately censor posts about the vaccine makes them guilty of “killing people”.

When confronted about the extremely serious implications of a US presidential administration telling social media platforms who to censor, Psaki said the administration wasn’t censoring people but merely raising the issue with the tech companies.

“We don’t take anything down,” said Psaki. “We don’t block anything. Facebook and any private-sector company makes decisions about what information should be on their platform. Our point is that there is information that is leading to people not taking the vaccine, and people are dying as a result. And we have a responsibility, as a public health matter, to raise that issue.”

Psaki is not technically lying, but she isn’t telling the truth either. While it’s true that the Biden administration is not directly blocking or taking down social media posts, it is also making social media companies a Godfather-style offer they can’t refuse.

For years the US government has been making it abundantly clear to the giants of Silicon Valley that if they do not greatly escalate censorship of undesirable content per Washington’s instructions, there will be consequences.

In 2017 Senator Dianne Feinstein threatened social media platforms that, because of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, they need to start utilizing more censorship or else face consequences, saying, “You created these platforms, and they are being misused. And you have to be the ones to do something about it—or we will.”

In 2019 Louisiana Representative Cedric Richmond issued a similar threat, saying social media platforms had “better” start regulating what he considers harmful content on their own, or the government will take matters into its own hands.

“They better go do it because what they don’t want is for us to do it, because we’re not going to get it right,” Richmond said. “We’re going to make it swift, we’re going to make it strong and we’re going to hold them very accountable.”

“We have the First Amendment, and we’re very reluctant to pass speech laws,” House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler told The Washington Post in 2019. “But there’s a problem, and we have to deal with it.”

“Let’s see what happens by just pressuring them first,” Nadler added. “I’m reluctant to have regulation of speech. It usually goes too far. I don’t know we have to get there yet.”

As Glenn Greenwald noted on Twitter following the latest admissions from the Biden administration, executives from these tech companies are being regularly hauled before congress and “threatened with legislative and regulatory retaliation” if they don’t conduct censorship in alignment with the will of the US government. We saw this in 2017 when representatives from top internet platforms were brought before congress and told they needed to adopt a “mission statement” expressing their commitment “to prevent the fomenting of discord,” and we continue to see it through 2021.

The reasons change, but the agenda remains the same. Sometimes it’s foreign election meddling, sometimes it’s the Capitol riot, sometimes it’s domestic extremism and white supremacy, sometimes it’s misinformation about a virus and vaccines, but for every reason given the instruction is the same: censor online communications in accordance with the wishes of the US government. Or else.

These threats have been explicitly made, but really they did not need to be. Everyone involved in this dance is acutely aware that the US government has the ability to make things much harder and far less lucrative for these Silicon Valley tech companies. This could mean actions ranging from fines and minor regulations all the way up to the revocation of Section 230 protections or full-scale antitrust cases which can go as far as breaking up online platforms in the same way the government broke up AT&T and Standard Oil.

The stage is already set for massive antitrust measures to be implemented, with the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust finding last year that corporations like Facebook and Google are guilty of monopolistic practices, and some less severe antitrust cases are already underway.

So now we’ve got worldwide online speech being herded onto a few monopolistic platforms, and the government forcing those platforms with increasing brazenness to censor that speech in alignment with its dictates under threat of total destruction. The effect being, of course, US government control of a vast swathe of public speech, not just within the US but around the world. Which means an ungodly amount of narrative control, the ultimate prize for anyone who understands real power.

The primary factor in determining what will happen in our world is not control of capital, nor control of government, nor control of resources, nor control of weapons, but control of narrative. All the others follow from narrative control. Control the narrative and you control where the weapons will go, where the capital will go, where the resources will go, what the government will do. Real power begins with narrative control. Understand this and you’ll understand why governments, plutocrats and media behave the way they do.

So while antitrust laws ostensibly exist to protect the citizenry from corporate power, here they are being leveraged to ensure the union of corporate power and state power. The carrot is billions of dollars, and the stick is the threat of painful government intervention.

Obviously the US government would prefer to simply have monopolistic corporations voluntarily censoring content in accordance with government interests, but for them the only thing worse than having no monopolistic companies serving the empire would be having monopolistic companies which refuse to serve the empire. So the threat being issued here is, “Censor the way we tell you to censor, or your company will be broken down and replaced with one that will.”

And that’s exactly what could easily happen. Facebook, Google/Youtube or Twitter could easily be regulated into dysfunction or broken up into smaller companies, and then some other more government-aligned corporation could be allowed to take their place. Silicon Valley billionaires are hardly known for being the most principled people in existence to begin with, so that threat is all it would take to ensure they conduct themselves in alignment with the will of the empire.

This is just one of the many, many types of glue that keeps power structures aligned with one another’s interests within the US-centralized empire. If you want to be a billionaire and control massive amounts of wealth, you have to collaborate with existing power structures. Otherwise you won’t be allowed in, and if you are in you’ll be kicked right out.

It’s always easier to move with power than against it. That’s why ambitious journalists promote the imperial narrative, it’s why new money plutocrats always wind up aligning with establishment interests, and it’s why so many other nations align with the US.

In theory, markets and government checks and balances are supposed to keep the big players competing against each other to our benefit. In practice, the big players always wind up collaborating against us for their own benefit.

__________________

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52 responses to “The US Government Threatens Tech Companies To Push Censorship Agendas”

  1. Harry Nydick Avatar
    Harry Nydick

    A few thoughts:

    Jen Psaki is even more annoying than Trump’s Sarah Sander’s and Kayleigh McEnany – proving once again, that we have a one-party system, with two subdivisions. Where’s Spicy when you need him?

    Some people love it, but Twitter has no place in my life. I joined to follow one person but, after 10 minutes, found it to be total garbage – mostly just a bunch of sound bites and misinformation. I do NOT approve of the government trying to censor it – or force self-censorship – but, even when I see bits and pieces from Twitter, cited elsewhere, I never feel as though I’m missing anything.

    I’m waiting for the introduction of a new social media site that will not bow to the government’s demands. It’s coming soon. That’s all I’ll say about that. Either way, ‘ll be damned if I’m going to let the government try to shut me up, I don’t spread untruths. If I discuss something, I either provide the source location, or frame it in such a way as it cannot be misconstrued.

    I DO boycott corporations that misbehave – cheating, stealing, bowing to government pressure. It the government can apply pressure, just imagine what pressure 25 million of us could apply by refusing to buy any of their branded products, whether they use their own name, or that of an acquired brand. One example is Nestle. Go to its website and see how many time-honored popular brands it now owns and markets. I boycott every one – even the ones I had loved for years.

    1. Ian Perkins Avatar
      Ian Perkins

      Given its size and global reach, I doubt if Nestlé would be affected much by 25 million boycotters.

  2. Stephen Morrell Avatar
    Stephen Morrell

    Unlike idealists, we materialists argue that ‘narrative control’ is not at all “the primary factor in determining what will happen in our world”, but the converse. How? This might be clarified by asking and answering these questions:
    .
    1. What accounts for possession of, and differences/changes in, ‘narrative control’?
    .
    2. What accounts for differences/changes in the narrative itself?
    .
    3. Is the narrative and its control a ‘motor force’ of historical change, or merely its reflection?
    .
    To start: during feudal times in England, the established church conveyed the king’s ‘divine’ will to his subjects during compulsory church attendance. Was it simply ‘narrative control’, the ‘word of god’ no less, that compelled such church attendance and compliance in the king’s subjects to his latest edicts? Or was it through the palpable threat of force of the sovereign’s ‘sheriffs’, his other armed thugs or snitches hoping for royal favours that always lurked in the background? Of course to avoid being arrested, injured or killed, most prudently chose to comply, and some would take on part or all of the narrative to rationalise their submission to the ‘divine right’ of kings. It’s what we materialists call ‘false consciousness’, sharply exemplified today by the ‘tory working class’ in the UK, or blue-collar Trumpers in the US, who believe fervently in ‘predestination’ and their ‘station in life’, ie, in their own continued enslavement and oppression. Others comply but realise all the ideological justification is hooey.
    .

    Did the ideas of the Renaissance or the Enlightenment emerge out of feudal torpor and backwardness purely from the heads of their spokesmen, out of nowhere, because they were individual geniuses? What accounts for the ‘coincidence’ of their ideas, in their tenor and direction — the rejection of religious superstition and the embrace of science and science- and empirically-based technique? These changes in the ideological environment couldn’t have occurred in 10th century Europe but only 500 years later when scientific and technical advances were powerful enough to destroy religious superstition across many spheres at once in better explaining and exploiting natural phenomena than ‘holy scripture’ ever could. And during the Industrial Revolution of course we had the rise of liberalism, utopian socialism, anarchism and Marxism, ideologies that not only reflected the new dominance of capitalism in production itself, but also the interests of the contending classes, some being relegated to history’s dustbin (eg, small producers, artisans — ie, anarchism), and others in the ascendant — the bourgeoisie (ie, liberalism), the working class (ie, socialism, Marxism).
    .
    Productive forces and the consequent rise of social classes and their conflicts (ie, material conditions) explain such changes in the ‘narrative’ far better than ‘narrative control’ “determining what will happen in our world” ever could. There are no rational reasons that explain the advent of Renaissance or Enlightenment thinking from the ‘ideas rule everything’ way of viewing it, and only an irrational religious belief in, and repetition of, the ‘narrative’ of the primacy of ‘narrative control’ can maintain it. It explains nothing.
    .
    What gives the capitalist class its ‘narrative control’? If ‘narrative control’ weren’t the outcome of its material resources (ie, the overwhelming advantage of capital invested in the ideological apparatus, and state power of course) controlling the ideological apparatus; and of their permanent and current dominant interests (eg, the need to always preserve the ‘rights’ of private property and, currently, to dismember Russia and/or dismember and restore capitalist rule in China) commanding the narrative itself — then why doesn’t the narrative change more readily? Why isn’t it more subject to the ‘force’ of contested ideas themselves? Why in every capitalist country does the ‘narrative control’ remain in the hands of the capitalist class if not to serve their material interests?
    .
    If narrative control “determines what will happen in our world” and if it’s accepted that everywhere it’s exclusively in the hands of the rulers, then any explanation for this, from such an idealist framework, can only be circular: the rulers rule because they have control of the ‘narrative’, and they have ‘narrative control’ because they rule. Yet without their very real material resources and power, over the means of production, distribution and repression (ie, their state), their ‘narrative’ would be for nought. Their ideas would exist either in a suspended animation, as did those of such pre-Copernican thinkers as Aristarchus of Samos or Hypatia of Alexandria; or they’d meet their rightful resting place in ‘the dustbin of history’.
    .
    For those who believe the narrative determines everything, then their only explanation for its changes must boil down either to the ‘heroic’ role of the individual ‘genius’ in history, or that the narrative changes through a counter-narrative somehow otherwise replacing it. Which of course begs the question of how either of these might occur. All that can be adduced, at best, is the random rise of exceptional individuals who change everything.
    .
    It’s then not just control of the narrative per se either, but also control over whole the apparatus of its creation and distribution. The narrative isn’t simply that of current politics or commentary/propaganda but comprises a cradle-to-grave lifetime of brainwashing and indoctrination that today is implemented by the social institutions of capitalism, often with a feudal relic presiding over the beginning and end of many such lifetimes. These include the ‘education’ system, organised religion, and of course the bourgeoisie’s ubiquitous propaganda/media/entertainment apparatus. The hallowed ‘institutions’ of capitalism.
    .
    Presently, both technical and social-economic conditions have reached the point that the ruling class’s control of the ideological apparatus isn’t as tight as it would desire, largely due to technological advance (internet, social media); and the clear mismatch between what’s actually happening (ie, a generalised crisis) that everyone is experiencing personally, versus the feebleness of the rulers’ ability to rationalise the situation — each of these has contributed immensely to the unravelling of ruling class’s ‘narrative control’, as their furious censoring efforts to put the genie back in the bottle attest to. Yet, all social and economic crises in history have also engendered a loosening of the ‘narrative control’ by the ruling class and it’s attendant re-tightening, but it’s universal that in every revolutionary situation the printing presses and other media of the ruling class have been taken over by the insurgents in order to urge the revolution forward. Because the monopolisation of a chunk of the ideological apparatus has now been so breached by an unparalleled freedom of reach, there’s now an added urgency among the to rulers counter the unprecedented debunking of their lies that’s occurring in real time. This is what’s really giving the misleading appearance that ‘narrative control’ is “determining everything that will happen in our world”.
    .
    Marx summarised ideological (or ‘narrative’) domination thus:
    .
    “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas.”
    .
    Today everyone is witnessing how that control is changing and evolving, loosening and attempts at its re-tightening which the ruling class in its hubris doesn’t mind proclaiming, and some can see the very real material reasons behind it. Many perceive the terminal decline of a capitalist order well past its use-by date as manifesting in the beginnings of a keen ideological struggle, and such has accompanied all major historical turning points, themselves sparked by one insoluble crisis or another.

    1. Another WorldView Is Possible Avatar
      Another WorldView Is Possible

      You’ve studied Marx. Great.
      .
      Now study Gramschi.

      1. Stephen Morrell Avatar
        Stephen Morrell

        I have. Gramsci was a materialist as well, not an idealist. Yes he pioneered and developed the concept of cultural hegemony which unpacks much detail and nuance about the bourgeoisie’s methods of ‘soft’ control.

        I even know how to spell his name correctly.

    2. Glen Avatar
      Glen

      This is a great writeup of what may be considered a critique of Caitlyn’s main thesis. However, I think you’d have to admit it’s a bit of chicken and egg problem, no? It may even be possible that narrative control is more important in the information age then previously.

      1. Glen Avatar
        Glen

        *than

      2. Stephen Morrell Avatar
        Stephen Morrell

        While not a fan of argument by analogy, I think that the seed and the soil analogy is reasonably close to my simple position. That is, if the seed of an idea has no soil to grow in then it will remain dormant, as a musty manuscript subject to the ‘gnawing criticism of the mice’ (Marx) or as an unread and un-cited journal article, etc. Then the ‘soil’ of a burning social or economic need arises. People scratch around for ideas to address it. They scour libraries, museums, the electronic repositories, etc, for an answer. It might be dangerous or heretical manuscript hidden in plain sight in some philistine patrician’s library. It’s liberated, and the author of the original idea is hailed as a genius for being so prescient. In the new social soil his seed not only sprouts shoots but grows into a mighty tree, producing flowers and more seeds, and so on.
        .
        For a fine study of how ‘The Nature of Things’ by the ancient Roman philosopher Lucretius (one of the earliest materialists) found the light of day, ‘The Swerve’ by Stephen Greenblatt is hard to beat. ‘The Nature of Things’ was a key work inspiring the Renaissance.

  3. Realist Avatar
    Realist

    Your last three paragraphs get to the nub of the problem, Caitlin. They explain why the Monsters of the Media do not mind in the least their assigned role of suppressing free speech. They are part of the “Big Club” that George Carlin told us we ain’t in and never will be. Censorship benefits their bottom lines as much as it does for Wall Street, the central banks, big pharma, agribusiness, the private prison industry, Hollywood, Dow Jones, NASDAQ, professional sports, the AMA, the MIC (KEY MOUSE!) and dozens of other Big Club members (just follow the $$$ and they will be revealed). Their requested special favor to the actual flesh and blood “Godfather” of the Deep State (whomever he, she or they may be) is to define and enforce rules and penalties surrounding “thought crime.” But to do it with the sizzle and pop that makes the digital age so fresh and appealing to the coming generations of unwitting drones who so dislike having their nerves frayed by ambiguity or discord, but so very much love being entranced by bright shiny objects. Snowflakes, you know I mean you. The dark ponderous version of tyranny from out’a Orwell is just so 20th century. The way we now do it is only meant to HELP you!! Look, we’ve even legalised “grass” for you kids… so you will never have to go to jail for THAT…like all those old hippies and black folk. Demonstrating (or was it cheerleading?) in the Capitol Building might be another matter.
    ~
    So, yeah, Caitlin, your main take-home lesson worth repeating was: “This is just one of the many, many types of glue that keeps power structures aligned with one another’s interests within the US-centralized empire. If you want to be a billionaire and control massive amounts of wealth, you have to collaborate with existing power structures. Otherwise you won’t be allowed in, and if you are in you’ll be kicked right out.
    ~
    It’s always easier to move with power than against it. That’s why ambitious journalists promote the imperial narrative, it’s why new money plutocrats always wind up aligning with establishment interests, and it’s why so many other nations align with the US.
    ~
    In theory, markets and government checks and balances are supposed to keep the big players competing against each other to our benefit. In practice, the big players always wind up collaborating against us for their own benefit.”
    ~
    But, how did things all get to this totally effed-up condition, you may be asking yourself. Turns out it was by design from the very “Ad Urbe Condita,” from the very founding of the empire by those rascally founding fathers. When you analyse the history of this country from its very beginning the way the linked article down below does, you will see that the whole operating system was created to function as one big ruse that only makes the everyday plebs THINK they have a government grounded in “liberte, egalite & fraternite” (aka “freedom and democracy”), but really it’s all just a complex con that only gives that illusion. The real power has from the beginning remained vested in the hands of an entrenched plutocracy. Read about how the widespread creation of dozens of functionally “fake states” (basically arbitrary borders bounding very few people but surfeit in elected representatives there for the plucking by those with big bucks) within this union led to the permanent manipulation of everything important by today’s “Big Club.” The swindle was both outrageous and genius. Most people still haven’t figured out why nothing ever changes for the better for the little guy, only for the upper crust.
    ~
    https://journal-neo.org/2021/07/16/time-to-plan-for-a-world-with-no-united-states/

  4. Jack Oliver Avatar
    Jack Oliver

    The TRUTH about the Uyghurs !!

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-04-02/The-War-in-the-Shadows-Challenges-of-Fighting-Terrorism-in-Xinjiang-Z7pLLRzm1i/index.html

    The TRUTH about the HASBARA shill army

    ZIO/US are SH!TTING themselves !

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-07-16/Xiaomi-trumps-Apple-to-become-world-s-No-2-smartphone-maker-Canalys-11WLzmkFVIY/index.html

    https://brandnewtube.com/watch/israel-039-s-war-on-truth-paid-shills-and-trolls-underneath-your-comments_jgoAKQPkvwy3tCC.html

  5. itdontbotherme Avatar
    itdontbotherme

    oh, good i found it my space where i can lie or not or exaggerate my high school sports heroics which start at zero and go down to drinking in the boys room. because smoke travels too fast to enjoy it . and so i think there ought to be one fail safe outlet: enabled by it’s fees and isolation …where all kinds of lies are POSSIBLE.
    call it LIE TO ME.con. & let’s see how it goes: one thing! they don’t have to guarantee that what they are saying is a lie, because remember this site would be lying or not lying whenever they want and having no regard for truth at all.
    the current closest thing is probably the NYT and WaPo, several TV. networks etc.
    these liars don’t admit it. but they lie, esp. easy to see, if they lie only by omission. like not saying anything about fires or floods and how gasoline kinda might maybe have some influence on that . ooops, we fergot!
    or wars: little wars are not real wars. the only wars are big ones that destroy the whole planet anything less is gangsters or terrorists who have to die NOW…because those little wars are so easy our great machine can snuff then out in 20 years or less, maybe , but this medium would never have to admit that lie is really the truth of evil being flipped into good and growing bigger all the time.
    a free station would be able to go both ways and we would all know not to believe neither the fake truth nor the obvious lies that conceal the real truth which they will tell us is a lie…and/or the opposite.
    we could have a site for opinions and one for lies. one for might be true, and ones that will never be.
    so let’s just skip truth completely then we’ll know that the truth is what we actually see or our best friend saw and we be better off running away from here…to a moon say, of saturn. where lies kill the liar instantly. even mistakes: one and yer dead there. so everyone is sooo sure of everything they get bored to death anyway.
    a flat earth comes to mind. or global warming if it is a lie. and police actions are not wars. but some vs drug dealers are called wars. and some vaccines are fraught with weird blood clogs if you have less platelets that don’t really help to coagulate blood in case of cuts from small bombs that are smarter than we are anyway.
    and then no one would have to admit that they did not plug the hole daddy as the littel OBAMA GRRRL ASKED. NO. THEY SIMPLY SANK IT. NOW THE bottom OF THE GULF IS A NEW KIND OF OILY MUCOUS NEVER BEFORE SEEN IN NATURE I MEAN nature,
    so then nature is obviously too stupid to decide…if it’s true or not!
    and killing the amazon is lowering the price of beef so that’s a good lie.

  6. Johnny Avatar
    Johnny

    The Buddha spoke of ‘non attachment’ and Jesus said ‘ I am in the world, but not of it’
    These two teachers (along with many other great teachers, both men and women) realised the Truth.
    It’s that simple.
    Let the Ghouls have their way.
    We’ve never been able to stop them in the past. How will we stop them now?
    Love, enjoy, create, sing, dance and feel awe.
    Just ‘Be as you are’ (Ramana Marharshi).

    1. Deschutes Avatar
      Deschutes

      Wow that’s a really bad message, you’ve got it all wrong. You’re preaching religious nihilism, i.e. just ignore government wrongdoing (Guantanamo, Assange rotting in Belmarsh, Palestinian genocide by Israel, USA’s ongoing destruction of Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Lebanon, Palestine, etc) and “realize the Truth”!? You’re also wrong that ‘we’ve never been able to stop them in the past’, what absolute bollocks. Daniel Ellsberg published the Pentagon Papers which revealed massive lying and deception by U.S. government and so strongly affected public opinion against the war that they ended the war. In WWII the Chinese didn’t “just be as you are” and continue to be subjugated by the Japanese and America’s puppet ruler dictator Chiang Kai Shek; rather they fought tenaciously and eliminated them from the mainland–and look how far they have come since then.
      Like Bob Marley sang:
      “Most people think,
      Great God will come from the skies,
      Take away everything
      And make everybody feel high.
      But if you know what life is worth,
      You will look for yours on earth:
      And now you see the light,
      You stand up for your rights. Jah!”

      1. Another WorldView Is Possible Avatar
        Another WorldView Is Possible

        Well said!

  7. Pascal Avatar
    Pascal

    Biden: “The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. They’re killing people!”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS6Aw-hM190 (from one of the links in the article)l
    Now the new British Health Secretary (who’s replaced the moron who snogged his aide right below a CCTV camera in his own ministry) just got Covid in spite of being fully vaccinated (there’s a curse on Whitehall for their treatment of Julian Assange) and is “self-isolating at home with his family”.
    https://www.rt.com/uk/529497-health-secertary-infected-covid/?
    Any comment, Joe?
    Never mind. What about the BHS’ comment? That snake oil is worth shit, get ’em tarred and feathered?
    No. He’s “grateful [he’s] had two jabs of the vaccine and so far [his] symptoms are very mild”.
    What tells him he would have had any symptoms at all if he hadn’t taken the jabs or that they would be any different?
    Why doesn’t he walk around in a Big Pharma sandwich board while he’s at it?
    As long as these guys will go on running countries, we won’t need sci-fi horror movies…

  8. East Wizard Avatar
    East Wizard

    I think we should consider all these extreme measures of censorship imposed by the US government in the form of “suggestions” as a desperte attempt to not lose all tailor-made credibility built in lies over the last decades. They know what the Google, Facebook, Twitter algorithms are showing tup o the CEO. They must have specific parameters to know what people are looking for, what people are writing about them and the world. These counter measures are typical when you wanna keep the credibility of the environment positive. if people start growing numbers doubting about everything they will not make the next mandate. But the fight never end.

  9. Jim Thomas Avatar
    Jim Thomas

    Caitlin,

    You are certainly correct to point out the extreme danger posed by the government’s demand that the Silicon Valley tech companies (the “companies”) censor speech by banning individuals in accordance with government directives. Thanks for the article. I do differ with you on one matter. You say that it is the control of narrative which determines the control of capital and other forces. Of course, there is merit in that point of view. The control of narrative by the government of the MSM is what drives the bombardment of the people with endless propaganda, resulting in the desired effect of keeping the people ignorant of the things the government does not wish them to know and misinformed about matters on which the people are informed. On the other hand, I think it is important to also recognize that it is the immense wealth of the owners of the companies which has produced their ability to have such immense control over the narratives communicated on social media. If there were not such a concentration of wealth, those people would not have such control over us. At the root of the many problems we now face is the neoliberal economic order which has destroyed the middle class and created this obscene disparity in wealth and power. This observation is not intended as a disagreement with your opinion that control of narrative does have a huge impact on the control of capital but rather to observe that the terrible bundle of policies (tax, deregulation, destruction of unions, fiscal policy, monetary policy, “bailout” policy) which comprise the neoliberal order is what gave birth to the grotesque circumstances with which we are now faced. In a fairer system, even the modestly fair system created by the New Deal and the prosperity (for white males) which existed post WWII until its destruction by the counter attack by the right in the 1970s and put in overdrive by Reagan, there would be no billionaires. It seems to me that as long as we have billionaires, this problem will continue. I do think that companies should be broken up; however, until and unless a new economic order which is more egalitarian is put in place (which would enable working people to have more economic power (and with that economic power purchase some of the smaller social media companies which would result from the breakup…reminiscent of the day when local newspapers existed) a breakup of the companies would only allow the movement from one set of billionaires to a large group of billionaires. Without such a fundamental change in economic system I do not see any effective way to solve this problem.

    1. Aristaeus Avatar
      Aristaeus

      The only way fix this crap is to “End The FED”

      The money men knew before they were able to pass the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 that their power would control the narrative. In 1906, the New York Chamber of Commerce authorized a study to determine the power they would achieve if they were able to get their money monopoly.

      U.S. Money Vs. Corporation Currency, “Aldrich Plan.” by Alfred Owen Crozier copyright 1912

      Crozier writes, “Describing the precise power such a central financial institution issuing and controlling the volume of the public currency and fixing the discount or interest rates would have, such report significantly says;
      “By the control of its rate of interest and of its issues of notes it would be able to exert great influence upon the money market and upon public opinion. Such power is not possessed by any institution in the United States.” !!!

      1. NN Avatar
        NN

        Is it the FED or is it those who benefit?

        1. Aristaeus Avatar
          Aristaeus

          The Federal Reserve System is based on elastic money. The dollar is a standard just like the mile, pound, or inch. Standards only work if they are static. An elastic standard is an oxymoron.

          “The few who understand the system, will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favors that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantages that Capital derives from the system, will bear its burden without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests…”
          Your respectful servants
          Rothschild Brothers

          1. Ian Perkins Avatar
            Ian Perkins

            Weren’t the Morgans and Rockefellers equally involved in setting up the Fed?

  10. Sherman Owens Avatar
    Sherman Owens

    So it’s okay for the government to use the (so called) educational institutions, and MSM to push lies, misinformation, and propaganda on the world, but if anyone voices misgivings, or questions the governments lies they must be silenced???

    1. Ian Perkins Avatar
      Ian Perkins

      “You have the right to remain silent …”

  11. Pascal Avatar
    Pascal

    Hearing Biden make a moral statement is always a delicious moment: “They’re killing people!” What’s he talking about? The US bombs that fall on the planet like clockwork every 23 minutes?
    No. He’s talking about what eminent virologists have to say about Covid. How is Biden qualified to judge what is and what is not misinformation about that?
    Easy! A good information about Covid is one that makes ding-ding in Big Pharma’s cash register. It’s amazing how people are reluctant to make the connection in a society obviously ruled with an iron fist by Mammon.
    Let’s look at the figures Worldometers gives us after 18 months into the pandemic at a time when you’d think health authorities around the world would have had plenty of time to get on the same page with WHO guidelines, censorship of dissidence et al. And also more or less half of the people have been vaccinated in the West and last but not least, we’re in a period when pulmonary diseases (like the seasonal flu) subside naturally.
    We’re told there’s been 40,529 new cases yesterday in the US. Like in the worst days of the winter 2020 although we are in summertime and 49,1% of the Americans are now fully vaccinated? How is it even possible that, as Biden says, “the only pandemic we’ve got is a pandemic of the unvaccinated?” The same day, there’s allegedly been, in the same US of A, 293 new Covid deaths. That’s a 0.7% fatality rate. However, if we look at the total US Covid deaths (624,606) compared with the total US Covid cases (34,929,856), we get an average fatality rate of 1.7%, over twice as high. Ain’t that kinda weird?
    OK, that’s just one day. So let’s look at other figures. In India, second on the list, for almost as many new cases as in the US (38,112), they’ve got almost twice as many new deaths, 560. Additional glitch: for months on end, India has had a very low fatality rate compared to the US. Even now, its global average stands at 296 deaths per million v. 1,876 for the US, six times less. And today its fatality rate is twice that of the US for a quasi-equal number of new cases? How is that even plausible?
    OK, it’s the Delta variant. For a year, they’ve had very few cases and one of the lowest fatality rates in the world. And now the Delta variant sends them through the roof. And what does the WHO have to say about that?
    Errr… We’ve got a little problem here… You see, some Indian states said they had very good preventive results with the Ivermectin treatment – which costs peanuts compared to the $40 double jab. In the regions of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Goa, cases fell by 98%, 97%, 94% and 86% respectively. In contrast, in Tamil Nadu who chose not to use Ivermectin, the number of cases exploded and became the highest in India. Deaths in Tamil Nadu have increased tenfold. And why didn’t they use Ivermectin? Because of Dr Soumya Swaminathan, WHO Chief Scientist and herself Indian. On May 25, the Indian Bar Association filed a lawsuit against her, accusing her of causing the deaths of Indian citizens by “deliberately” suppressing “the data regarding the effectiveness of the drug Ivermectin, with an intent to dissuade the people of India from using” it in contravention of the advice of the Indian Council for Medical Research and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. If found guilty, she faces the death penalty. Wow! You see the problem? Joe? Who’s killing people again?
    THE SCIENCE that the WHO Chief Scientist provides Silicon Bully with and that they’ll censor you for criticizing is what she’s facing the death penalty for promoting in India! Can’t make that stuff up!
    In France, President Macron wants to vaccinate everybody by implemeting a vaccine pass, which would be a world firster making it in effect impossible for people to lead a decent life if they’re not vaccinated. With 10,908 alleged new cases in France yesterday, there were 22 alleged new deaths, 0.2%. Obviously a national tragedy.
    Macron waves a poll made by TV channel BFMTV that shamelessly campaigned for him in 2017 (kinda like CNN for Sleepy Joe) saying that 61.5% of French people support the sanitary pass. Oh yeah? And so why have only 40,4% been fully vaccinated – which is precisely why Macron wants to kick ass by implementing the pass? And don’t even talk to him about prevention and Ivermectin!
    How can you believe these guys and tolerate their censorship of people who just happen to talk common sense?
    The mask should definitely be mandatory. Not because of the Covid risk but because of the stench of the money-making propaganda attached to it! :o)

    1. Pascal Avatar
      Pascal

      PS: The Indian Bar Association explicitly accused Dr Swaminathan of using her position to further the agenda of the “lucrative vaccine industry”:
      “Advocate Dipali Ojha, lead attorney for the Indian Bar Association, threatened criminal prosecution against Dr. Swaminathan ‘for each death’ caused by her acts of commission and omission. The brief accused Swaminathan of misconduct by using her position as a health authority to further the agenda of special interests to maintain an EUA for the lucrative vaccine industry”.
      https://www.thedesertreview.com/opinion/columnists/indian-bar-association-sues-who-scientist-over-ivermectin/article_

      1. NN Avatar
        NN

        There is an illusion of an enemy that is defined by the true enemy. From within nations those persons have identified themselves. There is no here and there, only us and them.

    2. Heike Auermann Avatar
      Heike Auermann

      Best comment ever, wish I could upvote!

  12. Paul Citro Avatar
    Paul Citro

    Uncreative people are once again trying to put us in a box. Now it is time for creative people to find a way out.

    1. Realist Avatar
      Realist

      Every sane person wants to base his life on a foundation of truth. Truth not only provides intellectual satisfaction but also has survival value in the real world. It is usually the creative, having wrestled mightily trying to discern said truth, who best know it to be an elusive moving target which one only approaches asymptotically, never grasping a final absolute. Experience teaches one that our understanding of truth is always conditional and always subject to change. You know this especially well if your career is in science. (That’s why non-scientists often get frustrated with what seem to be ever shifting pronouncements by scientists.) A falsehood can only be revealed through reasoned discussion based on empirical observation (i.e., on facts, the veracity of which can be debated as well), not merely by forbidding its mention. Unlike a disappeared person, a suppressed idea never really goes permanently away. Those censors in the name of “truth” and “rectitude” will surely be surprised when they in turn become targets of this cancel culture they so badly want.

  13. RIG SAY Avatar
    RIG SAY

    CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, what are we going to do when they shut you down?

    1. NN Avatar
      NN

      Don’t you know?

  14. Bob Avatar
    Bob

    Government sophistry, plain and simple. If you can tell the difference between the US government and the corporations and the Russian government and the corporations or the Chinese government and the corporations you’re good. I’ll explain it to you. In Russia and China you have an authoritarian government on top, the corporations below but powerful and the lumen proletariat on the bottom. China; the same. In western; read US dominated countries you have “inverted totalitarianism” with the government’s on top colluding with the corporations and the lumen proletariat on the bottom. It’s really very simple. Actually, there’s an officer class before the lumen proletariat there like the dog you hunt with, useful but not really in charge.

  15. Charlotte Ruse Avatar
    Charlotte Ruse

    “In 2011 Assange said it’s not just Facebook, but Google and Yahoo as well as all other major U.S. organizations that have developed built-in interfaces for U.S. Intelligence. It helps get around the costly and time-consuming serving of subpoenas………
    Assange believes that all Facebook users should understand that by adding friends, it connects the dots, builds the databases, and does “free work for United States intelligence agencies.”

    1. John Knox Avatar
      John Knox

      You believe that strangers who disagree with you are zionists and FBI agents, and have said so. Your judgement can’t be trusted.

      1. tjrich Avatar
        tjrich

        Here Here!

        1. tjrich Avatar
          tjrich

          OOPs – Hear Hear

  16. Josh Avatar
    Josh

    Nutjobs, every last one of them.

  17. Cal Lash Avatar
    Cal Lash

    Good article

  18. Buffalo_ken Avatar
    Buffalo_ken

    I think the “US” gubment has underestimated the citizens of said.
    ~
    Seriously underestimated.
    ~
    Seriously. I seriously think this.
    ~
    There are always consequences in time.
    ~
    Some react, some stew, some linger – some never forget.
    ~
    “Consequences” is the name of this poem of the day.
    BK
    71721 1428 est us

  19. Champis Avatar
    Champis

    So, lets me get this straight. uS based, zio-tech firms are great respecters of freedom of speech and opponents of censorship in all forms? The reason they behaving the way they currently are, the ONLY reason, is because of arm-twisting, (aka threats), from the nominal ‘uS government’?

  20. Ian Perkins Avatar
    Ian Perkins

    “In theory, they all compete, and we all benefit”
    And ‘in theory’, the oligarchs’ wealth trickles down, and we all benefit. They’ve naturally developed theories that explain how we all benefit from capitalism.
    There are better theories that explain more and fit the evidence.

  21. East Wizard Avatar
    East Wizard

    After decades, today is clear to see what’s American leadership. They took a huge risk investing zillions of dollars overseas in military bases, self-sustained embassies, industrial conglomerates settling worldwide factories and offices. Those not aligned had to suffer black ops implemented by CIA to remove local political dissidents. The narrative started being build soon after WWII through Hollywood movies and Disney world. Under all that false politeness and modesty, they had plans for the future. And the future is here. Google, Facebook, Twitter or any other brilliant tech idea would not succeed without the interests of America. It’s not a secret they have been always hunting talents worldwide. And in the opposite side of genius, they never spared money to keep influence over worldwide local medias, local military, political parties, evangelicals or anything else that could put them inside of the game in any country. Most people worldwide, at least those who cannot afford to come to the US, they have no idea how it looks like to live in a daily basis. It’s not a garden of roses. There are several levels of personal happiness in the same way there are several levels of personal hell. But the pandemic brought several windows of opportunity to the empire to impose once and for all who is in control. And it does not bother to the empire resistance at all. They need it. It’s something to legitimate their rightful place in history. We are all navigating uncharted waters. Every move has multiple collateral effects. Be it for good or evil or whatever it means in this strange world. Those on the other side of the socialism/communist curtain can only imagine in the same way for those living on the side of the capitalism. I’ll not pretend to know what will be the future. But a lot of pain is coming no matter the outcome. No doubt.
    Demon CIA: You kill me and the truth is exposed. You can even become the benevolent rulers. Tell to the people what they really are and why they do what they do.
    Whistleblower: You treated real people’s lives like some kind of sick game.
    Demon CIA: It’s not personal, it’s practical.
    Whistleblower: it was personal to me and 8 billion of people.
    Demon CIA: We are all villains here. We’ve all done horrible, terrible, horrific things. But now, I, I mean, you and me have a good chance to do them for a good reason.

  22. Blessthebeasts Avatar
    Blessthebeasts

    I hope you can now see how diabolical the entire covid narrative has been. No alternative information was permitted on mainstream media, so now that people are finding it in social media, it must be censored. Of course it has ramifications for every segment of society. It’s happening right before our eyes.

  23. Some One Avatar
    Some One

    “[T]o prevent the fomenting of discord,” we are coordinating with all platforms to shut down any opposing voices or messages. In a free country, there should only be one voice and one message. “[T]o prevent the fomenting of discord,” we are making it clear that we have been able to see your text messages for years. And now, we are going to censor them/you if out of lines/narratives. In a free country, there should not be any avenue for citizens to escape surveillance. “[T]o prevent the fomenting of discord,” we are sending operatives door-to-door to check on your compliance. In a free country, there should be no citizens resisting our mandates. https://seaclearly.com/2019/04/20/trilogy-slow-train-coming

  24. Aardvark-Gnosis Avatar
    Aardvark-Gnosis

    Narrative=Mental Conditioning=Brainwashing = compliant sheeple and has been the product of every powerful government or governments on the planet… They control the History narrative of false printing by the victors… They create the answers for the problems they create. People can think Russia has changed because Putin is governing… but behind the scenes, the same oligarchs of communistic power are in control of the propaganda our government says it is fighting, which in itself is propaganda, full knowing they know that the publics mind is controlled by the news media and the printed media of lies they establish as truth! Hitler did it, and now the international institutional AIPAC, ACLU, NAACP and the racial divide keeps us separated as a people across many an international boundary and at home. They create the next step in the narrative controls of our continued state of brainwashed history and patriotic duty of false national citizenship… Communism is a failed state of mind only to those that think capitalism is any different than than latter! Freedom of thought is not anything other than the mental cortex of deep seated control’s that are institutional and international Illuminati protocols used to divide the masses. Like the Rockefeller Foundation for educational propagated conditioning to make good consumers of the elite corporate international bankers and all their trusts! Monopolies are rampant across the planet and control all the resources we thing we can’t do without! That makes us slaves to the system as they teach us we need their luxury s to live a simple life of self-sufficiency and it’s allure to condition our synaptic pathways with false needs and the rational that keeps us working for the man… Nuff said of the sad state of affairs we find ourselves in today… They already have the reset in progress as they have every other times in history.

  25. Martin Avatar
    Martin

    the solution seems to be ‘more speech’ instead of censorship. the biden-regime should engage every poster of flagged ‘disinformation’ and convince them that they’re wrong. police and military can be retrained to online debaters.

  26. Em Avatar
    Em

    Question: What’s the difference between adjectives ‘fake’ news and ‘disinformation’?

    Answer: The insigne of a figurehead President – the Seal of State of the ‘shill’ of state, on the masthead of a ship a sea, breaking up on an unstoppable wave of its own self-delusional, self-assured hubris.

    A very wise individual recently posed the question: Which is preferable, to live in perpetual illusion, or to finally be disillusioned – to be disabused of one’s fantasies.

    Censoring of so-called ‘misinformation’ must remain in the realm of the critically thinking mind’s eye of well-informed, individual beholders, individual selection. Apparently, this is no longer the case when it comes to the Constitutional First Amendment right of unabridged freedom of speech, and/or the freedom of the press,

    Yet, when a sitting oligarchic regime – government, purposefully misinforms its people of the truth, directly affecting their best interests, it can, undemocratically – automatically, be ruled legal.
    When citizens are transparently, and correctly informed of the truth of the actions of ‘their’ secretive government, it can, arbitrarily, be deemed illegal, by that same sitting government.

    COVID ‘misinformation’ put out on a social platform is killing people, says President Joe Biden.

    Yet the censorship of legitimate journalism, by Julian Assange and Wikileaks, and the attempt at ‘disappearing’ the man, because of his attempts to make public the obfuscations and purported omissions of factual information, regarding the United States’ inhumane killing of innocent people – both at home, and more especially abroad, throughout its history – in untold numbers, is NOT seen as illegitimate by the powers that be?

    To the contrary, neither is it by default!

    Yet, uncannily, both arguments are deemed legally equivalent and thereby, arbitrarily adjudged; as well intentioned, by autocratic government, as serving the best interests of global humanity. The height of hegemonic arrogance!
    The hypocrisy is breathtaking, given that IT, IS the killer!

  27. KevD Avatar
    KevD

    Thanks Caitlin. I kinda knew it but I wasn’t ready for the sudden realization that talking to people, face to face, is now subversive (i.e., Rumsfeld’s missing part of his formulation: the unknown knowns).

  28. JWK Avatar
    JWK

    Anti trust laws are a fiction to convince us they are on our side. The corporations they pretend to control are already under absolute control of the state, because the state created then and what rights a corporation may have were given them by the state, and can just as easily be taken away.
    Truth can easily withstand any scrutiny,, criticism, or argument. It neither needs, requires, nor desires protection by censorship. LIES DO!!!

    1. John Avatar
      John

      Google is Alphabet. IRS, NSA, CIA, TSA, EDU, and on and on. GOOGLE is government.

      1. JWK Avatar
        JWK

        Indeed, that control the state has over them is for sale. It’s the only product the state produces. Hence the appearance that corporations control the state. Because the paid the fee, and they do.

        1. NN Avatar
          NN

          Does the state control them or do they control the state? Or is it a chaotic shitshow like everything else that is the product of insanity?

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