The MSM and the Left overall are almost a week into their meltdown over Elon Musk taking ownership of Twitter and ending our democracy as we know it, and they’re showing absolutely no signs of letting up.
And if we’re being honest, we shouldn’t expect them to let up after this, either, despite the fact that this is far scarier and much more sinister than Musk is threatening by reinstating banned accounts:
Docs show Facebook and Twitter closely collaborating w/ Dept of Homeland Security, FBI to police “disinfo.” Plans to expand censorship on topics like withdrawal from Afghanistan, origins of COVID, info that undermines trust in financial institutions. https://t.co/Zb3zmI1dQF
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) October 31, 2022
The draft copy of DHS’s 2022 Quadrennial Homeland Security Review reviewed by The Intercept also confirms that DHS views the issue of tackling disinformation and misinformation as a growing portion of its core duties. While “counterterrorism remains the first and most important mission of the Department,” it notes, the agency’s “work on these missions is evolving and dynamic” and must now adapt to terror threats “exacerbated by misinformation and disinformation spread online” including by “domestic violent extremists.”
To accomplish this, the draft quadrennial review calls for DHS to “leverage advanced data analytics technology and hire and train skilled specialists to better understand how threat actors use online platforms to introduce and spread toxic narratives intended to inspire or incite violence, as well as work with NGOs and other parts of civil society to build resilience to the impacts of false information.”
The broad definition of “threat actors” posing risks to vaguely defined critical infrastructure — an area as broad as trust in government, public health, elections, and financial markets — has concerned civil libertarians. “No matter your political allegiances, all of us have good reason to be concerned about government efforts to pressure private social media platforms into reaching the government’s preferred decisions about what content we can see online,” said Adam Goldstein, the vice president of research at FIRE.
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FBI agent Laura Dehmlow was in communications w Facebook that led to the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020 over the false allegation that it was “disinfo.” This year, she met w/ Twitter/DHS to stress “we need a media infrastructure that is held accountable.” pic.twitter.com/17LqhEyMN0
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) October 31, 2022
Facebook and Twitter created special portals for the government to rapidly request takedowns of content. The portals, along with NGO partners used to censor a wide range of content, including obvious parody accounts and content disagreeing w gov pandemic policy. pic.twitter.com/Jth0WUfXAI
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) October 31, 2022
The emails and documents show close collaboration b/w DHS & private sector. Twitter's Vijaya Gadde (fired by @elonmusk last week) met monthly with DHS to discuss censorship plans. Microsoft exec texted DHS: "Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov't" pic.twitter.com/Z19yLM3miB
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) October 31, 2022
How does DHS justify its evolving mission from countering foreign terror groups to policing domestic "disinfo" on social media? Leaked planning docs show the agency argues false information is a source of radicalization & violence.
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) October 31, 2022
Alarm bells going off yet?
Stellar reporting.
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 31, 2022
WOAH. Thank you for reporting this.
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) October 31, 2022
Nice to see a journalist actually doing his job. Sad that it’s such a rarity these days. The media are always in search of the next huge bombshell … well, this was out there for the taking and we didn’t hear a damn thing from the MSM. And we probably shouldn’t expect to hear much from them now.
If you were wondering if Twitter had actually been removing content at the government's behest, well, here you go.
Illegal as all hell, BTW. https://t.co/dmRWDaoGPh
— Stephen Green (@VodkaPundit) October 31, 2022
Illegal and … what’s the word? Oh right:
What’s that thing where companies submit to government for control of information and suppress opposition? Oh yeah, fascism.
— nitetrain 8💵 (@Nitetrain_1) October 31, 2022
Where’s the outcry from the Real Journalists™? Where are the earnest monologues about threats to the First Amendment?
This is a violation of the First Amendment.
— Guy Zino (@gszino) October 31, 2022
The govt shouldn’t be engaged in this kind of conduct. Some glaring First Amendment issues here. The problem is the focus of the ire & potential reforms will focus on the companies, when the needed accountability is in govt. Don’t curb private rights in response to govt abuse. https://t.co/WF2K8A1YLi
— Patrick Hedger (@PatHedger18) October 31, 2022
Shame on Twitter, Facebook, et al. for cooperating with this. But ultimately, the worst shame lies with the government, that, instead of upholding and protecting the right to free speech, has actively been working to gut it.
This can’t be constitutional: “tech companies including Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, Wikipedia, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Verizon Media met on a monthly basis with the FBI…to discuss how firms would handle misinformation during the election.” pic.twitter.com/0Mt0Lcd6e9
— Russ Greene (@GreenPlusAnE) October 31, 2022
Financial markets!!
“The broad definition of ‘threat actors’ posing risks to vaguely defined critical infrastructure — an area as broad as trust in government, public health, elections, and financial markets” pic.twitter.com/RHL66pnEM3
— Russ Greene (@GreenPlusAnE) October 31, 2022
This material about state censorship is only coming out thanks to a *Republican* Attorney General, Eric Schmitt. pic.twitter.com/M8bs89ImCw
— Russ Greene (@GreenPlusAnE) October 31, 2022
—->>> “If a foreign authoritarian government sent these messages,” noted Nadine Strossen, the former president of the American Civil Liberties Union, “there is no doubt we would call it censorship.”
— Russ Greene (@GreenPlusAnE) October 31, 2022
Because that’s exactly what it is: censorship. Government censorship.
This is completely unsurprising, and also holy s**tpickles. https://t.co/N0vUAs29NJ
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) October 31, 2022
Assuming that the usual suspects even acknowledge this story, expect their response to be something along these lines:
"It's a private company they can do whatever the FBI wants." https://t.co/P6a6i5ddTZ
— Confirmed Miscer ⚔️🍁🔫 (@ManDaveJobGood) October 31, 2022
Ugh. Don’t count on the MSM to have the public’s back on this. If we want to sound the alarm and fight this, we’re on our own.
government is always and everywhere the greatest threat to liberty https://t.co/OF7fgf6iwr
— Russ Greene (@GreenPlusAnE) October 31, 2022
Editor’s note: This post has been updated with an additional tweet.
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