The Absolute State of Big Tech Censorship and the Anti-Social Media
The Absolute State of Big Tech Censorship and the Anti-Social Media
In his testimony to the House Homeland Security Subcommittee for Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability, Michael Shellenberger of
said that, “the President of the United States… then-press secretary said publicly that the administration was ‘flagging violative posts for Facebook.’”Shellenberger also said that “members of Congress threatened to strip social media platforms of their legal right to operate because, they said, the platforms weren’t censoring enough,” while “many supposedly disinterested researchers were aggressively demanding that the platforms change their Terms of Service.”
X, formerly known as Twitter, has substantially scaled down their censorship since Elon Musk took control of the enterprise; asked about firing 80% of Twitter’s staff, Musk said, "If you're not trying to run some sort of glorified activist organization, and you don't care that much about censorship, then you can really let go of a lot of people, it turns out."
Despite this, X continues to censor its users over “politically sensitive” content. This state backed social media censorship regime, replete throughout Western democracies that claim to hold free speech as a fundamental value, is why Murder Pop Magazine exists in the first place; when social media companies control your distribution list and can take it away from you at any time, they control you, and the content you’re allowed to share with the public.
As of February 2024,
is the only tech platform that has not censored us, and are the only independent creators who can say what they want without fear of penalty or reprisal from the tech company that hosts their work, at least so far.This relationship between government and industry, or one just like it, has seemingly continued at Twitter even under the ownership of Elon Musk despite having been scaled down, regardless of court orders or rebrands. People have continued to report having their posts and accounts removed or throttled for spurious or seemingly political reasons, including around so called “population level narratives” such as the widely censored coverage of international conflicts like the Hamas attack on Israel.
X, formerly Twitter, did not return multiple requests for comment for this story. However, according to a story in Variety, X Corp CEO Linda Yaccarino responded to an EU warning about “illegal content and disinformation” in an open letter posted to X in which Yaccarino said that X has, “taken action to remove or label tens of thousands of pieces of content” that “may include” false information about the attacks in Israel or regarding the Israel-Hamas war.
One wonders what might have been censored from the public discourse had Twitter existed in the aftermath of September 11th, or Pearl Harbor, or any other event where the public might discuss the legitimate use of violence as self defense. As we will demonstrate in our next article in this series, titled X/Twitter/Meta/YouTube: Racism, Content Moderation, Bots, and Russia, this censorship has done little to nothing to diminish actual threats, to say nothing of stopping disinformation and foreign propaganda from being disseminated.
The Chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, Congressional Representative Jim Jordan from Ohio, posted to his X account about “HUNDREDS of secret reports” showing that DHSgov's CISAgov and [Global Engagement Center], along with the StateDept, Stanford, and others “worked together to censor AMERICANS, including true information, jokes, and opinions.”
Jordan wrote that, “The federal government, disinformation “experts” at universities, Big Tech, and others worked together through the Election Integrity Partnership to monitor & censor Americans’ speech.”
He also claimed that, “According to one EIP member, the EIP was created ‘at the request of CISA.’ The head of the EIP also said that EIP was created after ‘working on some monitoring ideas with CISA.’”
This is an explicit attempt by the government security apparatus to use partnerships with academia in order to circumvent constitutional protections that guarantee every American the right to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the right to due process of law.
It is an explicit attempt by the government security apparatus to stymie independent media outlets while allowing foreign influencers to meddle with our national discourse with impunity. It is an abdication of the gifts left to Americans by ancestors who bled for them. It is explicitly seditious; it is treason.