It took the richest man in the world to begin dismantling the censorship-industrial complex; a tightly connected network of government agencies, think tanks, private media platforms, and activist organizations whose goal is to censor, control, and bankrupt free speech platforms under the guise of battling ‘hate speech’ and ‘misinformation’ that run counter to prevailing establishment narratives.
One of these entities, the Center for Countering Digital Hate, is a dark money organization run by an alleged former British intelligence operative.
We know all this because just over a year ago, X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk disseminated the “Twitter Files” to a small group of independent journalists, from which we learned that the Biden administration collaborated with Twitter to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story, ban Donald Trump, and that the FBI essentially had its entire arm up Twitter’s ass in order to shape and control narratives.
Here we go!! 🍿🍿 https://t.co/eILK9f3bAm
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 2, 2022
We also learned about the aforementioned relationships between the censorship-industrial complex.
Let the games begin!
In August, Musk kicked off what has become several lawsuits against anti-free speech advocates, filing a lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which X has accused of “actively working to assert false and misleading claims encouraging advertisers to pause investment on the platform.”
“X is a free public service funded largely by advertisers,” according to a Twitter blog entry. “Through the CCDH’s scare campaign and its ongoing pressure on brands to prevent the public’s access to free expression, the CCDH is actively working to prevent public dialogue.”
In October, Consortium News sued NewsGuard – a company which assigns scores to websites alleging to rank their credibility, for “acting jointly or in concert with the United States to coerce news organizations to alter viewpoints” regarding Ukraine, Russia and Syria, and has impsed a form of “censorship and repression of views” that diverge from US policies and those of its allies. The Biden administration was also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
Then in November, X filed a lawsuit against Media Matters, after threatening to file a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against the left-leaning activist group “and all those who colluded” with them in a disinformation campaign and advertiser boycott against the social media platform.
The lawsuit, just filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas Fort Worth Division, alleges the organization’s tactics were manipulative and deceptive.
The suit claims:
Media Matters has opted for new tactics in its campaign to drive advertisers from X. Media Matters has manipulated the algorithms governing the user experience on X to bypass safeguards and create images of X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts adjacent to racist, incendiary content, leaving the false impression that these pairings are anything but what they actually are: manufactured, inorganic, and extraordinarily rare.
Media Matters executed this plot in multiple steps, as X’s internal investigations have revealed.
Following the lawsuit, Texas AG Ken Paxton announced an investigation into Media Matters for potential fraudulent activity.
Last week, the state of Texas, the Daily Wire and The Federalist sued the US State Department for conspiring with Newsguard to censor American media companies, and that the government agency funded censorship technology designed to bankrupt domestic media outlets which have disfavored political opinions. Read the 67-page complaint here.
Congress authorized creation of the Global Engagement Center expressly to counter foreign propaganda and misinformation. Instead, the agency weaponized this authority to violate the First Amendment and suppress Americans’ constitutionally-protected speech.
— Texas Attorney General (@TXAG) December 6, 2023
Let’s get ready to Rumble…
On Nov. 30, streaming video platform Rumble sued two liberal activists who they allege worked in conjunction with Media Matters to lie about their source of ad revenues, thereby causing material damage to their reputation, as well as the destruction of more than $185 million from their market cap – despite the fact that Rumble notified them that they were incorrect.
Nandini Jammi (@nandoodles), Claire Atkin (@catthekin) – founders of “Check My Ads,” and nine anonymous individuals who work for Media Matters and Dewey Square, a “hyper-partisan public affairs agency.”
For example, Jammi was salivating over the opportunity to further demonetize X before Musk’s decision to reinstate Alex Jones to the platform.
I was part of the effort to get Alex Jones kicked off every major tech and marketing platform in 2018. Even @Apple won’t fuck with him.
If Elon brings him back, I can’t emphasize how *easy* it’s going to be to convince the last of X’s advertisers to drop him. https://t.co/1XL9ggcfra
— Nandini Jammi (@nandoodles) December 11, 2023
And now, Rumble is suing…
So, Janni publicly decried that they were shifting their sights to Rumble. They despise what Rumble stands for. If this isn’t evidence of malicious intent I am not sure what is. As per the complaint, they launched a disinformation campaign to demonetize Rumble and they bragged… pic.twitter.com/yDFri4F7zR
— Tracy Beanz (@tracybeanz) December 12, 2023
Interestingly, Media Matters is accused of similar manipulation as the X lawsuit, namely that they manipulated Rumble’s platform to show Netflix ads next to a user-generated video expressing antisemitic views, which Media Matters staff ‘repeatedly refreshed,’ which caused ‘Rumble’s advertising system to serve different advertisements until Media Matters found one that it could use as fodder for its public pressure campaign.”
“As it turned out, the Media Matters employee engaging in this tactic was the only one to actually view the Netflix ad on the video.”
And so, as the lawsuits against the censorship complex begin to fly, one can’t help but feel that the tide may actually be turning – or at least, said censors will think twice before spouting defamatory claims about platforms that allow divergent opinions.
Rumble suing @nandoodles.
First @elonmusk suing @CCDHate and @mmfa, then Consortium news suing @NewsGuardRating, then Texas suing Biden State Department, now Rumble suing @nandoodles and her liberal echo chamber
The tide is turning against the censorship industrial complex https://t.co/b2n9NL0Axs
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 12, 2023
Tyler Durden
Tue, 12/12/2023 – 17:45
