Twitter Files journalist Michael Shellenberger said the war on free speech has taken “the form of a world war.”
The Twitter Files and The Facebook Files showed direct government-tech collusion to censor free speech. MRC Free Speech America exposed a government anti-terror program, the “Targeted Violence & Terrorism Prevention Grant Program” (TVTP), weaponized against Christians, conservatives, and Republicans. Like the now-defunct Disinformation Governance Board, TVTP came out of the Department of Homeland Security. In light of all this and global efforts to suppress speech, Shellenberger warned in a June 19 article on UnHerd of the fight against free speech. He said, “You can see its shadow in every Western country, from the US and Canada to Ireland and Australia, as well as in every multinational organisation, from the EU to the UN.”
Much of the censorship work is justified by the claims that digital hate speech is sharply increasing, but that’s simply not true, Shellenberger argued. It’s an excuse for the suppression of information, often true information. Ultimately, Shellenberger insisted of leftists’ “misinformation” and “hate speech” cant that “[w]e need to train our ears to hear such language as pretexts for government censorship.”
An “elitist, anti-populist strain” is coming from governments and NGOs around the world, Shellenberger soberly noted. Even many private entities that are calling for censorship have received government funding, he explained. This created the “Censorship Industrial Complex,” partly exposed by The Twitter Files.
Shellenberger cited multiple examples of the “new world war” on free speech, including the now-defunct Homeland Security Department’s Disinformation Governance Board. He also noted European legislation on “disinformation” and the United Nations’ new pro-censorship project. “All of these initiatives are allegedly the product of good intentions; all of them, however, are rooted in the same fallacy: there is little evidence to suggest that hate speech and misinformation are on the rise,” Shellenberger insisted.
People are more tolerant than ever before, not more inclined toward hate speech, he argued. Moreover, he wrote, “Facebook and Twitter have also started deleting a significant amount of true content.” This was especially the case during the COVID-19 pandemic and before the 2020 election with the Hunter Biden scandal.
While there is some anti-free speech movement from “grassroots” much of it is top-down, Shellenberger explained. Such “measures constitute nothing short of a world war on free speech,” he warned.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech and government agencies be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called hate speech and an equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
