Victories in the US as the free speech counter-movement gathers pace in London

A few updates now that I am emerging from a very crazy June

Firstly, apologies for the long delay between posts. June saw me return to my previous role as an organiser, leading a big-tent convening of free speech activists from Europe, the US, and more in London. There was a swathe of outcomes from that meeting that will be further revealed soon. It built a great deal of energy to push back against the growing information controls regime.

The meeting was part of a larger Exposing the Censorship-Industrial Complex event with Russell Brand, Matt Taibbi, and Michael Shellenberger. Perhaps a thousand people attend. Watch the full event.

You can read reports of the London meeting and the event from Elena Louisa Lang and CJ Hopkins.

Other positive news abounds. Most important was the injunction against the White House and a swathe of government agencies from contacting social media platforms to demand censorship of “disinformation”. The case still has a way to go, however in the judge’s words “If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”

The ruling references the Twitter Files and bans a swathe of government agencies from meeting with social media companies “for the purpose of pressuring or inducing in any manner the removal or suppression of protected free speech”. Highlighted in particular was Stanford’s Election Integrity Partnership and Virality Project. The Virality Project was the subject of our Twitter Files #19.

You’d think progressive digital rights activists would be celebrating – the next time Modi, Marcos, or any other authoritarian president wants to censor social media by diktat activists can point to this ruling. Instead, counter “disinformation” sector and other advocates are clutching their pearls in horror that the government is not the arbiter of truth.

In other victories, a US House committee barred the Pentagon from funding “any other entity the function of which is to advise the censorship or blacklisting of news sources based on subjective criteria or political biases, under the stated function of ‘fact checking’ or otherwise removing ‘misinformation’” from the internet.

The amendment impacts a range of Censorship-Industrial Complex entities, including Virality Project partners Graphika.

The scrutiny also appears to be impacting government-funded state university “disinformation” centers based on recent stories in the New York Times and Washington Post. In this case, Freedom of Information requests and the government asking questions as to how taxpayer money was spent are re-framed as “harassment”. And there was I thinking progressives were in favour of transparency and accountability. The whole story is framed as partisan so readers know only right-wing people are against censorship and they should pay no attention to them.

The counter “disinformation” sector is now in a Ceausescu moment – either it realises that it has gone radically off-piste and pulls back, or it doubles down and continues to bleed credibility and ultimately collapses. Right now the strategy appears to keep its head firmly in the sand, but more and more digital rights leaders are reaching out to me to say they see the same problem. The change has to come at some point unless they have something new up their sleeve.

The recent changes in the US bode well for global change but it will take some time for the memo to get out there. Australia’s centre-left government is launching a big misinformation bill with the support of the Greens. Fortunately, the opposition is pushing back but unless anyone from the left steps up it will likely pass and the progressive turn against freedom of expression will continue.

More to come on Australia. Please reach out if you are working on that bill. And if you are in the digital rights field and see the same problems I am seeing, please also reach out.

Finally, last week I appeared on the podcast of German Marxist and Covid dissent Elena Louisa Lang. We discussed academia’s involvement in the censorship enterprise. Enjoy.

The Educational Sector-Censorship Complex