Below is my column in the Hill on the recent report of the House Judiciary Committee and the disclosure of yet another effort to silence opposing viewpoints by squeezing the revenue of individuals or groups, including Elon Musk and Joe Rogan.
Here is the column:
Few Americans have ever heard of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, let alone understand how it shapes what they read and hear in news and commentary. That may soon change.
An alarming new report of the House Judiciary Committee details this organization’s work to censor conservative and opposing viewpoints in the media by targeting figures such as Joe Rogan and entire social media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter).
It is part of a massive censorship system that a federal court recently described as “Orwellian.” The sophistication of this system makes authoritarian regimes like China’s and Iran’s look like mere amateurs in censorship and blacklisting.
In my new book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in the Age of Rage,” I discuss our history of speech crackdowns and how this is arguably the most dangerous anti-free speech period that we have faced as a nation. The reason is an unprecedented alliance of government, corporate, academic and media institutions supporting censorship and the targeting of largely conservative viewpoints.
As discussed in the book, there is a crushing irony to the current anti-free speech movement. During the Red Scare and the McCarthy period, it was the left that was targeted with blacklisting, censorship and arrests. It is now the left that has constructed a global censorship system that exceeds anything that Joe McCarthy even dreamt of in the control of news and commentary.
Through the years, I have testified repeatedly in Congress on this system supported enthusiastically by President Biden and his administration. It has proven to be a frustrating game of whack-a-mole for civil libertarians. The Democrats in Congress have uniformly opposed any investigation or action on censorship while denying for years that there was a coordinated effort between government and corporations. When we were successful in uncovering components of this system, they were often quickly shut down as the work shifted to other components and assets.
One of the most insidious efforts has been to strangle the financial life out of conservative or libertarian sites by targeting their donors and advertisers. This is where the left has excelled beyond anything that has come before in speech crackdowns.
Years ago, I wrote about the Biden administration supporting efforts like the Global Disinformation Index to discourage advertisers from supporting certain sites. All of the 10 riskiest sites targeted by the index were popular with conservatives, libertarians and independents. That included Reason.org and a group of libertarian and conservative law professors who simply write about cases and legal controversies. The Global Disinformation Index warned advertisers against “financially supporting disinformation online.” At the same time, HuffPost, a far-left media outlet, was included among the 10 sites at lowest risk of spreading disinformation.
Once that index’s work and bias was disclosed, government officials quickly disavowed the funding. It was a familiar pattern. Within a few years, we found that the work had been shifted instead to groups like the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, which is the same thing on steroids. It is the creation of a powerful and largely unknown group called the World Federation of Advertisers, which has huge sway over the advertising industry and was quickly used by liberal activists to silence opposing views and sites by cutting off their revenue streams.
These censorship groups typically proclaim that they are merely trying to promote “brand safety” when they target for suppression the same sites that challenge the political and media establishment. The group states that it “unites marketers, media agencies, media platforms, industry associations, and advertising technology solutions providers to safeguard the potential of digital media by reducing the availability and monetization of harmful content online.”
That “harmful content” seems to be the very same sites long targeted by the Biden administration and its allies in business, the media and academia.
The internal communications of these censorship groups demonstrate their contributors’ underlying agenda. In one conversation between Global Alliance for Responsible Media co-founder Rob Rakowitz and individuals with an associated “GroupM,” two executives explained to Rakowitz how they identified sites that they did not like and simply monitored them until they could find something that crossed the line. An example is the Daily Wire, a site hated by liberals for its conservative viewpoints and critiques of mainstream media.
In describing how they work to bag such sites, John Montgomery, executive vice president of Global Brand Safety, explained: “There is an interesting parallel here with Breitbart. Before Breitbart crossed the line and started spouting blatant misinformation, we had long discussions about whether we should include them on our exclusion lists. As much as we hated their ideology and bulls–t, we couldn’t really justify blocking them for misguided opinion. We watched them very carefully and it didn’t take long for them to cross the line.”
In other words, they preselected the sites and then followed their every move like a patrol unit following a car to wait for them to go one mile per hour over the limit.
This is called “deplatforming,” a favorite term from higher education, whereby liberal groups organize to shout down and block speakers with opposing views. The Global Alliance for Responsible Media is too sophisticated to simply bullhorn groups into silence. Instead, it strangles them financially.
Those who do not yield, from Elon Musk’s X to mega-podcaster Joe Rogan, were quickly added to the list to be deplatformed. Musk is particularly dangerous because he was responsible for blowing the lid off the censorship system by releasing the “Twitter Files,” detailing coordination between government and social media companies to silence citizens and groups.
To this day, companies like Facebook continue to fight efforts to disclose their own censorship files.
Musk has threatened to sue in light of the report. “Having seen the evidence unearthed today by Congress, X has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators in the advertising boycott racket,” he said.
A lawsuit would be difficult to maintain. These groups have a right to organize to silence opposing views just as book burners have a right to burn books. However, deplatforming, book burning and blacklisting have long been anathema to free speech values. They are efforts to prevent opposing views from being heard rather than to respond to such views on the merits.
And Musk is right in describing this as a “racket.” There is now a disinformation cottage industry where a wide array of academic and private groups are raking in a fortune targeting individuals and other groups for blacklisting, banning and censorship.
There are other groups working in tandem in this effort. For example, Newsguard was created by to Chief Executive Officers Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz to monitor and effectively blacklist media that they deemed misinformative or false. The site uses mainstream journalists to rate news sites, even though many of these sites have challenged the bias of the mainstream media.
Once again, the apparatus serves to shield that bias in targeting disfavored sites. The Biden administration has extended contracts with Newsguard to incorporate the system, and it is even being used in schools, despite complaints that it shows the very same pro-Democrat and left-wing bias.
There is a reason why projects such as the Global Disinformation Index have been largely concealed from public view. There is a reason Facebook and other companies have fought mightily to conceal their own censorship files. The anti-free speech movement is not a popular movement.
A majority of the public continues to oppose censorship. This is a movement that came from higher education and has been pushed by the political and media establishment, not the public.
That is why many of us in the free speech community are hoping that the 2024 election will become a referendum on censorship. Biden has given a full-throated endorsement of these efforts, even to the point of claiming that companies that do not censor American citizens are “killing people.” He presides over the most anti-free speech administration since John Adams.
So now, let him defend it with voters.
In 1800, that did not work out well for Adams, who was defeated by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson had run on restoring freedom of speech. The public can now flip the script. It is time to defund and deplatform America’s censors.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster, June 18, 2024).
Freedom of speech is as much about what is forbidden by cultural acceptance (via propaganda, misinformation, etc) than forbidden by coercion and force. A great example is the myth of the holocaust. Oh, not that terrible things didn’t happen, it’s not that anti-Ashkenazi -Jewishness didn’t happen (notice I don’t use the term anti-Semite because Ashkenazis aren’t semites but white Eastern Europeans)but the modern zionist movement has used extensive propaganda, and yes even violence, to colonize by force Palestine. The myth of the holocaust is an extremely important lie in their ongoing genocide and the theft of Palestine from the native SEMITIC inhabitants—including members of all three abrahamic religions. Zionist terrorist groups had even made agreements with Hitler that trainloads of Jews would be sent to the holy lands in order to colonize and occupy. I wonder how many American school children are taught this? Probably none. And so, you see, our entire existence is made up of lies constantly fed to us. There can be no freedom under such conditions. It is an illusion. It is all gaslighting.
The myth of the holocaust? So I guess those pictures that my dad brought back from Germany where he was one of the U.S. soldiers that liberated a concentration camp were staged? Wow! With comments like yours no wonder there’s a need to identify those sites that peddle in nonsense. NewsGuard doesn’t censor. It doesn’t try to censor but rather it’s a data point to help readers determine if what they’re reading is credible or not. In addition to the ratings they add substantial information as to why they gave the rating they gave. Are they perfect? Of course not but it’s a guide that I follow.
“Ashkenazis aren’t semites”
You are not smart enough to possess an alias or a name identifying you, so you are probably not smart enough to know about DNA. Therefore, I will correct you, but I am addressing others with far more intelligence. DNA proves the Semitic links.
The meaning of the word anti-Semitism narrowed to a term that relates specifically to all Jews.
“the myth of the holocaust.”
Considering the bodies found, the paperwork based on IBM computer records, population studies, etc., you are just plain stupid.
If you were not so stupid, I would invite you to debate these points, but you could not, no matter what. You are a coward who relies on anonymity to voice your opinions.
I’m absolutely loving these Kanye West posters! They’re not just visually stunning but also packed with so much personality and flair. Each design seems to capture a different facet of Kanye’s diverse talents and his journey through the music and fashion industries. The bold colors and intricate details make them perfect conversation starters. These posters are ideal for anyone looking to add a touch of Kanye’s iconic style to their home or office. Can’t wait to hang these up and show them off!
https://www.kanyewestposters.com
I read the comments, some of them by a madman, and I remembered this from many years ago:
Under the Ancient Regime, there were Four Estates – the Clergy, the Nobility, and all others, mostly commoners. Later, the press, she became the Fourth Estate. Notice that the press, she existed in her own Estate, away from the common people. Today, the press she still does, along with the Ruling Classes, and the persons who preach the new religion of globalism.
Puhlease! The Democrats are not “the left.” They are the corporate-sponsored center-right. I am a genuine leftist and they are censoring us, too.
The “left” is comprised of the communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOS).
You cannot be half pregnant and you cannot be half communist.
Article 1, Section 8, and the 5th Amendment PRECLUDE communism in America.
It doesn’t preclude communism. It outlaws a communist party in the US. An individual can still believe in it if they so desire. Let me add to your comment about what comprises the left, a common view of what comprises the right: racism, misogyny, homophobia, KKK, john birch society, wackos, weirdos, christian nationalists and insurrectionists. Did I get it right?
“Puhlease! The Democrats are not “the left.””
Correct.
” I am a genuine leftist and they are censoring us, too.”
Only in marxist fantasy land.
Whatever you want to call the majority of democrats – they are NOT the left.
THEY have been disempowered by the far left in their own party.
Joe Manchin is arguably the democratic “Center Right”.
The left has done everything possible to drive him out of the democratic party.
Tulsi Gabbard was a rising star int he Democratic party – she gave the nominating speech for Barack Obama, She was a DNC chair.
She was definitely on the left – maybe not the radical nut job left, but not a Manchin blue dog democrat. Again driven out of the party.
Christine Sienema – a pretty radical left member of the democratic party. Who would not toe the line with the radical left – driven out of the party.
Leftists today are “censored” by havingf their views made public where people gaspo in horror that anyone could beleive such nonsense.
And any sane conservative is called a RINO. Touche.
They are definitely on the left. No rational centrist would ever describe a man as a woman or vice versa. If you think the Democrats are centre-right, then you must be so far left of Stalin he must be a speck in the rear-view mirror!
Man, you’re really hung up on the trans thing. Is that our nation’s biggest problem. Leave them alone. They have enough problems.
Musk is a red pilled liberal
Not quite the same as a conservative
I disagree. I think he’s a wannabe authoritarian. Notice how he’s interfering in other countries’ election processes? We in the U.S. find that unacceptable when other countries or individuals from other countries try to interfere in our election process. Plus, he supports trump. Would a liberal in their right mind do that?
PUPPET WATCH
Final Report Ahead
The report Floyd Estovir does not want you to see.
PUPPET WATCH
A California-based non-profit
Yeah, I just read it. At 7:54 pm Puppet Watch posted their final report. Floyd immediately buried it with everything he could dump. Because they concluded he’s a foreign troll!
Here’s the section of that report Floyd wanted buried.
Check it out at 7:54 pm, under all the spam.
“Again, it makes no sense to denigrate one’s own platform with sociopathic comments.
It only makes sense if Floyd Estovir is paid to disrupt.
Floyd Estovir proved he’s capable of disabling the comment threads. He did that by unspooling those ancient texts in the first days of July.
Floyd Estovir doesn’t care about Jonathan Turley nor the blog. Furthermore, as a ‘content provider’, Floyd Estovir has failed to grow the comment threads.
Few if any new commenters have joined the threads since Estovir arrived 5 plus years ago. Since then the threads have stagnated from lack of new blood.
So again, one must ask, “What’s the business model here?”
PUPPET WATCH BELIEVES FLOYD ESTOVIR IS ACTUALLY A FOREIGN TROLL. “
You have to ask why Floyd would work all day long posting a hundred-plus comments only to bury everything when Puppet Watch posted their final report.
Yea sounds like its all different people. Poopy Watch is a turd and a troll.
If Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed will he have to give his salary back?
The funding of Jack Smith was part of judge Cannon’s argument for dismissal. It was unconstitutional to appoint him and allocate funds for his endeavor. Don’t worry, I am sure the FEC will fine Hillary for her campaign violations and make her accountable for the $42M wasted on her smear campaign. I can’t wait for Trump to win! I bet we see a mass exodus of Democrats to their compounds in New Zeland!
You helped to elect a felon, rapist, conman, insurrectionist, thief and fraudster. I’m sure you’re so proud. Oh, and he’s psychotic but who’s counting?
Send it to his prison cell.
Did Hillary violate any classified materials laws?
How ’bout Joke Buydone?
Stupid is as stupid does. I
A quick primer on J.D. Vance, Trump’s VP nominee:
-once called Trump “America’s Hitler”
-supports nat’l abortion ban without exceptions for rape/incest
-doesn’t believe in gay marriage
-proponent of white supremacist Great Replacement Theory
-supports Russia’s war on Ukraine
Sounds like a great plan!
Jams weeds up libs’ asses.
And you are credible because ?
J.D. Vance wrote an excellent book called hillbilly Elegy
If you can not read – it is available as a movie.
It is autobiographical.
I read it some years ago and enjoyed it and learned from it. He showed his view toward social programs when he describe a family down the street getting government aid when it appeared to him they were fine and should have been employed. However, we don’t know who they were and what their issues were. So I guess all people are malingerers who get government aid.
When They All Sound Alike..
Puppet Watch Is Listening.
*****
Puppet Watch has conducted thorough audits of these comment threads. Discover the findings in our final report below.
PUPPET WATCH
A California-based non-profit
PUPPET WATCH
Final Report, 7/15/24
Puppet Watch wishes to thank Professor Turley and Moderator Smith for letting us conduct our investigation of Floyd Estovir.
Findings:
The comment threads of Jonathan Turley’s Blog are basically a Potemkin Village inhabited by mostly puppets.
But a ‘few’ genuine people traffic throughout the day. They are longtime commenters who predated Estovir’s arrival in March of 2019.
Yet these longtime commenters number 15 or less. And most of them are absent most of the time.
Mornings often lack ‘real’ commenters for periods of up to 45 minutes. Then, after 5:00 pm, Floyd Estovir, as both Floyd and Estovir, functions like a shock jock with frequent, more abrasive posts.
Floyd Estovir is a professional at generating talking points. Because no amateur stays on blogs 16 hours per day. Even retirees have other things to do.
But how could Floyd Estovir profit from these threads?
Puppet Watch doubts Professor Turley ever consented to hosting Floyd Estovir. Though possibly Floyd Estovir was foisted on Turley by aggressive activists.
But this aggressive activists theory is questionable when one considers the volumes of profanity Floyd Estovir has posted.
If Floyd Estovir worked for American activists, would they really want him commenting about ‘eating peanuts from turds’..??
This language would be totally counter-productive to American activists. It looks to random readers like a blog for sick losers. No reason to come back!
Again, it makes no sense to denigrate one’s own platform with sociopathic comments.
It only makes sense if Floyd Estovir is paid to disrupt.
Floyd Estovir proved he’s capable of disabling the comment threads. He did that by unspooling those ancient texts in the first days of July.
Floyd Estovir doesn’t care about Jonathan Turley nor the blog. Furthermore, as a ‘content provider’, Floyd Estovir has failed to grow the comment threads.
Few if any new commenters have joined the threads since Estovir arrived 5 plus years ago. Since then the threads have stagnated from lack of new blood.
So again, one must ask, “What’s the business model here?”
PUPPET WATCH BELIEVES FLOYD ESTOVIR IS ACTUALLY A FOREIGN TROLL.
We should pause here to note that thousands of foreign students study in the U.S. then overstay visas.
And many immigrants return to their home countries after spending 10 years or more in the United States.
Floyd Estovir could be a Chinese national who studied in California. Or a Russian born in Brooklyn to parents who took him home to Saint Petersburg.
Floyd Estovir could be a Cuban national who spied in Miami before returning to Havana. He now programs puppets on American blogs.
And Floyd Estovir’s superiors don’t really care if he ruins Turley’s comment threads. They’re not measuring success by American standards.
Summary:
Puppet Watch appreciates Professor Turley’s dilemma. Evicting Floyd Estovir could require the fulltime efforts of a cyber-security team for an indefinite period.
Professor Turley’s only real option might be closing the comment threads. Which would be difficult to reconcile for a free speech advocate. Puppet Watch understands.
Yet Floyd Estovir is still thoroughly entrenched. With plenty of new puppets in stages of development.
This will be our last dispatch.
PUPPET WATCH
A California-based non-profit
Bye Bye Peter Poopy Watch
Hope you have better luck on your next assignment
I guess the “Key Points Above” posts will return now
Sorry i had to make several posts and drive your blather down the page.
The 1st can only be violated by the government- Supreme just said as much – and that govtemploee blocking speech presumed a 1st and concern. ⁰whilst pressure on social not enough to be state action. Maybe outright funding is? Idk.
Please read NRA vs NYS a 9-0 Sotomayor opinion
Pressure by government to censor IS state action.
One would think but how to reconcile the 3 cases? Barrett March opinion presumed mere govt employee blocking was 1st territory. The 90 was use of office to block. But the pressure to block – what did it turn on? Idk trying to figure the u-turn out.
How can Jack Smith appeal the ruling when he has been declared illegitimate? If he is unconstitutional, any filing from him should not be heard.
The DOJ can appeal the ruling. Jack Smith cannot.
Look to the canning case.
When barrack had a dude not confirmed – all he did was illegitimate if i remember. Right.
It wasn’t that his pick for the supreme court was not confirmed, he didn’t even get a hearing. If a dem congress ever did that to a gop president people on the right would probably attack the capitol in hysteria. What mcconnell did was show us a gap in our Constitution. Yes, the senate is to advise and consent but it doesn’t say in what time period.
The Ruling can be appealed.
But there is a strong possibility it may not.
Cannon’s ruling is only binding on the 11th circuit.
If it is appealed and lost – it is binding on Chutkan.
Wel for Supremes who want to avoid “choas” I doubt it’ll stop at the 11th. It’s the constitution- it has to apply across the country so the Supreme will have to weigh in. We can’t have part of our union under different rules. Plus the canning case went nation wide. Precedent. It won’t stop at the 11th – obvious goes all the way. And here precedent sets if illegitimate appointed (canning case) most you do is illegitimate. Despite all those statutes that say otherwise and defy the part that says a republican form of govt part.
I’m looking ahead at DT WH cabinet members. How about Ozzy Osbourne for Secretary of Defense.
This is pretty easy
My wife a public defender has clients is jail for providing sexual content to children
File charges and prosecute teachers and librarians that provide in appropriate content to children
If a kids stepfather goes to jail for the equivalent of drag queen story time
So should the teacher
This is not a serious treatment of censorship. When Elon bought Twitter, the realists all predicted that it would still be censoring content, just content offensive to Elon. It took no time for this to happen.
He banned the account that tracked the movements of his personal jet. He then banned any journalist that reported on it. He then banned on journalists who reported on him banning journalists.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/journalists-who-wrote-about-owner-elon-musk-suspended-from-twitter
He shadow-banned journalist Matt Taibbi because Taibbi refused to cease usage of Substack.
Before “X”, 50% of foreign government requests for censorship were honored. After Elon came on board, it went up to 80%.
I’m not castigating Elon for doing this, just pointing out his naive idealism.
Every human being is free to decide what information to pay attention to, and what of that to pass along to others.
The very act of deciding what is credible enough to repeat is a basic human faculty — calling it “censorship” is an absurd use of language, because it presumes that ignoring that which is deemed frivolous, misguided, ill-informed is somehow a vice. And, all humans have aspects of self-interest that shape the information they would like the public to know, and other aspects they want to remain private.
What Elon does in terms of editorial decisions at X is his business, but I would assert that imposing any editorial decisions, or employing algorithms that amplify content A over content B makes X a publisher, and removes Section 230 protection against lawsuits.
As a business, X has lost 71% of its valuation since acquisition by Musk. His editorial priorities turned off that many advertisers. Nobody wants their ad placed next to junk postings. The reputational damage isn’t worth it.
In this way, the market is voting against an algorithmic-mediated definition of “free speech” (lack of moderation and human judgment over what is well intended, responsible and accurate).
This was true long before Musk got into the social media biz.
pbinca is lying in the Soviet Democrat cause:
This is not a serious treatment of censorship. When Elon bought Twitter, the realists all predicted that it would still be censoring content, just content offensive to Elon. It took no time for this to happen.
The “realists” were the Soviet Democrats who suddenly found themselves as unemployed censors who no longer had uncensored use of Twitter to lie about Trump while lying in defense of Biden and Obama.
The short story is that the Soviet Democrat “realists like pbinca did not have the slightest concern about Twitter political censorship when it removed people like Trump and doctors saying Wuhan Flu wasn’t likely to be from pangolins having unprotected sex with bats as Dr. Fauci claimed back then.
pbinca’s idea of “junk posting” is when a leading virologist at one of the Ivy League medical schools their Wuhan Flu Czar, Dr. Fauci.
but I would assert that imposing any editorial decisions, or employing algorithms that amplify content A over content B makes X a publisher, and removes Section 230 protection against lawsuits.
Any particular reason you didn’t have those concerns, morality, and legal analysis when Dorsey was exercising his editorial decisions amplify Soviet Democrat content over content from those medical doctors, those supporting President Trump, criticizing Bribery Biden? Four years wasn’t long enough for you to figure that out?
It’s magical to watch Soviet Democrats like pbinca suddenly discovering they have morals about who publishes and who censors since Musk purchased control of X and fired the woke content censors doing censorship on behalf of the Soviet Demcorats pbinca votes for.
I would assert that watching pbinca and his fellow traveller Dennis McIntyre cosplay as being normal Americans who uniformly apply their morals and values is like watching a Cheap Fakes kabuki theater.
Ever wonder how much news outlets cut and paste from each other. We get a little clue this week based on a grammatical error that a native English speaker probably wouldn’t make. The sentence fragment states that investigators are “hunting for any clues about what may have drove Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, to carry out the shocking attack.”
If you google the part in quotes above, you’ll see lots of sources have that exact grammatical error, whereas a few apparently have eagle-eye editors that have corrected it.
This reminds me of one time, I subscribed to National Geographic magazine, and filled out the form with middle initials N.G. Then, I started getting mail from so many sources using N.G. as my middle initials. It was kind of fascinating tbh. It allowed me to see who National Geographic was selling my info to.
May have drove? Yikes!
The House Judiciary Committee’s report can be found here
https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/07/2024-07-10-GARMs-Harm-How-the-Worlds-Biggest-Brands-Seek-to-Control-Online-Speech.pdf
FBI culture revealed:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13636973/donald-trump-assassination-post-fbi-staffer-covid-vaccine-mandate.html
I suspect she isn’t in trouble for thinking this way. She is in trouble for letting us know the FBI thinks this way.
A legitimate organization needs to investigate the attack on Trump. Right now Barney Fife looks better than anyone connected with the DOJ.
I was taken off the prior platform and I don’t know why and I’m not able to get on X and I don’t know why. Censoring by X needs to be fixed
I’ve been on X for more than a year, never been censored, never been taken off. Perhaps you’re an idiot?
I get all of my news from X. Love it.