The Censorship Industrial Complex: What Are Trump And Musk Trying Fo Fight?

Silencing dissent in the name of fighting misinformation

Dear Reader,

Over the last 8 years, the Censorship Industrial Complex — U.S. government, Big Tech, and universities — collaborated to suppress free speech, manipulate elections, and bypass constitutional safeguards.

All under the guise of combating “disinformation”.

A 2023 U.S. House Judiciary report, “The Weaponization of ‘Disinformation’ Pseudo-Experts and Bureaucrats”, revealed how agencies like DHS & GEC, funded the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP).

EIP flagged Americans’ posts to Big Tech, targeting satire, dissenting opinions, and even true information from a particular end of political spectrum.

The censorship targets included not only the prominent accounts like Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Babylon Bee, but also everyday Americans.

The excuse? "Election integrity". The goal? Silencing specific narratives.

Even the Hunter Biden laptop story was suppressed under this system.

The government agencies bypassed the Constitution using NGOs (e.g., Stanford’s EIP) who did the dirty work. EIP mass-reported “undesirable” content via tools like Jira.

Agencies like CISA admitted targeting domestic speech, under the guise of foreign interference. This was agenda-driven censorship.

Trump calls it a "Censorship Cartel" conspiring to silence Americans. Musk called GEC “the worst offender in govt censorship.”

As Trump prepares to enter office in January next year, he has declared his intent to dismantle this "censorship cartel".

His stated plan includes: Ban funding the varsities and NGOs that indulge in censorship, fire officials involved in censorship, and pass a Digital Bill of Rights.

• Will Trump-Musk duo be able to do it successfully?

• And what implications does it have across the globe where Big Tech has engaged in similar practices?

Read Dhruv Sanyal's complete piece on the Censorship Industrial Complex here.

Until tomorrow,

Anmol N Jain