Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs requested the social media website formerly known as Twitter to censor critics of her tweet that compared supporters of former President Donald Trump to Nazis. In August 2017, while serving in the Arizona state legislature, Hobbs attacked Trump in a tweet, when she compared the former president’s voter base to neo-Nazis. “[Trump] has…
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A digital free-speech watchdog is warning that federally funded researchers have captured and examined millions of Twitter posts they deemed to be “misinformation” during the 2020 election and used them to devise new strategies that one day could empower Big Tech to censor or throttle content while keeping the affected users and the public in…
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The founder of a nonprofit that advocates for freedom of speech on the internet is sounding the alarm on government weaponization of “middleware” companies, which he said are essentially shell organizations for government censorship. “The reason that they call it competitive middleware is because they’re trying to create a competitive industry around middleware compliance to…
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Now, it appears the agency may be concealing its efforts to monitor domestic content posted by regular Americans and focusing exclusively on its campaign to combat foreign actors in what some observers say is a move designed to hide government overreach, according to research compiled by Mike Benz, the Foundation for Freedom Online’s executive director.…
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“A digital free-speech watchdog is warning that federally funded researchers have captured and examined millions of Twitter posts they deemed to be “misinformation” during the 2020 election and used them to devise new strategies that one day could empower Big Tech to censor or throttle content while keeping the affected users and the public in…
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“Since government organizations cannot outrightly censor news outlets without running afoul of the First Amendment, said Benz, government agencies are farming the censorship out to private companies. “Benz, a business law attorney, was in charge of the cyber and Big Tech portfolios for the U.S. State Department, where he served as deputy assistant secretary for…
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Mike did a segment on Emerald Robinson’s web show discussing how the Department of Homeland Security was censoring Americans. They ran through a few different news items, including the new House Judiciary report on CISA censorship. Emerald also spoke about the Department of Homeland Security pushing narratives with the mainstream press that discussed “domestic terrorist…
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The Daily Caller published a piece examining a new United Nations policy proposal that outlines how to “combat online ‘mis- and disinformation and hate speech,’” including by demonetizing people and social media channels online. The policy proposal is informed by groups that actively censor conservative political speech online, most notably the Global Disinformation Index. Daily…
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Foundation for Freedom Online was given nearly full credit from Nature Magazine for the backlash against the censorship industry. “The idea of a coordinated censorship regime originated last year from a series of reports by the Foundation for Freedom Online, a self-described watchdog organization set up by a former US State Department diplomat. Conservative billionaire…
Read articleMike recorded an interview with OANN’s Neil McCabe about online censorship. This interview also has not been posted online, yet. Mike BenzMichael Benz is the Executive Director of the Foundation for Freedom Online. Previously, Mr. Benz served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Communications and Information Technology at the U.S. Department of State. Follow him…
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