THE REAL REASON FOR CENSORSHIP IN 2024 - Part 4

The First Amendment is on Life Support

What’s really happening with Telegram…?

We’ll begin with just a tiny recap for continuity, and then we’ll pick up where we left off in Part 3…

MIKE: 47.47

So, the strategy here is twofold: turning up the knobs of the blob’s propaganda channels, and turning down the knobs of anyone who opposes that. Because you can win two ways: you can win – well, three ways – you can win in a fair fight, or you can win by super saturating your own media voice, or you can win by default, because the opposition political party, the opposition political movement, is not allowed.

This is why the U.S. State Department, after 2016, established in like 140 countries now, these censorship programs, in the name of countering disinformation, in the name of media literacy, in the name of digital resilience – they have all these branding terms for it – because they perceive this El Dorado gold mine of a new method for total political control over a region, which is winning by default by winning by censorship.

A lot of times, people don’t believe State Department propaganda, they don’t believe CIA propaganda, and so, no matter how much money you pump into the region, no matter – five billion dollars, Victoria Nuland bragged about being pumped into Ukrainian civil society ahead of the Maidan protest – it still did not penetrate Eastern Ukraine, which broke away in the Donbas; it still did not penetrate Crimea, who voted shortly after to join the Russian Federation in a democratic vote.

So, from their perspective, funding propaganda was not enough, we need to kill the ability to surface alternative ideas, because then they can’t even make a counter argument, even if they don’t believe the propaganda, there’s simply no other choice in the room.

You don’t get access to the other ideas, you don’t get access to the other data points, or news events that might “undermine public trust” in the State Department’s preferred narrative.

This is where malinformation came from. Mis, dis and malinformation, you may have heard that phrase. Misinformation is something that is false, but it was an innocent mistake; disinformation is it’s wrong, but you did it on purpose; malinformation is it’s right, but it still undermines public faith and confidence, and that’s something that’s more important.

This is why, for example, you had the censorship of covid in the name of mal…

TUCKER: 49.48

You’re banning people from telling the truth.

MIKE: 49.51

Yes.

TUCKER: 49.52

So, how are you not just like full blown on Satan’s team at that point? You’re not allowing your own citizens to tell the truth. You’re forcing lies at the point of a gun.

MIKE: 50.00

This is literally what the federal government’s partners pressured – use and exploiting government pressure and threatening them with crisis PR [public relations] if they allowed true statements about Covid-19 to be articulated – this came out in the Twitter Files, for example, where you had entities like the Virality Project, who were telling Yoel Roth and Vijaya Gadde that you – you know, the former Twitter 1.0 censorship team that you need to censor self-reported vaccine adverse events, because even if these things are true, they still undermine public faith and confidence in the efficacy of vaccines. They…

TUCKER: 50.37

They might increase vaccine hesitancy. Once people realize it can hurt them, like they don’t want to take it.

MIKE: 50.43

Right. And, part of the issue is, is their initial solution to this was Fact Checkers [I’m sorry, that definition made me LOL]. But, the problem is – and trying to get legitimacy for censorship because fact checkers identify something is wrong, but the problem is fact checkers are slow, fact checkers have limited influence on certain platforms, and so, you can’t hire enough fact checkers, and also, a lot of times the fact checkers can’t prove something’s wrong. You’re citing CDC data, you’re citing a widely reported mainstream media event, but you can still get it banned under the category of malinformation, because it still undermines public faith and trust in a critical narrative [THEIRS]. [And let’s not forget they will just plain LIE!]

So, it’s sort of this censorship mercenary ecosystem created to protect “noble lies”. But, noble lies at home, and also noble lies abroad.

So, this is why I come back to the U.S. State Department and maybe this is a good time to introduce the Telegram issue here, which is that you had this strange situation where the government of France arrested Pavel, and it took everyone by surprise, and this is a major, major act which has major implications for U.S. platforms.

The fact is, if Pavel is liable for every act of speech – criminally liable – every act of speech on his platform, there’s no reason that the head of Rumble, the head of X, the head of YouTube – everybody can’t be hauled in for 20 years the moment they step foot in Paris’s…

TUCKER: 52.10

They can all die in prison for letting people criticize their governments, like…

MIKE: 52.14

Right. It is a major diplomatic event. It impacts U.S. national champions. It impacts U.S. citizens.

The U.S. Embassy in France, it’s job – the only reason it’s there – is to protect U.S. national interests, U.S. citizens and U.S. corporations from hostile foreign laws in France, hostile foreign actions by France.

And, given how critical Telegram is to the U.S. militarily, to the U.S. on statecraft grounds, to the U.S. on intelligence grounds – again, as we speak, in dozens of countries Telegram is the main artery of the CIA for cultivating political resistance movements.

And so, the impact on the United States is absolutely massive of doing this, and again, as you know as we discussed, the United States has funded Ukraine with about almost $300 billion dollars, and Ukraine’s military intelligence chiefs say they need to get control over Telegram’s back-end to know whether or not the Russians are in control of it, and to get control essentially over its front-end content moderation policies to ban Russian propaganda channels.

Now mind you, this comes just two weeks after the FBI raided the homes of Scott Ritter and other journalists, simply for appearing on Russia Today. He had his hard drive seized, his phone seized – other people had their paintings in their own houses seized by the FBI – not arrested, by the way, no charges against them, simply for appearing on a Russian propaganda channel [who just so happens to do a pretty darn good job at reporting the news, btw], a Russian state TV channel.

So, these are American citizens, living in America, who simply appeared on a channel from Russia, that had their homes raided, their electronics seized, and even their paintings in their own homes seized if they thought a Russian painter may have painted the picture.

Here in the United States just two weeks ago…

TUCKER: 54.09

How is that legal?

MIKE: 54.11

Well, technically, they’re not facing charges.

But the idea was, because they had overt ties to a Russian propaganda outlet, they may have covert ties, and so the FBI now, basically has them in the spider web.

But understand, this is what the U.S…

TUCKER: 54.25

Honestly, it makes me want to go on RT every single day of the year. Just to make the point – not because I…for any other reason than to make the point I’m an American citizen, I can have any political opinion I want and I can speak to anyone I want.

But, does any other media outlet see this as kind of the end of America, when people are raided by the FBI for having political opinions?

MIKE: 54.49

It’s funny you say that because this is what started my own journey, which was that I’m not a foreign policy zealot, I’m – if the gun were taken off of my head, and an apology and restitution made for the destruction of the free and open internet, I might consider whether or not it is in U.S. interest to fund the war in Ukraine, to pursue the Seize Euasia, to do these things – I don’t know, I don’t know. I see the arguments on both sides of it.

But, the problem is, the fact that they have destroyed so many lives, the fact that so much pursuing this in my own free speech rights has cost me so much – I have the same response that you do, which is that, well, because you told me that I can’t talk about this, I will not stop talking about this until the internet is free.

TUCKER: 55.36

Well, exactly. They broke into my private text account, the NSA did, to keep me from talking to Putin, and then I just said, I don’t care what it takes, I’m going to Moscow to see Putin – it took me two years.

But, they really hardened my resolve, beyond like any point of reason, like I was going, period.

And, I think that’s the healthy response. I’m an American citizen, I was born here, you cannot -- you are not allowed –  it’s illegal for you to trample my God-given speech rights.

To be continued in Part 5…

END OF PART 4 /