Have the Censors Finally Been Defeated?

A look at the current state of the war against censorship, Marco Rubio's recent actions, and the threat posed by the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA)

I’d like to be perfectly clear at the outset: this is not a partisan issue. State-sponsored censorship, whether it’s being administered under a Democrat or Republican administration, is anathema to a free society.

That being said, we are living in strange and momentous times, where the fate of the American empire could be derailed from the track laid out by the “international rules-based order” in favor of a more populist form of nationalism, largely consisting of right-wing and independents from various nations around the world.

The globalists, that is, the international billionaires and private/political operatives who populate various excusive think tanks like the Council on Foreign Relations, World Economic Forum, etc. have lost favor with the common people in many nations across the world. This has lead to many left-leaning and centrist individuals to swing reluctantly to the right, particularly in this last election here in the United States where Kamala Harris, an obvious hollow vessel for the political establishment, was defeated by Donald Trump, a highly controversial populist renegade.

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This battle between international “establishment” forces (World Bank, the IMF, the military-industrial complex, NATO, United Nations, the U.S. interagency blob, etc.) and populist forces (currently largely right-wing and independent) has manifested in many ways, and is primarily fought in the cognitive battlespace.

In kinetic warfare, a weapon of mass destruction is a device that can kill or harm many people by delivering massive destructive force through the transfer of physical energy upon impact. In cognitive or information warfare, the closest thing that exists to a weapon of mass destruction is the monstrosity that has been built out over the course of the last decade, often referred to as the Censorship-Industrial Complex, or more simply, the “censorship industry.”

One thing that everyone can agree on, regardless of which side of the cultural/political aisle you might fall on, is that it feels dehumanizing to have your voice silenced. Conservatives experienced this during Trump 1.0 and the Biden administration, and some liberals are experiencing it now with the campus protests against the ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

Despite this universality, there are two types of people; those who truly abhor censorship and those who only abhor censorship when it’s targeting ideas with which they agree.

This is true for a majority of the left and the right, despite all of the free speech rhetoric during the censor-happy Biden administration, some conservatives are now happily embracing free speech limitations on those with whom they disagree. If you think this isn’t true, then you’ve deluded yourself.

That being said, the only true way to win the war against censorship is to end censorship—specifically state-sponsored censorship—wherever it occurs.

One of the primary things that Donald trump campaigned on was restoring and strengthening the freedom of speech, a campaign promise that attracted many independents and political fence-sitters who’ve grown tired of the oppressive censorship regime. This article will look at how well that promise is being kept, the state of the battle for free speech in the West, and the primary weapon in the censors toolkit, the European Union’s Digital Services Act.

Backstory

It’s worth providing some background context before getting into the recent actions taken by Marco Rubio’s State Department.

The Censorship Industry is a tough nut to crack, as it isn’t a single institution, but rather a network, both formal and acting through various back channels, connecting a litany of individuals and organizations—this includes CISA, CIA, USAID, NATO, the UN, the EU, the Universities, the State Department, the Global Engagement Center and various civil society institutions, among many many others.

To clarify, Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business. It basically refers to NGOs, tax-exempt foundations, think tanks and the generational wealth of certain families who still maintain some kind of grip on the levers of power.

Despite being a relatively recent development, this network has become deeply embedded in the system of systems over the last decade, making a very difficult weed to kill.

The average joe assumes that the advent of censors and fact-checks was an organic occurrence, a natural response by good-hearted academics to fight back against the surge of “Russian disinformation” and dangerous narratives being spread online. The truth is that it was all cooked up in the nexus where big-government, the private sector and “civil society” meet, and there was nothing good hearted about it.

Image courtesy of @mikebenzcyber on X

The interplay between these sectors is not a simple thing to understand, and the nature of their collaboration goes far beyond censorship into things like war propaganda, regime change operations, public narrative seeding, social engineering, the list goes on and on.

Unpacking the entirety of this massive entanglement is far beyond the scope of this article and not something that could be confined to a single SubStack, so we’ll operate using generalities rather than specifics when it comes to the myriad of institutions involved in this complex.

As I mentioned earlier, this is not a partisan issue. Here we have an article from politically independent reporters Lee Fang and Ken Klippenstein (who some would even peg as left-leaning) exposing DHS leaks obtained by the Intercept in 2022 that showed how the department planned to police the flow of information on the internet. The article is a decent primer on how the policing of information affected the the 2020 election and 2022 midterm elections.

Again, even if you were pleased with the outcome of those elections, it behooves you to see the devil lurking in the details, and in this instance the “devil” is your old friend, the permanent Washington bureaucracy. The same bureaucracy that has long ensured the preservation of the conditions which are making your life miserable, regardless of how you identify politically.

Current State of the Censorship War

So, how is the current administrations effort to “restore free speech” going so far?

It depends where you’re looking.

The Good

Last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Darren Beattie terminated over 100 contractors associated with the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/Fimi) hub, which served as a web of private and governmental operatives tasked with policing speech in a way that served the deep political establishment.

You might be asking yourself, “what in the Sam Hill is R/Fimi?” And if so, you’re not alone, but despite the ridiculous acronym change, it’s actually the continuation of something we all know too well; the Global Engagement Center (GEC).

Just some quick background, the GEC has been summarized as a "de facto U.S. government propaganda operation". It was utilized by the UK’s spook infested Institute for Statecraft to pump out anti-Russian, pro-war propaganda, and eventually changed its mission statement from "focus on countering terrorist and extremist groups" to "counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts", as part of an effort to control the narrative and bolster calls for a "Cold War 2.0," which would include censoring information countering “unprovoked Russian invasion” narrative.

Author’s Note - We briefly touched on the Institute of Statecraft and its now-disgraced Integrity Initiative in my last piece “Rattling a Broken Sabre.” It is covered in greater detail by the Grayzone HERE.

Back in November, just after the election, there was a continuing resolution for the government budget that was the source of great debate and contention. Among other things, this CR attempted to reauthorize the censorship capacity at GEC.

It became a huge scandal, and Elon Musk was so heated over it that he threatened to primary (fund the opponents of) any Republican who voted for the CR. The effort was successful, they killed the entire budget to keep the GEC from being funded, and so, without reauthorization it would die that very day.

However, as one of its final acts, the Biden Administration created R/fimi (Foreign Influence Malign Influence) and couched it at the State Department, keeping the same staff and continuing the function of the GEC.

This sly continuation of the GEC under R/fimi is what Darren Beattie and Marco Rubio just thwarted.

Rubio recently sat down with former State Department cybersecurity official and free-speech champion Mike Benz to talk about this shake-up at SecState.

Personally, I tend to try to keep my mind and soul as nonpartisan as possible, but on this issue I agree with Rubio’s assessment and actions— believe me, cheering Marco Rubio is not something I had written on my 2025 bingo card.

This comes on the heels of an op-ed in the Federalist written by Rubio where he notes that the government's censorship efforts were specifically designed to bankrupt and destroy outlets that countered government narratives.

What is perhaps the most dastardly aspect to this whole scheme was the fact that it was paid for with the tax dollars of the very same individuals it was created to silence.

Another big win came last week, when Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified the Biden administration’s Strategic Implementation Plan for Countering Domestic Terrorism.

You can download that report HERE.

While these are certainly very encouraging developments there are other areas where the administration is falling short, having taken steps to suppress certain speech, particularly on college campuses.

The Bad

Here we have a tweet where the Trump DHS under Kristi “gravel pit” Noem is actively using the same language as the Biden administration to justify its censorship of American citizens.

There is no room in the United States for the rest of the world’s terrorist sympathizers, and we are under no obligation to admit them or let them stay here.

Anyone who thinks they can come to America and hide behind the First Amendment to advocate anti-Semetic violence and terrorism—think again. You are not welcome here.

As Mike Benz rightly pointed out, a federal government agency should never use the phrase “hide behind the First Amendment.”

Now, there’s obviously a lot more too this. Many of these protests are funded and coordinated by the same NGOs who work directly with NATO (Open Society Foundation and its various spin-offs) but you never see this mentioned by Conservative Inc., instead the focus is on young impressionable college students who are swept up by forces they cannot conceive of.

Without getting too far into the weeds, for those of you who think the pro-Palestine protests are completely organic and free from establishment taint, I would direct you to the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), one of several NGOs organizing these protests who are funded by George Soros Open Society Foundations, the Tides Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund—meaning these protests have CIA fingerprints all over them.

It’s not just JVP, there are many such cases, all of which are receiving funding from the various tax-exempt cut-outs utilized by the same intelligence and civil society interests behind the censorship apparatus. Their goal? I’ll give you a hint, it’s not to stop the atrocities in Palestine. It’s a domestic play, building a rent-a-riot mob for future use a-la the Gene Sharp color revolution playbook (think Arab Spring).

Note - you can learn more about Sharp and U.S. intelligence-sponsored color revolutions HERE.

Despite the skullduggery, regular students who take issue with Israel’s activities should be allowed to have a voice, even if you disagree with them. In America, you are allowed to be critical of foreign countries governments; there is not an “Israel exception” to the First Amendment.

Additionally, the administration has taken steps to punish news organizations critical of its policies. For example, it denied The Associated Press access to events for refusing to adopt the administration’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”

Regardless of the legalities or how much you may hate the AP (I too experienced significant schadenfreude when this happened) it’s trending in a certain direction. Imagine if Joe Biden removed Fox News from a press event for not acknowledging gender pronouns, conservatives would be up in arms. I only bring this up because I am increasingly seeing people on the right embracing the same behaviors they criticized the left for for the last 4 years.

So, while free speech has been overall strengthened due to the dismantling of U.S. government-based elements of the international censorship apparatus, the application of free speech protections in this administration seems rather selective.

Still, it’s much better than the alternative, and speaking of the alternative…

The Censors Final Weapon: The Digital Services Act

Having closed the book on the Biden Administration—an administration that was completely and utterly run by the globalist-friendly Washington establishment—and the Trump administrations gutting of the U.S. portion of the censorship industry, the primary hub for the censorship efforts is now centralized within the EU and NATO.

Just before the election in 2024, I wrote a piece for Badlands Media outlining the multinational attack on free speech that went over some of the various tools in the censors tool kit, which included Canada’s C-11, or “Online Streaming Act,” the UK’s Online Safety Bill (OSB), and the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA).

Currently, it would appear that the Digital Services Act is the instrument that has the most teeth, and it is where the now fired disinformation experts are putting their faith, which isn’t surprising considering that it was Europe who was really the progenitor of the censorship apparatus to begin with.

The Digital Services Act (DSA), fully in effect across the EU since February 17, 2024, regulates online platforms to enhance “user safety, transparency, and accountability.”

That’s the whitewashed, outward mission statement, what it’s really meant to do is imposes “obligations” on digital services, particularly Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) and Search Engines (VLOSEs).

This was used to apply pressure to Elon Musk after the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel.

Below is a panel of censorship industry insiders talking shop, including Rebekah Tromble, Katie Harbath (Atlantic Council & CIA cut-out IRI) & Dean Jackson (CIA cut-outs Carnegie Endowment and National Endowment for Democracy). In the video, you’ll notice that—despite their dismay towards Trump’s endeavor to bury the industry—the Digital Services Act is the vessel in which they’ve placed all of their hope.

If it weren’t for Europe right now I think that I would feel pretty defeated and despondent in this moment. It has certainly become much, much more difficult for outside researchers to do the sorts of, right, the options that you list Samir, to actually engage directly with people at the platforms because there are simply fewer of them.

Right? We spent literally years building up relationships (capacity building) with good folks at these platforms who are trying to do the right thing (strengthen establishment narratives, stifle dissent) and for the most part they’re gone, right? It’s really really difficult to know who to reach out to, who to work with.

If it weren’t for the European Union and the Digital Services Act I don’t know that we would have much hope of rectifying this situation at all...and hopefully ultimately that leads to a sort of Re Staffing of some of these positions, increased focus again as the DSA begins to come into full force.

So we have American censors here admitting that they would “feel defeated” were it not for a the little trick up their sleeve in the form of the Digital Services Act via the EU. Consider what that means for a moment. These so-called Americans are giddy for a foreign entities censorship laws to put pressure on U.S. companies, namely X, to restaff the cesnors that Musk fired. Pressure that includes billions of dollars in fines if they do not comply.

The “coming into full force” of the DSA is exactly where we are today, and it’s all happening as Trump, Beattie and Rubio are making moves to weed out the deeply entrenched censorship industry from the United States government.

So, to answer the question posed by this articles title, no, the censorship war is not over. Far from it. But we are entering what very well could be the final slugfest in the information war between populists and globalists, and despite the recent victories, it could still be anyone’s game.