Journalist Glenn Greenwald scorches unholy alliance of government Democrats, corporate media and Big Tech
Greenwald warned about the 'regime of censorship being imposed on the internet' in a Twitter thread
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Journalist Glenn Greenwald condemned the government, media and Big Tech for coordinating to censor dissent in a long Twitter thread on Tuesday.
Greenwald explained that the game has changed entirely when it comes to Big Tech censorship, because now the government can launder its censorship through institutions, working around the First Amendment, with some in journalism providing an assist.
"The regime of censorship being imposed on the internet – by a consortium of DC Dems, billionaire-funded ‘disinformation experts,’ the US Security State, and liberal employees of media corporations – is dangerously intensifying in ways I believe are not adequately understood," he began.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"A series of ‘crises’ have been cynically and aggressively exploited to inexorably restrict the range of permitted views, and expand pretexts for online silencing and deplatforming. Trump's election, Russiagate, 1/6, COVID and war in Ukraine all fostered new methods of repression," he continued.
Substack journalist and the Intercept co-founder Glenn Greenwald. (AP)
"Dems routinely abuse their majoritarian power in DC to explicitly coerce Big Tech silencing of their opponents and dissent. This is *Govt censorship* disguised as corporate autonomy," he warned.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Greenwald had a special condemnation for journalists and other experts funded by powerful billionaires who have made careers out of targeting dissenters.
"There's now an entire new industry, aligned with Dems, to pressure Big Tech to censor. Think tanks and self-proclaimed ‘disinformation experts’ funded by Omidyar, Soros and the US/UK Security State use benign-sounding names to glorify ideological censorship as neutral expertise," he explained.
"The worst, most vile arm of this regime are the censorship-mad liberal employees of big media corporations ([Ben Collins], @BrandyZadrozny, @TaylorLorenz, NYT tech unit). Masquerading as ‘journalists,’ they align with the scummiest Dem groups (@mmfa) to silence and deplatform," he continued.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}As "fascism" has become a popular insult thrown around by Democrats and their compatriots in the media to discredit political opposition, Greenwald used its actual technical definition to call them out for trying "to *unite state and corporate power* to censor their critics and degrade the internet into an increasingly repressive weapon of information control."
He warned that rather than Big Tech being the unique source of censorship, they are often complying under threat of political punishment, saying, "A major myth that must be quickly dismantled: political censorship is not the by-product of autonomous choices of Big Tech companies. This is happening because DC Dems and the US Security State are threatening reprisals if they refuse. They're explicit."
He again criticized journalists for acting more like activists, "But the worst is watching people whose job title in corporate HR Departments is 'journalist' take the lead in agitating for censorship. They exploit the platforms of corporate giants to pioneer increasingly dangerous means of banning dissenters. *These* are the authoritarians."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Big Tech censorship has become one of the major household issues that has emerged in American politics, especially when it comes to suppression of stories that could swing elections. (Muhammed Selim Korkutata/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Greenwald called out the numerous forms of "censorship repression" that have taken place in the Western world across a wide spectrum of political issues, such as "Trudeau freezing bank accounts of [trucker]-protesters; Paypal partnering with ADL to ban dissidents from the financial system; Big Tech platforms openly colluding in unison to de-person people from the internet."
He explained this is the mindset of "would-be tyrants" who claim that their "enemies are so dangerous, their views so threatening, that everything we do – lying, repression, censorship – is noble."
The journalist recalled the scandal over the Hunter Biden laptop as a "uniquely alarming" example of multiple institutions allying to crush a story that would have hurt Democrats' chances in the ballot box.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"The media didn't just ‘bury’ the archive. CIA concocted a lie about it (it's ‘Russian disinformation’); media outlets spread that lie; Big Tech censured it -- because lying and repression to them is justified!" he wrote.
"The authoritarian mentality that led CIA, corporate media and Big Tech to lie about the Biden archive before the election is the same driving this new censorship craze. It's the hallmark of all tyranny: 'our enemies are so evil and dangerous, anything is justified to stop them,'" he tweeted.
The New York Times and The Washington Post both verified Hunter Biden's laptop after Big Tech dismissed the New York Post's bombshell reporting during the 2020 presidential election. (Getty images | New York Post)
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Greenwald warned, "It's not melodrama or hyperbole to say: what we have is a war in the West, a war over whether the internet will be free, over whether dissent will be allowed, over whether we will live in the closed propaganda system our elites claim The Bad Countries™ impose. It's no different.
He said the media that are "screaming most loudly" against "disinformation" and "fascism" are the ones that "spread it most frequently, casually and destructively," and are the most repressive.
"The worst of all - the most repugnant and despicable - are those calling themselves ‘journalists’ while doing the opposite of what that term implies: they serve rather than challenge power, they deceive rather than inform, they demand censorship rather than free and open inquiry," he wrote.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}He concluded, "Heap scorn on the corporate outlets and their deceitful, pro-censorship employees abusing the ‘journalist’ label. Read them with full skepticism, or just ignore them. Support outlets and platforms that want to protect free inquiry and the right of dissent, not rob you of it."
NBC News' Ben Collins on The ReidOut (Screenshot/MSNBC)
NBC News reporter Ben Collins, who had been called out directly by Greenwald, appeared to mock the thread and suggested he would "lean in" to the idea of being part of the "globalist censorship" cabal.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Crazy Substack Man is saying I somehow run the globalist censorship cabal again and you know what? It’s time to lean into it. I’m all powerful," Collins tweeted. "Let me know if you guys want a money tree, they’re shockingly apartment-friendly, can FedEx it to you in like 48 hours."