One must admit that the most disturbing and egregious censorship occurring is the persecution and imprisonment of the journalist/publisher, Julian Assange. The man languishes in a UK maximum security prison for revealing to the world the dark machinations and war crimes of the US and other first world countries. When we discuss freedom of the press and speech, the subject of Assange should be on the lips of every journalist and publisher across the planet. Yet, the MSM generally ignores this injustice and prefers to side with the wealthy establishment and their fellow media cronies.
Particularly in the 21st century, adversarial journalism has all but disappeared, replaced by scribes forwarding the messages of corporations and the military Industrial Complex. Unfortunately, when social media once acted as a true “public square” for many voices, now they act as censors for any voice that challenges the dominant narrative. This is anti-democratic in the fullest sense of this term.
Logging on Twitter the other day, I was surprised to see thegrayzone.com story, labeled as possibly hacked material, revealing mainstream media outlets, specifically the BBC, Reuters, and the infamous Bellingcat publication, by way of “leaked documents,” covertly participating with the UK Foreign Office, funding programs to “weaken Russia.” In other words, paid-propaganda to enhance hate for the country in order to possibly debilitate relations and justify a future war.
From 2016-2020, the US MSM pushed evidence-free propaganda concerning Russia and the Donald Trump campaign “colluding” to win the presidential election. The New York Times also played a significant role in this misinformation onslaught until the Mueller report surfaced, showing zero evidence for this conspiracy. None of this conspiracy misinformation has been retracted. Yet The Grayzone's above-said story was labeled by Twitter as: “These materials may have been obtained through Hacking.” This is the first step to outright censorship of The Grayzone by the social media giant Twitter.
Interestingly but certainly not surprising this “hacking label” backfired, releasing thousands of memes about the matter. And as human nature dictates, labeling the article as possibly sourced by hacking only created further curiosity about its content, giving an incredible rise in the articles viewership.
Since the Biden Administration came into power, censorship, smearing, and demonetizing certain left-wing publications and YouTube channels rose. These news outlets and podcasts have not violated the rules and regulations of these social media platforms. They've indeed challenged many of the mainstream narratives in the areas of Geo-politics, politics, and economic content. Most of the YouTube channels that were demonetized were not given any reason for the move. The Grayzone story was also covered by The Intercept (a faux progressive publication), yet they were overlooked for the hacking label.
The Grayzone is a true adversarial journal, challenging the US and other countries regime-change operations. Unfortunately, it is one of the few true journals that give its readers other perspectives on political issues around the planet. Considering the unhinged misinformation vomited by the MSM over the last 4 years at least, The Grayzone is one of the only publications that seek the truth, informing its readers about world events.
Social media, especially Twitter has been a source of news and information for me for some years. So it's disappointing to see blatant censorship of news and information outlets that merely at times run counter to mainstream perspectives.
Note: the action of hacking into classified information by way of the computer is a complex exercise. It's also terribly hard to prove. Twitter claiming The Grayzone article may have been obtained through hacking is a guess at best. More than likely, these documents were obtained from a whistleblower and simply handed over. And by the way, these actions are the meat and potatoes of investigative journalism.
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