The Industrial Censorship Complex: Actors and Methods of a New Inquisition

How could the new "industrial censorship complex" develop out of the military-industrial complex? What methods do opinion leaders use? What are their goals? A research on the 50 most important actors of the new industrial censorship complex and its political effects is presented.

Comparable to the military-industrial complex in Western capitalist societies, there is much to suggest that an industrial censorship complex has developed alongside it in recent decades.

In a Analysis on the news platform Zerohedge on Thursday, the authors describe how such a power structure was initially able to develop in the USA since the Second World War. In a top 50 list, they present the most important organizations that specifically influence public opinion and defame dissenting views using professional methods.

After the Second World War, a highly efficient weapons industry developed in the USA. This new sector has been able to develop enormous political power through cultural, financial and political support. In a Speech warned the then US President and former General Dwight Eisenhower as early as January 1960 before the power of the new military-industrial complex.

In the governing bodies, we must guard against the military-industrial complex gaining undue influence, be it wanted or not. ... We must never allow the weight of this combination to jeopardize our freedoms or democratic processes.

At the time, his warning was ignored by the media. Sixty years later, most of America is no longer afraid of the US arms industry hijacking democracy from within. But Eisenhower's words should be kept in mind, according to the authors of the Zerohedge article.

In 1996, as the Internet became more and more public, the US Army released the «Field Manual 100-6«. Military commanders should learn that "information sovereignty" is a crucial element for "effective operations" from now on. It must be part of a "hybrid warfare". An "open" information landscape could therefore become a military Achilles' heel. An America based on the constitutional principle of separation of powers is fundamentally ill-designed in this regard, said the chairman of the United States House Committee on Armed Services, Mac Thornberry, in one House Armed Services Committee hearing in March 2017 on the subject of «Hybrid War».

Eventually, other countries would include Russia, China and Iran are said to be using a wider range of centralist tools of power and influence to achieve their ends. Other countries would also carry out all kinds of influence operations to harm the USA:

"Whether it's supporting foreign political parties, targeting opponents, infiltrating non-uniformed personnel, infiltrating traditional media and social media, or engaging in influence operations or cyber activities, all of these tactics and more are being used to... to enforce national interests and mostly also to damage the national interests of the USA », Mac Thornberry implied.

After the election of Donald Trump as US President, the interference of "malicious foreign threat actors" had become the new gospel among the future leaders of the censorship-industrial complex. Trump's election victory should be understood as a so-called "Trump-Russia affair" and thus as a hybrid war event. As a result, a vast new public-private bureaucracy was established to deal with alleged "Wrong, dis and misinformation» to prevent. With the so-called «Trump-Russia affair», public acceptance of the creation of new government agencies with tasks related to «information warfare» were granted, paved the way.

"The 'censorship industrial complex' is nothing other than the military-industrial complex reimagined for the age of 'hybrid warfare,'" the authors describe the development.

In line with the strategy that the war industry likes to refer to as the "defense" sector, the "anti-disinformation" complex is also marketed as purely defensive: it supposedly serves to ward off hostile attacks by foreign cyber opponents.

Instead, it is a relentless, monolithic messaging system aimed primarily at the local population. Attempts are made to make it clear that political resistance at home supports the enemy's illegal hybrid attack on democracy.

So in order not to support "the enemies", people should reconsider old notions of civil rights and new surveillance techniques such as the "Toxicity Monitoring» accept, the new opinion makers justify the abolition of democratic principles. The "musty old free press" must be replaced by a "modern concept". By means of automated procedures for «Extraction of relevant messages» and algorithms are used to constantly optimize censorship procedures for a «new homogeneous politics».

The organizations of the industrial censorship complex refer to this "homogeneous policy" when they speak of the development of a "common choice of words» for information disturbances, speak of «credibility» or «media competence». So if so-called anti-disinformation groups of «Resilience» When they speak of disinformation, what they really mean is that they publish approved narratives over and over again until society finds everything else scary or repugnant.

The authors of the Zerohedge report also examined how the opinion-management organizations they observed interacted with one another: "Instead of competition, the groups we observed favor the concept of a"common interest"The most important 'stakeholders' resolve their differences of opinion privately, but present a unified front externally."

According to the authors, the organizations they put together in a "top list" are among the leaders of the industrial censorship complex in the area of ​​opinion making and control. In their analysis, they present 50 selected organizations individually. The information includes their financing, history and respective “working method”. For example, many of the groups used the so-called "hate mapping" by default to identify "wrong-thinking" people.

Overall, the analysis is about making the extent and goals of the "censorship industrial complex" understandable. For a better understanding of her extensive research, the description of an organization in the "Top 50 list" is given in a short version as an example:

The list is headed by the «Information Futures Lab» (IFL), in German «Information laboratory of the future«. This is an institute of Brown University. The IFL is the successor to First Draft (FD), one of the oldest and best-known anti-disinformation organizations. At Brown University, the institute is housed in the College of Public Health and tasked with combating "misinformation" and "outdated communication practices."

IFL/FD Director Claire Wardle has significantly shaped the distinction between "false, disinformation and incorrect information". IFL/FD is the only academic non-profit organization involved in the Trusted News Initiative. The Trusted News Initiative consists of a comprehensive consortium of established media and aims to to control the debate about the pandemic. Among Twitter executives, Claire Wardle has been appointed as a priority member of a panel of advisors fighting misinformation. A co-founder of the IFL, Stefanie Friedhoff, is a member of the White House COVID-19 Response Team.

First Draft was funded by many institutions, including Craig Newmark, Rockefeller, the National Science Foundation, Facebook, the Ford Foundation, Google, the Knight Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, the Open Society Foundations, and others. The IFL is funded in part by the Rockefeller Foundation for a campaign to increase vaccine demand. As a pioneer in the field of disinformation studies, the IFL serves as a key advisor to consortia in the media, technology and public health fields.

(via RT)