Dismantle the Censorship Industrial Complex Before it Dismantles Our Republic
My opening remarks before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution on the Censorship-Industrial Complex
Yesterday I had the honor of testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution.
The subject of the hearing was the “Censorship Industrial Complex.”
Last time I testified before Congress on this issue was in June of 2024. That very day — in fact in the middle of the House Small Business Committee hearing — the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the landmark free speech case Murthy v. Missouri. In a major dereliction of duty in my view, the Court punted on the merits of the case, opening Americans up to potentially all manner of mischief going forward.
Last night, following the hearing, there was a happier development. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, one of the plaintiffs in Murthy — a case brought by then-Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt — was confirmed as Director of the National Institutes of Health.
Nevertheless, as I noted in my testimony, the speech police persist; they refuse to disarm; and their victims by and large have received little justice.
That must change.
You can watch my opening remarks embedded in my tweet below — or read them, as prepared — below that, catch the full hearing here, and read my full written testimony here.
Chairman Schmitt, Ranking Member Welch, and members of the Subcommitee, thank you for the opportunity to testify.
Free speech is the bedrock of a free society.
Over the last decade, as litigation, congressional oversight, and reportage have exposed, the Censorship-Industrial Complex has eroded that bedrock.
A president, members of the Judiciary Committee, witnesses at this very table, and countless fellow Americans have had their core political speech secretly surveilled and targeted for suppression.
Millions lost the ability to speak about or hear news and views on critical policy matters, from election integrity to COVID-19.
Media and technology companies have come under withering attack.
Why?
Purportedly because a pandemic of “mis-, dis-, and mal-information” threatened national security, public health, and democracy itself, requiring our betters to intervene to save us from ourselves.
A cynic might surmise that as Americans rebelled against a Ruling Class they saw as failing them, the rulers chose not to be responsive to their critics, but rather to silence them – purging unauthorized opinions and inconvenient facts, lest they lose their grip on power.
It’s no accident that the Censorship-Industrial Complex emerged after President Trump’s first election, nor that its primary targets have been anti-establishment voices, sources, and the platforms circulating their speech.
The most disturbing aspect of the censorship regime is that the federal government was its primary funder and driver – with the Biden administration enacting 57 censorship initiatives across 90 federal agencies at cost of several hundred million dollars.
The second most disturbing aspect of the censorship regime is that the feds fostered the growth of a network of non-governmental accomplices, using them as cutouts to launder censorship in a conspiracy to skirt the First Amendment.
Overwhelming evidence indicates the feds have deputized academic institutions, think-tanks, NGOs, “fact-checkers,” risk-raters, and for-profits as plainclothes speech police.
This “vast censorship enterprise” is vertically integrated.
Its business is controlling content and the flow of information via exerting influence over traditional and social media. Government sits in the “C-Suite.” Non-governmental operators do much of the dirty work.
“Disinfo labs” lavished with tens of millions of tax dollars emerging at universities nationwide produce the research, make the political and technological recommendations, and develop the tools to censor at scale.
Powerful think-tanks helmed by former national security leaders, and likewise funded with major federal dollars, augment the academics’ efforts.
NGOs launch pressure campaigns to crush Wrongthinkers.
Federally-funded “fact-checkers” work with social media companies to algorithmically suppress disfavored media.
“Risk-raters,” operating with the government’s imprimatur, create blacklists of such outlets to starve them of ad revenue.
For-profits too, often fueled by our tax dollars develop analytics to support industrial-scale censorship.
These entities have worked in overlapping and mutually reinforcing ways to control the American Mind.
In recent years:
Consortia like the Election Integrity Partnership, comprised of academic institutions like Stanford and think-tanks like the Atlantic Council – often with pervasive government ties and government coordination – pressured social media companies to suppress categories of disfavored content; surveilled hundreds of millions of social media posts for alleged violations of their content moderation terms; and flagged offending items to the platforms that they often suppressed at significant rates – disproportionately silencing conservatives and anti-establishment voices.
Schools like the University of Michigan and non-profits like Meedan have researched and developed AI censorship tools to suppress Wrongthink at scale. The National Science Foundation fueled such programs with tens of millions of dollars.
“Risk-raters” like NewsGuard and GDI, recipients of government largesse, have reportedly hobbled disfavored media companies – generally on the right – causing them to lose partners, traffic, and revenue.
Federally funded NGOs are collaborating with foreign regulators, including under the European Union’s Digital Services Act, to impose alien speech codes on American social media platforms and potentially their American users, under threat of devastating fines.
The Trump administration has taken immediate steps to get the government out of the censorship business.
Some key censors have dissolved, restructured, or retrenched – which speaks volumes.
But overall, the speech police have neither dropped their arms nor recanted.
Their casualties have received no restitution.
The motives and means to control the digital public square – to monopolize narrative to monopolize power – remain.
In May 2023, I came before a House Committee with a message: Taxpayer dollars should not be used to silence ourselves.
Last June, I came before another House Committee with a corollary: Nor should taxpayer dollars fund those who would silence others by destroying their businesses.
Today I come before this Senate committee with a final plea: Dismantle the Censorship-Industrial Complex now, or it will dismantle our republic later.
Expose the regime to drive merited legal and regulatory action.
Defund it.
Starve it of support direct and indirect.
Deter those who would violate needed laws with crippling penalties.
Prohibit proxies from receiving any government-granted privilege or benefit.
Erect a strict firewall between the U.S. government and our body politic.
If we allow euphemistic “whole-of-society” schemes like the Censorship-Industrial Complex to persist – whereby state and civil society fuse to legitimize weaponization against Wrongthinkers – we will be on the road to a social credit system with American characteristics.
We owe our forebears and our children nothing less than to do everything in our power to prevent such a dismal and disastrous fate.
Thank you.