‘Department Of Homeland Censorship’: How DHS Seized Power Over Online Speech

Foundation for Freedom Online ^

[Pollard]

Over the next several months, FFO will be releasing a series of revelations about domestic censorship operations being run out of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). We have spent the past 16 weeks mapping virtually every element of DHS partnerships and operations connected to Internet censorship, and our findings tally to a government scandal so bizarre, and so disturbing, that its full story can only be told through an ongoing series.

As a preview, in the clip below (source), you can watch a taxpayer-funded DHS video, instructing children to report their own family members to Facebook for “disinformation” if they challenge US government narratives on Covid-19:

Below, you can sit stage-side at a taxpayer-funded DHS “disinformation” event, featuring a DHS keynote speaker in charge of a formal DHS “disinformation” partnership. The speaker will explain how, for months ahead of the 2020 US Presidential election, her academia-NGO group worked closely with DHS to squash social media narratives that were in the process of “going viral” to stop them from influencing “mainstream” opinions about the election.

As this speaker describes, her group reported 639 social media posts directly to DHS’s “cyber mission control”, giving them privileged access to social media censorship teams via a special relationship with senior DHS officials. 72% of those 639 posts were reported to DHS, and then on to Big Tech censors, because targeted citizens were “casting doubt on the integrity of the election outcome”, via criticism of things like the viability of drop boxes and mail-in ballots.

DHS coordinated censorship at both ends, connecting the social media monitors who reported posts to the social media platforms who banned those posts. The US government, in effect, censored the ability to “cast doubt” on the US government.

[DownInFlames]

It’s only taken DHS 11 years since it’s inception after 9/11 for the federal government to become one of tyranny.

[HighSierra5]

Department of How to Silence.

[Leep]

Must give George and Dick the warm and fuzziest.

[Wallace T.]

Legacy tech firms are captives of and partners with the Deep State. However, more people are bypassing Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc., for new tech sites like Rumble, Brave, Truth Social, etc. Like the abandonment of the MSM 10-15 years ago, the big platforms are slowly losing their dominance.

[Pollard]

Part 2 here - https://foundationforfreedomonline.com/dhs-encouraged-children-to-report-family-to-facebook-for-challenging-us-government-covid-claims/

Both are long reads as the whole thing is a deep dive investigative series but it's about the DHS censoring it's own citizens on elections, COVID, criticism of the government etc so it's kinda important.

Here's the money shot/phrase

So again, just like the examples in Part 1, DHS is implementing a US government policy to ban online speech that challenges a US government policy.

When North Korea engages in this practice, the US State Department calls for sanctions. In 2017, the US Treasury Department actually did impose sanctions on North Korea for “censorship activities” that blocked criticism of the government:

Once upon a time, this would make a good episode of 60 Minutes

[Openurmind]

Well worth going and reading the whole thing. Great find Pollard. I am going to preserve it in whole in case it disappears.

[Pollard]

Problem is, a lot of people get their little bit of news from the 6pm news which parrots the cable versions but in a little milder way. I’ve got a neighbor who gets his news at 6pm from ABC St Louis. They made Trump out to be a tweeting frenzied lunatic. When covid hit, they pumped up the fear and then when the jabs came out, it turned into 20 out of 30 minutes being a jab infomercial.

People watch the 6pm news mostly for the weather but also to see what’s going on locally and learn any major national/international goings on. They have no clue how things are spun and if you try and tell them that they’ve been getting fed a bs narrative for many years, they can’t accept it.

Easier to fool people than to convince them they’ve been fooled.

[ronnie raygun]

DHS would never be in existence, the people would never have agreed to it if it weren’t for 911, makes you think doesn’t it. Another solution to a crisis generated by the criminals

[Pollard]

Great find Pollard

Still being on twitter but following the right people has it's perks. I don't really follow anyone on twitter who's on truth but many aren't on truth or gab or anywhere else. Many have been burned by trying to make the swap to an alternative. A lot of people made the move to Parler and then their data got stolen, twice, and then Parler went down and took forever to come back. Now they're gun shy abut alt platforms. Many people are not going to leave twitter for that reason plus the audience is huge compared to anywhere else. (and they have a working Android app)

[DarthVader]

Canceled!

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/aug/24/alejandro-mayorkas-officially-cancels-dhs-disinfor/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork&fbclid=IwAR0vQu1bblzYSRld0d4wEB1BZhygd4Ch3QRRqsAjt3BnRXROs23nRD2otMw

[lowbridge]

“As this speaker describes, her group reported 639 social media posts directly to DHS’s “cyber mission control”, giving them privileged access to social media censorship teams via a special relationship with senior DHS officials. 72% of those 639 posts were reported to DHS, and then on to Big Tech censors, because targeted citizens were “casting doubt on the integrity of the election outcome”, via criticism of things like the viability of drop boxes and mail-in ballots.

DHS coordinated censorship at both ends, connecting the social media monitors who reported posts to the social media platforms who banned those posts. The US government, in effect, censored the ability to “cast doubt” on the US government.”

Does this mean the social media sites can be sued for violating the first amendment?

[GingisK]

If I were younger I would leave the United States.

[Wallace T.]

Thirty years ago, conservatives lamented the dominance of the three alphabet networks, the big news magazines,the New York Times, the Washington Post, etc. They have been eclipsed by cable news and talk radio, which were in turn eclipsed by what are now legacy tech firms like Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc. The legacy tech firms are weakening, as evidenced by Elon Musk’s exposure of Twitter’s overvaluation with false bot accounts. Independent entities will sweep Twitter into the same irrelevant status, unless Elon Musk can eventually acquire it and clean it up.

[Pollard]

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/aug/24/alejandro-mayorkas-officially-cancels-dhs-disinfor/

?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork&fbclid=IwAR0vQu1bblzYSRld0d4wEB1BZhygd4Ch3QRRqsAjt3BnRXROs23nRD2otMw

The question mark and everything after can safely be removed from those ugly links and in this case, removing it will prevent facebook from getting credit for the link share.

Pretty sure this is separate from the disinfo board. The disonfo board was something new but the article talks about stuff that went on back in 2020.

These two articles have no date, unless you right click and, View Page Source to see the html output before the browser renders the html. When you do that, you see the dates automatically created by the Yoast SEO plugin for the WordPress software they use. (see green text)

Part 2 was published today. 2022-08-29

If you choose to read the article(s), a little less than half way down the page on Part 1, you see this:

But for purpose of this primer, we begin as background by highlighting that DHS’s “cybersecurity” mandate turned into a “cybercensorship” mandate, with virtually no one in the public being made aware.

How did that happen? At one level, it happened through sheer definitional sleight of hand: in 2017, “cybersecurity” was redefined, effectively, to mean “cyber defense of democracy”; in 2018, “disinformation” was defined, effectively, as a “threat to democracy”; and so by 2019, DHS could cite “cybersecurity” as encompassing “cyber defense against digital disinformation”, requiring varying techniques of digital censorship to stop the digital disinformation.

That’s basically how DHS acquired long-arm jurisdiction over anything alleged to be false on the Internet.

How has DHS gotten away with it? How did people let this happen?

The short answer is that in late 2019, DHS pulled off what we one may call its “foreign-to-domestic ‘disinformation’ switcheroo”.

In the video below, you will see key figures in DHS’s thought leadership, first declaring their dominion to be only “foreign disinformation” in 2016-2017, then a massive power grab to all of “domestic disinformation” in 2019-2020:

This all happened right underneath Trump's nose because all these fedgov agencies are ROGUE having been "fundamentally transformed" by the Obama admin and it may have even started before that. Bush W and co did come up with the Patriot Act which created DHS plus a few other new agencies.(and in record time)

I think the whole disinfo board was a head fake. "We're going to censor you." People pitch a fit. "Ok, you win, we won't censor you." Now everyone's relieved that fedgov isn't going to censor people.

Meanwhile they've already been doing it for years.

[Paperpusher]

The good little commies will read this and report you as a DVE. I never thought the day would come in the US where commies report to our government about what fellow citizens are doing instead of the other way around.

[I want the USA back]

The heads of the social media are mostly committed leftists, and were very eager to use their resources to help the government identify dissenters and to silence them.

The government didn’t need to pay the heads a visit, but did anyway. Now the social media are de facto arms of the government, recording what we post, what we send in a “private” message, who we associate with and other information that a fascistic repressive regime can use to locate anyone who doesn’t bow down and profess adoration for the official party line.

George Orwell would be surprised that the regime has progressed so far into totalitarianism.

[Mr.Unique]

DHS has been around for almost 20 years.

But, yeah.

[Pollard]

It’s infuriating and scary. The Left, whether they be socialists, communists or what it seems to be headed for, Fasicm, control pretty much every institution. That happened because they gained control of higher edu and some primary edu decades ago.

Most all these leftists went to a university and more importantly, with the goal of getting into government or EDU or business leadership. Places of power.

MSM, EDU, City gov, Fedgov, entertainment, every Euro country and most global corporations or at least the leadership/CEO etc.

2 million in fedgov and it’s agencies and 95% or more are hard core Leftists.

Many times I think we’re past the point of no return.

[Openurmind]

It is the unfortunate reality of it. I quit Twitter quite a few years ago. Then went back to see if anything had gotten better after the Musk take over attempt.

Same old same old so I quit going again. But I do recognize that was indeed a handy tool sometimes just because of the shear number and assortment of sources.

Where else can you hit Taco bell customer service directly and actually get them to pay attention. Or a representative directly without going through the months long formal access that they never pay any attention to anyhow.

The “public embarrassment” factor there is priceless, it causes others to start asking the same questions in mass and forces an immediate response. It is what it is, and sometimes a useful tool not available anywhere else.

Unfortunately they know this and take advantage of it in negative ways.