262 Comments

How soon before DOJ, FBI, and CIA move on Substack? This company is one of the last bastions of freedom of speech.

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See, when we do it, then that makes it okay!

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Appears all the former Twitter employees have found jobs at TikTok.

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When *they* do it it's called Censorship.

When *we* do it it's called Content Moderation.

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It should be scandalous enough that social media executives have come to view their role as being loyal and compliant conduits for the national security state.

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The reaction to the Twitter Files scandal, total indifference, is very telling. I guess you would say there is tacit approval for censorship. That won't be lost on the security state. This is only getting worse.

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We should all support Glenn in shining light on this astonishing gov't action and clear censorship of US citizens' protected political opinions.

We should simultaneously all consider exactly what protocols we personally should be following based on our own comfort with US Federal intrusion on our substack content. Is your personal email used for your substack account and are you OK with US Federal access to that info, which is nearly certain if they want it? Just be thoughtful about all that, people.

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This level of censorship is starting to scare the shit out of me. Aside from Glenn and a handful of others (who are now labeled as "extreme" and "fringe" by conservative commentators who I used to respect), who is going to blow the whistle on this? More importantly, perhaps, who in our leadership is going to care enough to do something about it?

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Remember when we used to laugh at the Chinese because the government hid parts of the internet from them and therefore they didn't really have free speech?

Good times.

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The U.S. has become China. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

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The more I read into this story surrounding the Twitter files, the more I start to feel that independent platforms like Substack are vital, not only so you can speak your mind but also to build trust. How can you trust any information that comes from institutions that are this compromised by other interests? Even if I don't agree with [insert journalist on Substack here], I still read what they have to say, because I trust their professional judgement and ethics, and their dedication to the truth. That is something that mainstream news outlets /should/ be providing, then people's distrust, even when they report the truth, wouldn't be this high..

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The real tragedy in all of this is that the US national security bureaucrats probably have convinced themselves that they are doing the Lord’s work. On the contrary, they are rejecting the one unique advantage of the western tradition since at least the Enlightenment—the free market of ideas. In embracing the false Platonic notion of the primacy of consciousness (the mind creates reality) they have ordained themselves as philosopher kings who alone have managed to escape the cave of shadows and are solely qualified to impart their understanding of truth upon the ignorant masses. They are the medieval Priesthood who will be snared in their own conceit and drag western values to ruin if they are not stopped.

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Let’s be clear...

If the CIA is implicated in the JFK...

...then Americans have been living under the Ruling Intelligence State

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Try and post something that runs counter to the war narrative on CBC.

BOOM

Gone.

I am often in pre-moderation there, that means my posts on articles must be approved by some nameless, faceless, and usually utterly mindless censor.

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How long will Substack, Rumble and Local remain available? Arguably 50% of the population cares not a lick about censorship as long as they aren't presented with uncomfortable opinions and information. And that's just in the political realm. Once existential issues such as pandemics arise the pro-censorship numbers run much higher. And the state intelligence apparatus not only is aware of this but has been exposed to have utilized this fear with the recent Twitter analysis regarding Covid coverage.

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I like how Vox can manage to trip over their own ideological shoelaces, even in a single paragraph in which they seem to agree with you. Neutrality is a "brand of capitalism" now? Like jingoism favoring one Baltic territory over its equally-mysterious-to-us neighbor isn't a brand? If anyone is interested in going down a deep historical rabbit hole, may I suggest a podcast called MartyrMade. This is no joke. The guy makes Dan Carlin style encyclopedic history lessons, with the same dramatic flair. He did an episode on Ukraine back in March, and a couple of follow-up interviews, that give a panoramic view on the evolution of the geopolitical landscape in eastern Europe over the past century. Just because many people the American left hates are against this war, doesn't mean it's a good idea. Knowing the long backstory reveals that we've been poking the bear for a long, long time. It's good to know why.

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