May 12: Navigating the “censorship complex”

In which, the military industrial complex gets some company, Turkey and Thailand stare down elections, and the 2023 media landscape looks very different from 2022.

Navigating the “censorship complex” in…

Noted, and controversial, independent journalist Matt Taibi published an essay this week outlining what he has come to call the “censorship complex”:

The “Censorship-Industrial Complex” is just the Military-Industrial Complex reborn for the “hybrid warfare” age.

Much like the war industry, pleased to call itself the “defense” sector, the “anti-disinformation” complex markets itself as merely defensive, designed to fend off the hostile attacks of foreign cyber-adversaries who unlike us have “military limitations.” The CIC, however, is neither wholly about defense, nor even mostly focused on foreign “disinformation.” It’s become instead a relentless, unified messaging system aimed primarily at domestic populations, who are told that political discord at home aids the enemy’s undeclared hybrid assault on democracy.

I genuinely try to keep this newsletter focused on the news itself, though I have discussed elements of how the news is reported at different points. This week was a little different, however, because Taibi’s phrase was a good reminder to pay attention to the information environment - the who, what, when, where, and why of the presentation of information, not just the information itself.

How this week was being covered in those establishment and independent media outlets I talked about a couple weeks ago was very, very different, indicating Taibi’s analysis of a “censorship complex” wasn’t far off.

The Biden administration

What do you think would/should be a bigger story? 

Story A: A President who has claimed for years that he and his family are clean of any dirty money from foreign entities to have that claim exposed as not just a lie, but a lie covering a network of illicit money transactions?

Story B: A first time member of Congress being indicted on charges of wire fraud and lying on a federal form, and additional related charges?

In both cases, public officials are caught in both immoral and allegedly criminal activity. However, I think we would all agree that the scale of Story A would make it the bigger story.

That’s not what you saw in the establishment media this week. A House investigation released a 30-page memo detailing what appears to be a web of influence peddling involving millions of dollars paid out to members of the Biden family going back to the President's years as VP. But there was nary a mention of it outside conservative media outlets. 

Instead, major media outlets focused on Story B and the indictment of Republican Representative George Santos.

Of course, we could just chalk this all up to editorial preferences and personality politics, but even in matters of public interest and security we see similarly strange/selective editing.

Gun violence

Not too long ago, we had a tragic school shooting in Nashville perpetuated by a transgendered man. I noted at the time that the identity and motivations of the shooter were quietly being passed over by both the media and Democratic policymakers clamoring for gun control.

That suddenly changed after a mass shooting in Texas this week left eight dead. The shooter was identified as a Hispanic man, but quickly identified as “white supremacist”, and Axios picked up the line to suggest that Russian disinformation sites may be influencing such extremism. 

A month after the Nashville shooting we have no report on the shooter’s motivations despite the fact there was a manifesto left behind that the policy promised to release before refusing to do so. In Texas, though, in less than a week, we have a Hispanic shooter whose motivations are quickly tied to white supremacy and Russian disinformation in less than a week, with the President loudly calling for gun control with the whole “thoughts and prayers are not enough” line. 

And now, this just in, it’s apparently a misinformation red flag for me to suggest that these glaring double standards are “not coincidences”. So, I won’t say that. I’ll say that I have to agree Mr. Taibi and argue that these are two case studies of a “censorship complex” at work.