If you do nothing else, you must watch this interview with “Foundation For Freedom Online” director Mike Benz. Take it from someone who has been on the front lines of the war on free speech – as far back as the Danish cartoons in 2005 – this interview is seismic. I am shook by it. But it all makes sense. The colossal chaos is not chaotic at all – but by very deliberate design.
RCP excerpt: Benz speaks about how the Western defense and foreign policy establishment created, used, and then turned against the concept of free speech on the internet, during an interview with Tucker Carlson.
The Western defense and foreign policy establishment created, used, and then turned against the concept of free speech on the internet, during an interview with Tucker Carlson.
ADVERTISEMENT“Free speech on the internet was an instrument of statecraft almost from the privatization of the internet in 1991… Free speech was championed more than anybody by the Pentagon, the State Department, and the CIA cutout-NGO blob architecture as a way to support dissident groups around the world overthrow ‘authoritarian governments,’ as they were billed.”
“Essentially, internet free speech allowed insta-regime-change operations to be able to facilitate the foreign policy establishment’s State Department agenda,” Benz said. “Google is a great example of this, Google began as a DARPA grant by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were Stanford PhDs, and they got their funding as part of a joint CIA/NSA program to chart how ‘birds of a feather flock together’ online through search engine aggregation. And then one year later, they launched Google and became a military contractor quickly thereafter.”
“All of the internet free speech technology was initially created by our national security state. VPNs to hide your IP address, TOR and the dark web to be able to buy and sell goods anonymously, and encrypted chats. All these things were created as DARPA projects or joint CIA/NSA projects to be able to help intelligence-backed groups to overthrow governments that were causing problems to the Clinton administration, Bush administration, and Obama administration.”
“This plan worked magically from about 1991 to about 2014 when there began to be an about-face on internet freedom and its utility.”
“The highwater mark of the internet free speech movement was the Arab Spring in 2011-2012, when you had one by one all of the adversary governments of the Obama administration — Egypt, Tunisia — all began to be toppled in Facebook revolutions, Twitter revolutions. You had the State Department working very closely with the social media companies to be able to keep social media online during the periods.”
ADVERTISEMENT“In 2014, after the coup in Ukraine, there was an unexpected countercoup where Crimea and the Donbas broke away with essentially a military backstop that NATO was highly unprepared for at the time,” he said. “They had one last hail-mary chance that was the Crimea annexation vote in 2014, and when the hearts and minds of the people of Crimea voted to join the Russian Federation, that was the last straw for the concept of free speech on the internet in the eyes of NATO. They saw the fundamental nature of war change at that moment.”
“NATO, at that point, declared something called the Gerasimov Doctrine… that the fundamental nature of war has changed, you don’t need to win military skirmishes to take over Central and Eastern Europe, all you need to do is control the media and social media ecosystem because that is what controls elections. And if you get the right administration into power, they control the military. So it is infinitely cheaper than a military war to simply conduct an organized political influence operation over social media and legacy media,” he continued.
“An industry had been created spanning the Pentagon, the British MOD, and Brussels into an organized political warfare outfit infrastructure created initially in Germany and Central and Eastern Europe to create ‘psychological buffer zones,'” he said. “To create the ability to have the military work with social media companies to censor Russian propaganda or to censor domestic right-wing populist groups in Europe who were rising in political power at the time because of the migrant crisis.”
“When Brexit happened in 2016, it was this crisis moment where suddenly they didn’t just have to worry about Central and Eastern Europe anymore, it was coming West — this idea of Russian control over hearts and minds.”
“Brexit was June 2016, the very next month at the Warsaw Conference, NATO formally amended it charter to expressly commit to hybrid warfare as this new NATO capacity. They went from basically 70 years of tanks to this explicit capacity building for censoring tweets that they deemed to be Russian proxies. And again, it is not just Russian propaganda. These are not Brexit groups, groups like Matteo Salvini in Italy, Greece, Germany, or Spain with the Vox Party.”
“At the time, NATO was publishing white papers saying the biggest threat NATO faces is not an invasion from Russia, it is losing domestic elections across Europe to all these right-wing populist groups, who because they were mostly working-class movements, were campaigning for cheap Russian energy at a time when the U.S. was pressuring this energy diversification policy. They made the argument after Brexit that the entire ‘rules-based international order’ would collapse unless the military took control over the media.”
“So NATO would be killed without a single bullet being fired, and without NATO there i no enforcement arm for the International Monetary Fund or World Bank, so now the financial stakeholders who depend on the battering ram of the national security state would basically be helpless against governments around the world.”
ADVERTISEMENT“From their perspective, if the military did not begin to censor the internet, all of the democratic institutions and infrastructure that gave rise to the modern world after World War Two would collapse.”
Ep. 75 The national security state is the main driver of censorship and election interference in the United States. "What I’m describing is military rule," says Mike Benz. "It’s the inversion of democracy." pic.twitter.com/hDTEjAf89T
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) February 16, 2024
Outstanding overview of the Censorship Industrial Complex.
Here's background on the US government-funded Aspen Institute's role in spreading disinformation about the Hunter Biden laptop.
The FBI spread disinformation and interfered in the election:https://t.co/WiPcsxF9R5
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) February 17, 2024
This is the most extraordinary thing I have ever seen.
I’m not exaggerating. This is like a mushroom trip without the mushrooms.
Clear your schedule tonight and listen together.
In a week, everyone who has not listened to this will look like an idiot to everyone who has.… https://t.co/P4AcWsRIyK
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) February 17, 2024
Around the 30 minute mark Benz describes the process by which the Pentagon contracted Universities to develop the algorithms of mass censorship on social media to control the ‘official narrative’ on covid etc. Most people in the UK are unaware that £ hundreds of millions tax… https://t.co/MzdnZ3sqry
— Prof Norman Fenton (@profnfenton) February 17, 2024
If you only watch 3 minutes of the Tucker interview with Mike Benz, this is the 3 minutes. 👇 pic.twitter.com/rnrSU1w8u2
— CitizenLenz (@CitizenLenz) February 17, 2024
Kanekoa explains here:
🚨THREAD: Mike Benz speaks with TuckerCarlson
about the Department of Homeland Security-backed censorship consortium that censored millions of social media posts during the 2020 election and COVID-19.The 2020 election and COVID-19 were the two most censored events in American history.
Mike Benz outlines how the government established a permanent domestic censorship office under the pretext of countering misinformation. and disinformation.
Initially considered for the State Department, CIA, and FBI, the censorship office found its home in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), utilizing the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
DHS classified elections as critical infrastructure and online misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation as cybersecurity attacks.
The original goal of countering Russian disinformation shifted to suppressing domestic dissent and the populist movement led by President Trump.
Examining the 2020 election’s censorship strategy, Benz details CISA’s collaboration with Stanford University, University of Washington, Graphika, and the Atlantic Council through the Election Integrity Partnership.
The censorship consortium employed coercive tactics, leveraging its deputized status to pressure tech companies through government threats.
A critical element was the seven-month pre-censorship campaign before the 2020 election. The consortium compelled social media companies to introduce a new “delegitimization” violation, targeting content challenging faith in mail-in ballots, early voting, and ballot drop boxes.
The overarching goal was narrative control, preventing doubts about a Biden victory and avoiding a crisis akin to the 2000 Bush-Gore election.
Anticipating Biden’s victory hinging on mail-in ballots, early voting, and ballot dropboxes, the consortium precensored any questioning of the election’s legitimacy, particularly if Trump appeared to win on election night but later lost due to late-arriving mail-in ballots.
The so-called “Red Mirage-Blue Shift event.”
🚨THREAD: @MikeBenzCyber speaks with @TuckerCarlson about the Department of Homeland Security-backed censorship consortium that censored millions of social media posts during the 2020 election and COVID-19.
The 2020 election and COVID-19 were the two most censored events in… pic.twitter.com/lmBylWJFZE
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
2/ The DHS outsourced censorship to the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), comprised of four organizations: Stanford Internet Observatory, the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, and Graphika.
During the… pic.twitter.com/0nfEwbfROI
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
3/ This Orwellian speech control consortium also flagged popular populist-right YouTube channels, including @scrowder, @BlazeTV, @JudicialWatch, and even the @GOP War Room, as “mis- and disinformation” spreaders.
The @FFO_Freedom report comprehensively details the US… pic.twitter.com/F0pnXOQcbJ
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
4/ The DHS quietly corrupted CISA's mission when it designated domestic disinformation as cyber attacks on "critical cognitive infrastructure."@FFO_Freedom@MikeBenzCyber@TuckerCarlson pic.twitter.com/GaLtS1oPns
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
5/ But CISA had a First Amendment problem.
The US government cannot sandblast millions of voters off the Internet because of their speech about elections.
CISA needed private sector partners to do dirty work. And that's where EIP stepped in:
"CISA at the time lacked the… pic.twitter.com/BqYF0OdVfx
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
6/ So, who are these unelected bureaucrats who get to play judge, jury, and executioner and control the thoughts of millions of Americans?
“The main character in the CISA side of this story is its then-director, Chris Krebs.”
Krebs's political bias and his affinity for… pic.twitter.com/1gzk3UwPTF
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
7/ Alex Stamos, a former Facebook exec, is the founder of the EIP censorship network and Krebs' business partner.
Stamos is a member of the CFR, a member of the Aspen Institute, and the director of the Stanford Internet Observatory, and he loves censoring his political… pic.twitter.com/irAomt7F9z
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
8/ In Jan. 2021, Alex Stamos compared “over half of the Republicans in Congress” to ISIS.
He called on Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast to block OANN and Newsmax and said:
“We have to turn down the capability of these conservative influencers to reach these huge audiences.” pic.twitter.com/34w5G6vfGN
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
9/ Kate Starbird is the head of the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public director and CISA’s “disinformation” advisor subcommittee.
US government grants have funded her work on domestic censorship since 2013. pic.twitter.com/b9TyMvYAvb
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
10/ The EIP's Starbird used advanced monitoring AI to map out entire networks of people who spread a narrative.
This allowed the EIP to stalk every chain in what they deemed a "false narrative" and to systematically censor entire belief systems at scale:@MikeBenzCyber… pic.twitter.com/bRjmycOLpD
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
11/ In October 2018, Starbird told her Facebook followers to vote Democrat to hold Trump responsible for "corruption and collusion" and his "racist, anti-LGBT agenda."
Starbird claimed Trump's “nationalism” didn’t stand for “patriotism” but instead stood for “white supremacy."… pic.twitter.com/HwtX2zwZNJ
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
12/ Kate Starbird heads CISA's disinformation advisory panel with Vijaya Gadde, the former top lawyer at Twitter, who famously banned the former President and opposed @elonmusk proposal to roll back Twitter censorship policies. pic.twitter.com/H5SZ9VMu4G
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
13/ Graham Brookie is the figure who led the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab and a previous Obama White House National Security Council member.
The Atlantic Council is a NATO think-tank with seven living CIA directors as members.
Brookie, a government-funded… pic.twitter.com/hTqddvMJse
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
14/ Incredibly, the Atlantic Council's disinfo lab tasked by the DHS to censor the 2020 election tweeted its director's disdain for President Trump days before the election.
"Trump is hands down the most significant accelerant and amplifier for disinformation in the election." pic.twitter.com/kEbx4tGD3v
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
15/ Ben Nimmo, a Facebook exec, leads the censorship role at Graphika and is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s DFR Lab.
He was a NATO press officer and was briefly listed as a senior fellow at the UK Institute for Statecraft.
“Donald Trump is right that someone is… pic.twitter.com/FpoVobZk4F
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
16/ In June 2019, at an Atlantic Council conference, Nimmo trained journalists on how to spot “disinformation” in Trump tweets and Brexit ads.
Senior journalists were encouraged to hold up placards reading “Bullsh*t” to Trump tweets and Brexit slogans.@MikeBenzCyber… pic.twitter.com/72zgHzX4wf
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
17/ The EIP defined "delegitimization" as speech that “casts doubt” on the election process or outcome.
This accounted for 72% of the censorship tickets and targeted over 99% of the posts throttled by narrative, focusing on voting machines and vote-by-mail.@MikeBenzCyber… pic.twitter.com/D5ngNYPHdw
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
18/ In effect, the left was allowed to discuss the vulnerabilities of voting machines after the 2016 election, and the right was banned from social media platforms for discussing those very same vulnerabilities after the 2020 election. pic.twitter.com/OL73l7erHp
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
19/ The EIP collaborated with its Big Tech partners to systematically censor any delegitimization of vote-by-mail as disinformation.
In effect, they sided with Joe Biden against Donald Trump and pre-banned criticism of vote-by-mail at the narrative level seven months before… pic.twitter.com/HWJGegKx7t
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
20/ The political establishment and the left used the COVID-19 crisis to push for nationwide mail-in voting, which increased the number of ballots cast by mail from 28.8 million in 2016 to 66.4 million in 2020, a massive 131% increase.
The percentage of Democrats voting by mail… pic.twitter.com/DH4ILA9ukF
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
21/ Regardless of your opinion on voting machines or mail-in voting, it’s clear that this public-private censorship network conspired with big tech & big government to censor one side of the discussion.
In Feb. 2021, the EIP expanded its focus to censor COVID-19… pic.twitter.com/Acy0o8yuzq
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
22/ When I first posted this thread in December 2022, the head of the EIP, @alexstamos, asked @elonmusk
for “transparency” regarding the Tesla CEO tweeting, “The rules were enforced against the right, but not against the left.”Musk responded to the CISA censorship czar, “You… pic.twitter.com/oqlEKvNvJx
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
23/ Elon Musk slams CISA censorship network as 'propaganda platform'https://t.co/ZgfGFE895h
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 17, 2024
This sums pretty much sums up my reaction….
https://twitter.com/RedsRepair95/status/1758683104825254073?s=20
The Truth Must be Told
Your contribution supports independent journalism
Please take a moment to consider this. Now, more than ever, people are reading Geller Report for news they won't get anywhere else. But advertising revenues have all but disappeared. Google Adsense is the online advertising monopoly and they have banned us. Social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have blocked and shadow-banned our accounts. But we won't put up a paywall. Because never has the free world needed independent journalism more.
Everyone who reads our reporting knows the Geller Report covers the news the media won't. We cannot do our ground-breaking report without your support. We must continue to report on the global jihad and the left's war on freedom. Our readers’ contributions make that possible.
Geller Report's independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our work is critical in the fight for freedom and because it is your fight, too.
Please contribute here.
or
Make a monthly commitment to support The Geller Report – choose the option that suits you best.
Quick note: We cannot do this without your support. Fact. Our work is made possible by you and only you. We receive no grants, government handouts, or major funding.Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here.
Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here— it’s free and it’s essential NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America's survival. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.
Follow Pamela Geller on Gettr. I am there. click here.
Follow Pamela Geller on Trump's social media platform, Truth Social. It's open and free.
Remember, YOU make the work possible. If you can, please contribute to Geller Report.
Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spammy or unhelpful, click the ... symbol to the right of the comment to let us know. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.


