Re:Google Admits Censorship Under Biden
by Bender on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @12:02PM
(#45348911)
I know this will be an unpopular take but I would not be me if I self censored.
In my grumpy old man shouting at the clouds opinion this is not a left-right issue. Both boots left and right have been increasingly trying to get control of the narrative on the internet for a long time now, basically since TV has been dying/dead and the internet has been a greater influence in peoples lives. There are also a growing number of former federal employees going through a revolving door and getting jobs at all the big platforms which is entirely legal AFAIK but also dangerous. This allows them to officially state non compliance and instead just prefer to comply anyway.
My question is, how do we break the left-right our team vs. their team arguments that leadership absolutely love for us to get into? How do we make it "those teams vs us"? Purple boots vs. the people. Is this something HN is capable of or has the internet jumped the shark so to speak? Is it a matter of helping both teams see that their leaders report to the same deep state or does anyone even care? I personally just see left-right as different ephemeral style-sheets.
The administration pressured them in regards to Covid-19 and election interference content, but the Counsel makes it extremely clear that Youtube did not comply.
Re:Google Admits Censorship Under Biden
by billy99k on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @01:06PM
(#45349886)
"The administration pressured them in regards to Covid-19 and election interference content"
Then why did thousands of accounts get banned for political speech? I've been seeing people screaming about the FCC 'pressuring' ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel.
Yet, this, which was actually known a few years ago, is all but silenced in the mainstream news and on Facebook.
Re:Google Admits Censorship Under Biden
by leakycap on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @11:37AM
(#45348573)
We see that the current administration has their censorship fingers in everything, which really takes the air out of whatever impact they think this has.
Re:Google Admits Censorship Under Biden
by infamouscow on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @11:47AM
(#45348699)
The Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) was a short-lived DHS advisory group, running from March 2, 2022, to August 24, 2022. It was pitched as a way to combat "misinformation," but let's call it what it was: a top-down attempt to gatekeep truth.
The red team hasn't spun up their own version of this Orwellian nightmare -- probably because they lean on something bigger than bureaucracy, like a belief in free thought or a higher power. Nietzsche said you can't be an elite without faith in something beyond the state.
This isn't engineered; it's emergent. The blue team should be sweating -- their push for control lookied like a fringe fever dream. If you're peddling censorship disguised as safety, the only thing you deserve is a one-way ticket to obscurity, or a jail cell.
Re:Google Admits Censorship Under Biden
by legitster on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @12:16PM
(#45349089)
> It was pitched as a way to combat "misinformation," but let's call it what it was: a top-down attempt to gatekeep truth.
Disseminating accurate information and handling misinformation is literally one of the mandates of the DHS. Nobody batted an eye when the government did the exact same thing for the Spanish Flu, or the Boll Weevil blight, or smallpox. It was never perfect, but it was not inherently political in nature until one side laid down on the tracks and voluntarily became a victim.
We can debate all day as to whether the previous administration went too far in regards to Covid, but clearly all of the conspiracy theorists have kept their jobs and stayed on the air so it can't have been that effective. And it's also clearly a different beast to what is happening now, where it's not even done under the auspices of pragmatism but as a way to punish political adversaries only for existing.
Re:Google Admits Censorship Under Biden
by infamouscow on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @03:09PM
(#45351406)
The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, which effectively gutted the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act’s restrictions on domestic propaganda, was passed under a blue team controlled executive and senate. This wasn't a bipartisan effort—it was a deliberate move by the blue team to dismantle a post-WWII safeguard designed to prevent the U.S. government from targeting its own citizens with state-crafted narratives.
The original act ensured the U.S. Information Agency’s output, like Voice of America, stayed outward-focused. The 2012 repeal, slipped into a defense spending bill and opened the door for domestic dissemination of government-produced content (read: propaganda).
Why would a single party push this through? Draw your own conclusions, but the implications for information control are hard to ignore. Look at the timing: right as social media was becoming a primary news source.
Re:Google Admits Censorship Under Biden
by frenchmajesty on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @11:45AM
(#45348673)
I'm sure Big Tech has an anti-conservative bias in its moderation but to go as far as to say Biden pressured them to do this? Lol. I'm much more likely to believe Trump team bullied them into signing this declaration than anything else.
Re:Google Admits Censorship Under Biden
by skywhopper on Tuesday September 23, 2025 @11:51AM
(#45348742)
Pure propaganda. Biden folks talked to YouTube in hopes they would do what they could to stop COVID disinformation from spreading in a wildly dangerous time. They put public pressure on them? (I never saw it but that’s what the letter claims.) That’s not censorship.
Google could and did do what it wanted. The Biden admin didn’t threaten to revoke licenses or stop mergers over this stuff.
In my grumpy old man shouting at the clouds opinion this is not a left-right issue. Both boots left and right have been increasingly trying to get control of the narrative on the internet for a long time now, basically since TV has been dying/dead and the internet has been a greater influence in peoples lives. There are also a growing number of former federal employees going through a revolving door and getting jobs at all the big platforms which is entirely legal AFAIK but also dangerous. This allows them to officially state non compliance and instead just prefer to comply anyway.
My question is, how do we break the left-right our team vs. their team arguments that leadership absolutely love for us to get into? How do we make it "those teams vs us"? Purple boots vs. the people. Is this something HN is capable of or has the internet jumped the shark so to speak? Is it a matter of helping both teams see that their leaders report to the same deep state or does anyone even care? I personally just see left-right as different ephemeral style-sheets.
The administration pressured them in regards to Covid-19 and election interference content, but the Counsel makes it extremely clear that Youtube did not comply.
Then why did thousands of accounts get banned for political speech? I've been seeing people screaming about the FCC 'pressuring' ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel.
Yet, this, which was actually known a few years ago, is all but silenced in the mainstream news and on Facebook.
I would ask why, but we all know why.
This Jim Jordan? Republican Jim Jordan deposed in federal suit tied to sex abuse by late Ohio State team doctor
https://apnews.com/article/ohio-state-team-doctor-congress-j...
Is every republican in power attempting o throw press releases about others in the air to distract from their own negative press?
The red team hasn't spun up their own version of this Orwellian nightmare -- probably because they lean on something bigger than bureaucracy, like a belief in free thought or a higher power. Nietzsche said you can't be an elite without faith in something beyond the state.
This isn't engineered; it's emergent. The blue team should be sweating -- their push for control lookied like a fringe fever dream. If you're peddling censorship disguised as safety, the only thing you deserve is a one-way ticket to obscurity, or a jail cell.
Disseminating accurate information and handling misinformation is literally one of the mandates of the DHS. Nobody batted an eye when the government did the exact same thing for the Spanish Flu, or the Boll Weevil blight, or smallpox. It was never perfect, but it was not inherently political in nature until one side laid down on the tracks and voluntarily became a victim.
We can debate all day as to whether the previous administration went too far in regards to Covid, but clearly all of the conspiracy theorists have kept their jobs and stayed on the air so it can't have been that effective. And it's also clearly a different beast to what is happening now, where it's not even done under the auspices of pragmatism but as a way to punish political adversaries only for existing.
> If you're peddling censorship disguised as safety, the only thing you deserve is a one-way ticket to obscurity, or a jail cell.
Jailing people you don't agree with is certainly a take that puts you in excellent company.
The original act ensured the U.S. Information Agency’s output, like Voice of America, stayed outward-focused. The 2012 repeal, slipped into a defense spending bill and opened the door for domestic dissemination of government-produced content (read: propaganda).
Why would a single party push this through? Draw your own conclusions, but the implications for information control are hard to ignore. Look at the timing: right as social media was becoming a primary news source.
Care to comment on what happened to Voice of America recently when baby-loving red team had their way?
Google could and did do what it wanted. The Biden admin didn’t threaten to revoke licenses or stop mergers over this stuff.
Which was defined as merely questioning official sources, pretending such sources provided nothing but the absolute truth.