The Twitter and Facebook Files have been combed through by independent journalists, revealing the federal government’s efforts to stifle free speech. Michael Shellenberger, Alex Gutentag, and Matt Taibbi, in their latest revelations, have uncovered a concerted effort to censor free speech using defense frameworks originally designed for military purposes. The Cyber Threat Intelligence League (CTIL), previously portrayed as a group of “do-gooders,” was actually created by US and UK military and intelligence contractors in 2018. They were responsible for tracking and reporting “disfavored content” on social media, including anti-lockdown sentiments during the COVID pandemic. This information, obtained from an unnamed whistleblower, sheds light on the government’s involvement in formalizing censorship activities.
The whistleblower claims to have been recruited to CTIL through Department of Homeland Security meetings and reveals the federal government’s ties to the group. CTIL created a censorship, influence, and anti-disinformation strategy, Adversarial Misinformation and Influence Tactics and Techniques, by adapting a cybersecurity framework developed by a significant defense and intelligence contractor called MITRE. Their report on Brexit and President Donald Trump’s election suggests that they believe the general public is incapable of making decisions on their own and needs mechanisms like CTIL to guide them.
Since Elon Musk’s intervention in freeing Twitter, the platform is now an open forum for diverse viewpoints and independent journalism. This information independence is uncomfortable for the Censorship Industrial Complex, as they want to control the narrative and believe that citizens are incapable of making the right decisions. The mainstream media, under the influence of the government, has lost its grip on Twitter, and now X, and is no longer able to stifle conservative voices. The fight for free speech and information independence continues.
