Breaking: Twitter will Start Banning anti-war voices.
Twitters new "crisis misinformation" policy should be a massive concern to those who question official orthodoxies on foreign policy.
Russia’s invasion of Ukriane has led to an unprecedented amount of censorship worldwide. Russia has passed a “fake news” law that can land domestic critics of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in jail for up to fifteen years. This has been widely reported and rightfully criticized in the Western press. What has gone under their radar is that western countries have also used this war to suppress domestic opposition, in a more subtle way. In the West, critics are not being jailed but are instead being disappeared by big tech companies. This policy of censorship is an attempt to make anti-imperialist and critics of Western foreign policy so irrelevant that they will not be able to reach an audience.
Youtube deleted the entire archive of well-respected left-wing journalists Chris Hedges and Abby Martin because their shows aired on RT. The anti-imperialist outlets Mint Press News and Consortium News have been banned from PayPal along with anti-war journalist Alan Macleod and activist Caleb Maupin. Twitter has banned many dissenting voices on Ukraine including former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter and Asia Times contributor Pepe Escobar. This censorship has been egged on massively by the media. The Daily Beast wrote an article that openly called for the Hill to fire one of its contributors, Kim Iversen who they deemed a “Conspiracy theorist”. The outlet also wrote a similar hit piece in which they called for tech companies to censor a long list of journalists and commentators who are critical of western imperialism including Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton, Lee Camp, Danny Haiphong, and others. The Finical Times has pushed for Twitch to ban any pro-Russia streamers.
The policy has also been pushed by the national security state. Several “former” intelligence spooks signed an open letter opposing the breaking up of big tech companies because it would impede their ability to control the discourse. In the most Orwellian move, Biden briefly created a “disinformation governance board” as part of the DHS headed by Nina Jankowicz a woman with a long history of repeating C.I.A. lies and whitewashing neo-nazi paramilitary groups in Ukriane. This policy was "put on pause" after it received massive backlash from both political sides and pro-civil liberties groups.
The latest and scariest development in this policy is Twitter's new “cris misinformation” policy that will shadowban anyone who pushes:
False coverage or event reporting, or information that mischaracterizes conditions on the ground as a conflict evolves;
False allegations regarding use of force, incursions on territorial sovereignty, or around the use of weapons;
Demonstrably false or misleading allegations of war crimes or mass atrocities against specific populations;
False information regarding international community response, sanctions, defensive actions, or humanitarian operations.
With this policy, Twitter will put a warning label and shaddowban anyone who they deem is in violation of these conditions. As they frame it
People on Twitter will be required to click through the warning notice to view the Tweet, and the content won’t be amplified or recommended across the service. In addition, Likes, Retweets, and Shares will be disabled, and the notice will link to more information about our approach to crisis misinformation.
The first issue with this policy is that Twitter is in no way an unbiased source for determining what is “false coverage or allegations”. Twitter has previously blocked The New York Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop based on the lie pushed by former spooks that it was “Russian disinformation”. Twitter has also partnered with the ASPI to identify “misinformation”. The ASPI is a pro-war think tank funded by arms manufacturers that has pushed propaganda and false information. Twitter will obviously use this policy to label any information that goes against the official narrative as false.
The scariest part of this policy is the last part which says Twitter will shaddowban anyone who pushes “False information regarding international community response, sanctions, defensive actions, or humanitarian operations”. This is a clear reference to anyone who criticizes the current U.S. proxy war with Russia. Here they are buying into the imperialist framing that the West’s arming of Ukriane is “defensive” and “humanitarian”. Despite the fact that many respected figures ranging from left wing-intellectual Noam Chomsky to former U.S. diplomat Chas Freeman have argued the United States is using Ukriane as a proxy to weaken Russia and despite the fact that several American politicians such as Seth Moulton, Dan Crenshaw, and Steny Hoyer have flat out admitted this is the Wests strategy, this policy will now shaddowban anyone who points this out. The policy also suggested that the policy will shaddowban anyone critical of sanctions on Russia despite the fact that they have harmed the Russian economy and American gas prices hurting the poor and working-class in both countries.
Twitter has said it will use this policy around the discussion about Ukraine but will later be used in discussions around Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and India. It should be worth noting that there is some evidence the United States is looking to back regime change in Ethiopia.
This policy is dangerous and will be used to enforce empire narratives and continue the campaign of disappearing anyone who objects.