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Censorship Industrial Complex

The Rebranding of a Censorship Unit

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Despite Congress’s efforts to dismantle the GEC, its core operations appear intact under a new name and nearly identical mission.

The way things stand right now, the shutting down of the US State Department’s disgraced Global Engagement Center (GEC) doesn’t appear to equate to the GEC actually being dismantled.

Rather, the unit, notorious for its role in flagging social media posts during the outgoing administration, seems to have simply undergone a rebranding. Now, the State Department has the Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI) Hub.

Matt Taibbi of the Twitter Files describes what happened here as an “absurd prank” that defies Congress, which moved to force the end of the GEC. One reason for this conclusion is the result of checking the former and the newly founded unit’s mission statements for any differences. And there are virtually none.

The GEC Mission was officially, “To direct, lead, synchronize, integrate, and coordinate US Federal Government efforts to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations.”

And here’s what R/FIMI Hub is supposed to do: “To direct, lead, synchronize, integrate, and coordinate efforts of the Federal Government to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations.”

The difference between the two texts is R/FIMI Hub going for, “(…) efforts of the Federal Government” – rather than GEC’s “US Federal Government efforts.”

Not only that – and the fact that this alleged focus on foreign threats turned into a smokescreen for going after online speech at home – R/FIMI Hub is also reportedly set to keep about 50 GEC staff, and continue to be funded, as before, with just under $30 million via grants and contracts.

Shuttering the GEC was a cause championed by Congress Republicans through a number of investigations, essentially suspecting that its role was to facilitate, through obfuscation, what is otherwise illegal government involvement in censorship.

They are now, even though coming to power at all levels, presented with a case that illustrates the functioning of what many of them like to call “the deep state” – a permanent power structure underlying elected ones, where a brazen “rebrand” of this kind can happen right in front of everyone.

Former GEC staff are reportedly planning to carry on their work, dispersed across the State Department, thus creating the illusion of the unit being disbanded, but with R/FIMI Hub seemingly envisaged as just that – a hub for their continued activities.

The activities included the GEC teaming up with third parties like the Global Disinformation Index that would “score” content for advertisers, to the detriment of conservative media.

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Censorship Industrial Complex

They knew it was a lab leak all along

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MXM logo MxM News

Newly Revealed Documents Confirm Lab Leak Coverup

Quick Hit:

The global debate over COVID-19’s origins has taken a dramatic turn after newly uncovered reports indicate that intelligence agencies in Germany had determined with near certainty that the virus originated in a Chinese lab as early as 2020. Despite this revelation, German Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly chose to suppress the findings, aligning with a broader pattern of obfuscation by Western governments and media outlets.

Key Details:

  • German newspapers Zeit and Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that Germany’s intelligence agency, the BND, concluded in early 2020 with 80% to 95% certainty that COVID-19 leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.

  • The intelligence was based on a combination of public-domain research and classified investigations under the code name “Saaremaa.”

  • Merkel’s administration allegedly buried the findings, with her successor Olaf Scholz continuing the suppression, ensuring the information remained hidden from the public until now.

Diving Deeper:

Journalist Alex Berenson detailed the shocking revelations in his Substack op-ed, underscoring how “the American media is doing its best to ignore the biggest news this week.” Berenson criticized legacy media outlets for fixating on the five-year anniversary of COVID-19 while sidestepping the implications of newly surfaced intelligence.

According to Berenson, German intelligence reached its high-confidence conclusion after analyzing public materials and conducting covert operations. “The material… indicated that there had been some risky research methods used there [at the Wuhan Institute of Virology], compounded by breaches of laboratory safety rules… [and] so-called gain-of-function experiments, in which viruses occurring in nature are manipulated [to become more dangerous or transmissible],” he wrote.

Rather than alert the world to the evidence, Merkel chose to suppress it. Berenson sarcastically noted, “Who immediately told the world of the findings and demanded a full investigation into what China’s totalitarian government knew and when it knew it? Nah, I’m funning you. Angela stuffed that report in a drawer and got back to doing what she did best, destroying Germany’s industrial base to make Greta Thunberg happy.”

The refusal to disclose this intelligence aligns with a broader pattern of deception from both governmental and media institutions, which spent years dismissing the lab leak hypothesis as a conspiracy theory. Berenson noted that during early 2020, “Dr. Anthony S. Fauci and Peter Daszak… were gently steering their fellow scientists towards a conclusion that COVID’s origins were 100 billion zillion percent natural.”

Even after Merkel left office in 2021, Scholz’s government continued to keep the intelligence under wraps. “The BND told her replacement, Olaf Scholz, ‘without the results finding their way to the public’ — as the British newspaper The Telegraph delicately put it,” Berenson wrote. Now that the findings have emerged, the German government has not denied the reports, leaving Berenson to conclude, “There’s about a 100 to 100 percent chance they’re true.”

The final takeaway? “We all sorta knew this already, right? Both the lab leak and the coverup,” Berenson observed. “But there’s knowing and there’s knowing. And it looks like the same American news outlets that spent 2020 and 2021 lying (or, at best, being hopelessly credulous) about China and COVID still aren’t ready to come clean.”

As new evidence continues to surface, the question remains: Will legacy media and world leaders finally acknowledge the lab leak theory as fact, or will they continue to deflect responsibility and protect their preferred narratives?

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Censorship Industrial Complex

How America is interfering in Brazil and why that matters everywhere. An information drop about USAID

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USAID Corruption & Brazil’s Elections w/ Nikolas Ferreira & Mike Benz | PBD Podcast

If you’re reading this you’re probably aware that there’s an information war going on.  Not the battle between the corporate media vs the new independent journalists. That’s more of a technological and a new media story.  The real battle isn’t only between the players, it’s between the information each side is sharing with their audiences.

The corporate world looks down on independent media.  They use words like disinformation and misinformation and conspiracy.  What they don’t do very often is examine the information being shared and present their own take. In fact, often they don’t share the information at all.

This leaves corporate media faithful in a disadvantaged position.  They’re angry because they can’t understand why the world is changing (for the worse in their opinion).  They won’t give up their corporate addiction because they’ve become intrenched in the belief the independent start ups are sharing misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories.  Because their corporate sources of information choose to ignore or criticize information without presenting a more informed and researched version themselves, their followers are completely missing out on many of the biggest stories that are shaping the century we’re struggling through.

This podcast is a perfect example.  Chances are those who ignore independent media have no idea who Patrick Bet David is. That means they’re very unlikely to know anything about Mike Benz.  Benz has been revealing secrets of the deep state for years.  Recently he’s picked up massive audiences as he makes sense of what’s happening in America and around the world. (Especially with USAID)  PBD also talks to Brazilian social media sensation Niklas Ferreira who has a perspective of politics in South America’s largest and most important nation unlike anything you’ll see in the corporate media.

This podcast is fascinating and it answers a lot of questions, not just about America and Brazil, but about the US deep state efforts to control political movements everywhere.

From the PBD Podcast

Patrick Bet-David sits down with Nikolas Ferreira and Mike Benz to dissect the deep connections between USAID, Brazilian corruption, and the political battle between Lula and Bolsonaro.

Ferreira, one of Brazil’s most outspoken conservative voices, exposes how foreign influence and NGOs may be shaping Brazil’s political landscape, while Benz, an expert in geopolitical strategy, unpacks the hidden power dynamics between Washington and Latin America.

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