MAX BLUMENTHAL: Well, this is really a threat to dissent, and centrists who think that John Brennan, former CIA director, is a hero are not going to see their speech threatened. Those who were being threatened tend to be the alternative and dissident media that has really relied on Facebook to get lots of followers and likes and win over an alternative audience that’s seeking something outside the corporate mainstream. And these sites, almost across the board – whether it’s on the left or the right – are finding that their traffic is going down, that posts are being suppressed. I personally am forbidden from boosting my posts on Facebook. And we’re just talking about factual journalism. I said from the outset, as soon as the Russiagate narrative was concocted by Clintonite dead-enders and the intelligence community, that it would pose the most long-term threat to the left and to left-wing progressives in the U.S. and that it was immediately directed at Donald Trump.
But their media and their activism would be targeted. And we saw that first with the government Senate intelligence committee starting to pressure Facebook about this Russian troll farm. And there certainly was a troll farm, 56 percent of the posts of that troll farm on Facebook appeared after the election. Most were not designed to elect Donald Trump. Some were pro-Hillary, some were pro-Trump. And I think that none had any effect on the way that anyone voted. It was basically a red herring to deepen the Russiagate narrative. And now we’ve seen Facebook being pressured to pair up with a group called the Digital Forensic Research Lab, which is an arm of the Atlantic Council. The Atlantic Council is one of the most militaristic thinktanks in Washington. It’s funded not only by NATO, the permanent war alliance in Europe by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, a WHO’s who of arms manufacturers.
And this digital forensics lab has been given the task of finding the evildoers on Facebook so that Facebook can ban them and they have targeted people sites that may be Russian troll farm operations. I’ve taken a look at some of them. One of them had seven followers. And according to the Digital Forensic Research Lab was dedicated to celebrating the beauty of African women. But then we started to see Venezuelan analysis, one of the most important left-wing sites dedicated to covering Venezuela in Latin America from a socialist and anti-imperialist perspective, taken off Facebook for no reason. Then we saw teleSUR, which is funded by socialist-oriented Latin American governments and is a really important news agency taken off Facebook for no reason at the same time. And this all occurred two days after an assassination attempt on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. I’m not saying there’s a connection there, but the timing was very interesting and Venezuelan analysis had actually produced a really important post criticizing the way mainstream media had covered the assassination. So it’s clear there’s a suppression attempt taking place on Facebook targeting particularly left wing dissident news outlets and activists, also targeting people on the right. And I think what we’re witnessing is a gradual regression and rollback not of free speech, but of our ability to dissent on Silicon Valley platforms that are susceptible to U.S. government pressure.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Along the lines of censorship and taking objectionable or vile and potentially dangerous information off the Internet, Alex Jones has been targeted. Alex Jones’ Infowars has promoted this vile notion that Newtown parents were faking their children’s death and the Sandy Hook massacre, and there has been lawsuits against Alex Jones that are playing out in court. But what I wanted to ask you was that there are a whole raft of very objectionable things on our Internet, Holocaust deniers, people preaching white supremacy, neo Nazis, klansmen and the like. What is the danger of abrogating free speech on the Internet and putting someone in charge of censorship of all manner of a political viewpoints, whether they be on the right or the left?
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Well, I feel about as warmly towards Alex Jones as you do. I somehow find him amusing and I like laughing at him. But I also think, you know, he is a racist and he is spreading disinformation in a really cynical way in order to increase his profit margin. He’s the worst kind of huckster that America has produced in the last decade or so. And people really need to question the long-term consequences of banning someone like Alex Jones. It was unfortunate to me to see so many progressives celebrate him being banned and then not being able to understand why legitimate news sites on the left were then banned days later. This isn’t going to be limited to Alex Jones, so I think it’s important to look at the long-term consequences of letting established forces decide what we should see and hear on what have unfortunately become our digital commons, which is Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and social media platforms like those.
