Staff Reports
A recent lawsuit underscores the lengths to which the Biden administration allegedly went to control the narrative in America, with a conservative watchdog group claiming a direct role in censoring Americans on social media. The Functional Government Initiative (FGI) made these serious accusations in federal court this week, aiming to unearth the sordid details of a government campaign to suppress dissenting voices, all while federal bureaucrats hid behind the convenient façade of fighting “disinformation.”
Stirring the pot is the now-defunct Global Engagement Center (GEC), a subsidiary of the Department of State, which wrapped up operations just last month. Ostensibly charged with combating foreign propaganda, it seems the GEC had a rather selective understanding of free speech. Instead of focusing solely on external threats, it allegedly turned its gaze inward, pressuring social media companies to quash any views that dared stray from the official COVID-19 narrative. Who knew that government-funded offices had such a keen interest in controlling domestic discourse?
The last 4 years the Biden admin has been on a censorship bender, debanking and deplatforming any industry/voice it deemed undesirable.
It even threatened to ban an entire FIELD OF MATHEMATICS to control AI.
Marc Andreesen blew the lid off this story 👇 pic.twitter.com/gUcxmUUPaK
— Sam Lyman (@SamLyman33) December 30, 2024
In the murky waters of this controversy, FGI has invoked the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to unearth records that detail how U.S. taxpayer dollars may have been funneled to ideological nonprofit organizations aiming to silence American voices. It turns out that two brave reporters and a congressman who questioned the GEC’s motives were met with relentless efforts to discredit their inquiries. Apparently, the GEC’s mission was less about protecting the public and more about protecting the narrative, raising eyebrows about how far these bureaucratic agencies will go to maintain a lock on the truth.
The antics of the GEC are reminiscent of a bad spy movie where the real villains are bureaucrats who think they know what’s best for everyone. According to independent journalist Matt Taibbi and other reporters, major tech platforms were saddled with demands to suppress pesky dissent during the pandemic. Rather than engaging in open dialogue, they faced a barrage of requests from multiple government arms—yes, even the CIA. This all begs the question: are American citizens truly free if their government holds the reigns to what can be said online?
FGI does not plan to take this lying down. Determined to spotlight what it calls the “censorship industrial complex,” the organization intends to keep digging, regardless of whether the GEC’s doors have been shut. A spokesperson for FGI insisted that transparency is crucial and that exposing any government collusion in information control is essential for safeguarding free speech as the 2024 elections loom. It remains to be seen whether the public will truly understand the extent to which their government appeared to view censorship as a weapon in its arsenal of power—but FGI is certainly set on revealing the uncomfortable truths that this administration would prefer remain buried.
