By now, most Americans are aware of the fact that the government works with Big Tech to censor the information people discuss and share on social media, ensuring that those who support the government’s preferred narratives get plenty of airtime while burying conflicting views. However, you may be surprised to learn that government-funded entities have been hard at work building networks that flag conversations that go against their interests in private messages.
Executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online and former State Department official Mike Benz warned on X: “The US gov’t is paying millions of dollars to censorship mercenary firms to build up a snitch network of citizen informants to report private text messages on WhatsApp for ‘misinformation’ – then create a vast database of banned memes & ideas.”
Using government funds, companies are being enlisted to monitor platforms of interest with the aim of getting content flagged and ultimately censored. It’s a common practice on platforms known for encrypted private messaging, such as Telegram and WhatsApp, that are immune to the types of monitoring used on less protected platforms like YouTube and Facebook.
