J. B. Shurk – Long before the Department of Homeland Security attempted to justify the formal recognition of a “Disinformation Czar” to monitor Americans’ speech or news broke that the State Department had been using a foreign organization called the Global Disinformation Index to censor conservative voices here at home, it was clear that the war for free speech had begun.
For years, conservative websites struggled to survive financially as shadow bans and stealth blacklisting eliminated advertising revenues and throttled user engagement. Online trolls infiltrated comment sections posting inflammatory content that could be used as false flag justifications to legally threaten or otherwise punish conservative forums.