Censorship

Note

It's important to understand that the same acts may be described as either "censorship" or "reducing the spread of disinformation" depending on whether the information being suppressed is accurate or not. The political Right likes to call it "censorship" when their disinformation is removed, corrected, or even criticized. ...and some things which may have at first appeared to be the former are in fact the latter.

Links

News

• 2026-02-17 17:43 UTC [L..T] CBS host Stephen Colbert says network barred airing interview with Texas US Senate candidate «CBS late-night show host Stephen Colbert said on Monday that the network's lawyers barred him from airing an interview with Democratic Texas State Representative James Talarico, who is running for his party's nomination for the U.S. Senate.» ... «The Republican-led FCC said last month that daytime and late-night TV talk shows are no longer considered "bona fide" news programs that are exempt from equal time rules that require them to give air time to the views of opposing candidates. [..] Colbert criticized FCC Chair Brendan Carr and the network's lawyers, saying they were unilaterally enforcing Carr's directive for "purely financial reasons." [..] Those words echoed the explanation Paramount provided when it announced in July that Colbert's program would go off the air in May as it was seeking approval from the Federal Communications Commission for its $8.4 billion merger with Skydance Media.»
• 2026-02-17 [L..T] Stephen Colbert Tells Brendan Carr: Go FCC Yourself «This isn’t even the first incident of blatant censorship at CBS this year. A month ago, after the shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, CBS’s head of news, Bari Weiss, published a story parroting the administration’s lies, despite major dissent from journalists in the newsroom. [..] When that happened, I said we weren’t quite at blunt force media censorship. That this was an insidious quid pro quo. CBS installs Bari Weiss as a mouthpiece of the state in exchange for favors. [..] We’re well beyond that now. You have FCC chair Brendan Carr siccing CBS lawyers on a late night host telling him exactly what he can and can’t say.»
• 2026-02-12 13:00 UTC [L..T] ‘Deeply illogical’: this man’s life work could end homelessness – and Trump is doing all he can to stop it The National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership «asked Tsemberis to send in his slides before the event. The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) – a federal agency funding the event – wanted to see them. [...] When Tsemberis got them back, there were red lines throughout. Among other things, a federal official had deleted sections referencing the idea that racially discriminatory government policy is one cause of homelessness, as well as the terms “harm reduction” and “trauma-informed”, and mentions of Tsemberis being the founder of Housing First. What’s more, the term “Housing First” was deleted throughout.» ... «Instead, the federal government is pushing a longstanding approach sometimes called “Treatment First”, because it is based on the notion that homeless people have to resolve addictions, mental illness and other issues before obtaining housing. [..] That approach historically has seen vastly inferior results»...
• 2025-12-23 10:52 UTC [L..T] Katie Couric Unloads on New CBS Boss: ‘What a Disgrace’ «A pioneering figure in network news has slammed CBS Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss for spiking a 60 Minutes segment at the eleventh hour. [..] Katie Couric, 68, said the decision to cut a report on CECOT—the inhumane El Salvador prison where Venezuelan migrants were flown without due process this spring—was a “disgrace.”» ... «“This is the kind of censorship journalists at CBS feared,” Couric posted on Instagram. “It’s appalling but not surprising. And now it’s happening—what a disgrace.”»
• 2025-12-19 [L..T] Will Palestine Action be ‘terrorists’ for a record short amount of time? «Who has been a terrorist for the shortest amount of time? Could Palestine Action be the winner in this arbitrarily decided competition to see which victim of the politicisation of terrorism was most rapidly judged to be a valid part of society again?» A list of the current record-holders follows.
• 2025-03-05 20:01 UTC [L..T] Warning users that upvote violent content «Today we are rolling out a new (sort of) enforcement action across the site. Historically, the only person actioned for posting violating content was the user who posted the content. The Reddit ecosystem relies on engaged users to downvote bad content and report potentially violative content. This not only minimizes the distribution of the bad content, but it also ensures that the bad content is more likely to be removed. On the other hand, upvoting bad or violating content interferes with this system.» TLDR: You're not allowed to like content Reddit doesn't like. The general user consensus seems to be that this is a crackdown on criticism of the Trump-Vance administration and its courtiers in the oligarchy.
• 2025-03-04 13:22 UTC [L..T] (fedi post) Signed up to Threads, made a polite but firm comment about right-wing philosophy, got suspended.
• 2025-02-19 22:02 UTC [L..T] LGBTQ history videos find new home after PBS pulls content due to Trump executive orders «In response to a blizzard of executive orders from President Donald Trump, the Public Broadcasting Service recently erased a series of videos made in partnership with New York City Public Schools focused on LGBTQ history. [/] This week, the city's Education Department found a new home for them: its own website.»
• 2025-02-16 23:46 UTC [L..T] Washington Post backs out of 'Fire Elon Musk' ad order «"Is it because we're critical of what's happening with Elon Musk? Is it only OK to run things in the Post now that won't anger the president or won't have him calling Jeff Bezos asking why this was allowed?" she said, referring to the Post's owner, who is also the founder of Amazon and the space company Blue Origin. [/] She said the Post did not provide an explanation for why it decided not to run the wrap ad.»
• 2025-02-14 17:38 UTC [L..T] The Government Is Literally Erasing Trans People from American History «The National Park Service, following orders from the Trump administration, has begun removing references to transgender people from the Stonewall National Monument's website. They're quite literally trying to erase trans people from American history. And no, I'm not being hyperbolic here: they are systematically going through government websites and removing references to trans people's existence, including one of the most important sites in LGBTQ history.»
• 2025-01-27 12:30 UTC [L..T] Facebook flags Linux topics as 'cybersecurity threats' – posts and users being blocked «Facebook is banning posts that mention various Linux-related topics, sites, or groups. Some users may also see their accounts locked or limited when posting Linux topics. Major open-source operating system news, reviews, and discussion site DistroWatch is at the center of the controversy, as it seems to be the first to have noticed that Facebook's Community Standards had blackballed it.»
• 2023-11-09 03:00 UTC [L..T] How India tamed Twitter and set a global standard for online censorship «For years, a committee of executives from U.S. technology companies and Indian officials convened every two weeks in a government office to negotiate what could — and could not — be said on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.» ... «In the past two years, the Indian government has dramatically tightened its grip on American social media companies. Silicon Valley firms that were at times defiant are now far more accepting of Indian government dictates to censor material, in particular criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).» ... «This escalating censorship in the world’s largest democracy is part of a wider campaign by Modi and his Hindu nationalist allies to monopolize public discourse: tightening their grip on power, advancing their Hindu-first ideology and squeezing out critical and dissenting voices. American technology companies have increasingly fallen in line, fearing for their employees’ security and their profits.»
• 2014-04-30 12:35 UTC [L..T] Facebook Is Throttling Nonprofits and Activists «So far coverage of Facebook's plan to squeeze the organic reach of Pages has focused on its impact on "brands" that spam us with ads and promotions. But nonprofits, activists, and advocacy groups with much fewer resources (and no ad budgets) are also being hugely affected. It's starting to look like Facebook is willing to strangle public discourse on the platform in an attempt to wring out a few extra dollars for its new shareholders.»
• 2012-09-12 [L..T] YouTube Blocks Access to Controversial Video in Egypt and Libya In an unusual move, YouTube announced today that it was blocking access to a video showing clips from "The Innocence of Muslims"– an anti-Islamic film that depicts Prophet Mohammed as a philanderer who approves of child abuse – after the film sparked violent protests in Egypt and Libya.
• 2010-06-09 [L..T] Efforts to Limit the Flow of Spill News Journalists struggling to document the impact of the oil rig explosion have repeatedly found themselves turned away from public areas affected by the spill, and not only by BP and its contractors, but by local law enforcement, the Coast Guard and government officials.