The roundtable, hosted by Sen. Ron Johnson, also focused on vaccine safety and corruption of public health agencies.
Other experts who participated in the roundtable discussed how the news media have become propagandized and warned that media-supported propaganda will lead to a totalitarian society.
‘Vast censorship network’ includes government, nonprofits
Journalist Lara Logan, formerly of CBS News, told the panel of experts, “These are the worst of times for the media in this country” and warned that we are engaged in a “war for our minds.”
“We live in the age of information warfare, where propaganda is not simply a weapon, it is the entire field of battle,” she said. “This is a war for our minds that is aided by advanced technology, and we have never been here, not in all of human history.”
“The media is collaborating with government agencies and operatives to censor and shape the information battlefield to justify certain actions. For example, when the president of the United States threatens the unvaccinated, saying ‘Our patience is wearing thin,’ and accuses them of putting communities at risk, his words are designed to justify hatred, censorship and intimidation.”
According to Logan, a network of nonprofit organizations whose purpose is to stifle free speech is contributing to information warfare:
“For too long we have allowed nonprofit organizations to masquerade as nonpartisan media watchdogs, when in fact they are a little more than highly paid political propagandists and assassins whose entire reason for being is to crush anyone who stands in their way and along with them, the long-held and cherished ideas of free speech, free thinking and free minds.”
These groups “are part of a vast censorship network that includes government agencies,” Logan said. “They use deception to mask their actions with lofty goals like ‘preventing the spread of misinformation, disinformation [and] hate speech.’ They use phrases like ‘protecting democracy.’”
Logan cited “Defeat Disinfo,” a nonprofit that “claims to be a PAC [political action committee]” and was established to target alleged “misinformation” related to COVID-19 and to support Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020.
According to a May 2020 report by The Washington Post, Defeat Disinfo was headed by retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who formerly led U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
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