Mike Benz reveals how NATO transitioned from promoting internet freedom to implementing censorship in response to geopolitical events.
“When I first started on this crusade to try to preserve free speech on the internet, six or seven years ago, I think I, like everybody else, thought of this as being a sort of purely domestic or political thing… But then the deeper you get into it, and who’s behind them, and who’s funding them and the organizations they’re a part of, or who’s making the censorship decision-making. At the higher level, you start to see basically the shape of the machine you’re truly up against.”
The Arab Spring initially showcased the power of social media for regime change, but the 2014 Ukraine crisis and subsequent counter-movements in Crimea and eastern Ukraine alarmed NATO about the spread of alternative narratives online.
“The internet was then privatized in 1991 and immediately it a military terrain for the purpose of helping foreign dissident bloggers and news sources on the internet evade state controls over media in countries that NATO was trying to topple.”
NATO’s shift from “tanks to tweets” led to the creation of a vast censorship infrastructure involving intelligence agencies, think tanks, and tech companies to control online information.
“NATO declared this new doctrine, which Jens Stoltenberg articulated as ‘from tanks to tweets,’ we need to no longer think about the nature of war has changed. This is before the 2022 military outbreak in Ukraine. At the time, all the military theoreticians and all the US Army War College, everyone was saying, ‘You know what? Kinetic war is dead. It’s now all moved to hearts and minds.’”
The rise of populist movements like Brexit and Trump’s election further intensified NATO’s push for internet control, as traditional power structures struggled to promote their narratives organically. This strategic shift has significant implications for free speech and democratic processes, as the battle for control over information continues to shape global politics and public opinion.
𝗪𝗔𝗧𝗖𝗛 𝗙𝗨𝗟𝗟 𝗩𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗢
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Author: ungathegreat
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