While you've been occupied with that Infowars-banning story, the establishment machine already started a covert censorship operation against leftist independent media

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Developments are coming like storm. Just when the prediction that Infowars banning will actually strengthen Alex Jones' popularity became true, it seems that our second 'prophecy' (and prediction by many progressives), also becomes true. According to this, Infowars banning will be used as a blueprint by the establishment machine to shutdown progressive independent media and voices, based on that 'fake news' narrative.

We wrote that a corporate branch of the liberal establishment gave real value to Alex Jones' awful performance, pretending to be the 'anti-establishment' hero - just like Donald Trump - and made him a real hero in the eyes of the ultra-conservative audience that has been brainwashed by his absurd conspiracy theories.

Max Blumenthal speaks with Aaron Mate and gives details about Alex Jones' dark role in the whole story:

Alex Jones has always served establishment priorities. First, by taking the 9/11 truth movement, which did have a wing that was dedicated to sort of legitimate questioning of 9/11 and discussing things like the Saudi role, discussing blow-back for US foreign policy - 'I'm asking real, serious questions and diverting it into a conspiratorial crank convention' - And then, moving the people he was able to mobilize around the 9/11 truth movement into the right by pumping anti-immigrant propaganda.

A lot of people don't remember, but Alex Jones was one of the original promoters of the Minuteman border vigilantes in the early 2000s and he has continued to serve establishment goals by propping himself up as the easiest target for the fake news purge of the privatized digital commons. My problem here is that there is a slippery slope, but also that Alex Jones, as Twitter found, did not clearly violate the terms of service on these websites. It wasn't like they just simply conducted a review on YouTube, or Pinterest, and found that Alex Jones violated their terms of service and they took them down.

This was a coordinated purge, carried out with government pressure, and as a result of the merger of the national security state and the Silicon Valley companies that pretty much now control everything we see and hear online.

That's incredibly dangerous. And I don't understand why so many people who identify themselves as ‘lefties’ are so easily going along with it, when Senator Chris Murphy, the Democrat, has said that purging Infowars is not enough, and more sites need to be taken offline, although he didn't identify which sites need to be taken down.

Just as someone who has been targeted for my own factual reporting and has seen people come after me. Ever since I started covering Israel from a critical perspective, there have been attempts to purge my own work, my own reporting, my own videos, my own factual print reporting from these same sites.

I have to worry about what's happening, what's gonna happen next. Everyone has to worry about the merger between the national security state and Silicon Valley.

In the second part of the interview, Max Blumenthal reveals that censorship in social media against leftist independent media like Venezuela Analysis, Grayzone Project (his website) and Electronic Intifada, has already started. Facebook shut down the page of VenezuelaAnalysis.com for several hours without explanation. 

As Blumenthal explains:

Venezuela Analysis was blocked right after Nicolas Maduro and his government presented evidence of the assassination attempt on Maduro that took place four days ago by drones containing C-4. They linked the attempt to former Venezuelan military and police personnel in Colombia. We've seen revelations that there may have been some planning that took place in Miami. So, Venezuela Analysis has produced some of the most critical reporting and analysis on what actually has taken place behind the scenes.

I've also been recently reporting on Nicaragua, which has faced a kind of a soft coup, color revolution style attempt against the government of Daniel Ortega and the Sandinista Movement as a whole and there was a really important new initiative. I'm sort of similar to Venezuela Analysis, but it also contained kind of like a podcast element within studio analysis by young Nicaraguans who are supporters of the Sandinistas, breaking down the coup, talking about US meddling. It's called 'Redvolution' and their videos would just get taken down again, and again, and again, without any explanation. It really does seem to me that there is a disproportionate attempt at suppressing left-wing media on Facebook.

These are only a few examples of what is about to come.

The establishment machine immediately spread the news loudly about the Infowars banning, in order to persuade the public that it makes no exceptions, and therefore, to highlight both the alt-right and the leftist independent media as 'fake news'. Yet, the machine boosted Alex Jones' popularity at the same time it has started a covert censorship operation against the leftist independent media, which are less known to the public. This clearly shows who are the establishment's secret collaborators and who the establishment considers to be the real threat.