Who Built the Modern Censorship Ecosystem

In this episode of The Winston Marshall Show, I sit down with Mike Benz, former State Department official and leading critic of the Censorship Industrial Complex, to expose how governments and NGOs are working hand-in-glove with Big Tech to police free speech across the West.

Mike explains how the EU’s Digital Services Act and Britain’s Online Safety Act are being used to impose AI-driven censorship, threatening not only European citizens but also Americans posting from within the US. We explore how these laws function as a “digital censorship regime,” backed by crippling fines and international coordination.

From USAID funding NGOs to shut down cross-border political movements, to the Hate Lab in Cardiff feeding real-time speech data to UK police, Benz reveals how censorship has become industrialised — and how Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter briefly broke the system.

We also discuss the Biden administration’s role, the UK’s crackdown on comedians and dissidents, and the disturbing reality of AI censorship ‘Death Stars’ designed to silence debate on elections, COVID, climate, and more.

A deep dive into the machinery of modern censorship — and what it means for the future of free speech in the West.

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Chapters

00:00 Introduction

01:32 What Is the Censorship Industrial Complex?

06:10 How the Government Outsources Censorship to NGOs

11:45 The EU’s Role in Exporting Censorship to the US

17:30 AI-Powered Censorship & The Death of Free Speech

22:05 Twitter Files & the Exposure of Government Pressure

28:40 How “Trust & Safety” Became a Weapon

35:15 The Role of the National Security State

41:10 Elon Musk vs The Censorship Machine

47:35 How the Online Safety Bill Extends UK Censorship

53:20 The Global Coordination of Digital Repression

1:00:45 How NGOs Control the Narrative Across Borders

1:07:12 Mike Benz’s Plan to Dismantle the Censorship Network

1:12:40 Final Thoughts & A Warning for the West

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