The Aaron Renn Show The 100-Year Rise of the Information Control State | Jacob Siegel
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Jun 8, 2026 
Jacob Siegel, journalist and author of The Information State, sketches a century-long rise of information control. He traces how progressive-era expert rule morphed into today’s censorship-industrial complex. The conversation covers the Hunter Biden laptop suppression, algorithmic censorship like Hamilton 68, and proposals such as geofencing and rebuilding professional journalism.
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Disinformation Replaced Fake News As A Technical Diagnosis
- Disinformation became the all-purpose explanation for political change after mid-2016, replacing 'fake news' with a more technical-sounding diagnosis.
- Jacob Siegel links this surge to his Army intelligence experience and a broader historical turn toward managing information.
MDM Framework Prioritizes Harm Over Truth
- Misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation (MDM) shift the key criterion from truth to whether information causes harm.
- The Harvard paper and CISA adopt 'harm'—a subjective, therapeutic concept—as the operative standard.
Hamilton 68 Mistook Americans For Russian Influence
- Hamilton 68 was celebrated as exposing Russian influence but Twitter Files showed it mislabeled American actors as Russian and drove censorship.
- That misattribution triggered backend algorithm management that suppressed broad swaths of constitutionally protected speech.
