Episode #6: Monopolies and Censorship in Elections with Ken Klippenstein
A leak of Trump campaign communications led to a reporter's suspension from social media. This is the nexus of Big Tech, national security, and the Trump campaign.
Welcome to the podcast Organized Money. You can listen to today’s episode on tech platforms and censorship on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
We hear a lot about how Big Tech uses algorithms to serve up information. But on this episode, we have a story about how they also use their power to control what you can see and hear.
Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein wrote a story sharing a dossier about the pros and cons of selecting JD Vance as Donald Trump’s running mate, allegedly obtained in an Iranian hack of the Trump campaign. Almost immediately, X suspended his account and blocked links to his Substack. People that shared his post on X had their accounts suspended and were told to take down the post if they wanted their accounts reinstated. The dossier was even made impossible to share on Google Drive.
This all happened despite the fact that the Vance dossier was merely a compendium of publicly available information and links. No other news agency would touch it, claiming that there was no news value. What they may have feared was what happened to Klippenstein happening to them.
Eventually it came out that the Trump campaign asked Elon Musk, a major Trump donor and supporter and the richest man in the world, to censor the dossier. Musk dutifully did so. Only after the embarrassment of that revelation was Klippenstein’s X account restored. But even then, the FBI paid a visit to Ken.
This is a cautionary tale about how Big Tech uses its power to limit speech, and how that's not limited to going after one political party or persuasion.
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Thanks for listening, and let us know how we’re doing in the comments or by responding directly to this email.
-Matt and Dave
[photo via Gage Skidmore]
Finally listened to it. If you are "not rich, but doing well," you should pay your designers. Seems editor is getting paid. Insulting that he, like many others, assumes design work can be free. This episode was getting a thumbs up until I got to that... ugh. Really upsetting.
Something isn't right about this. Once you mentioned the FBI, you lost me.The FBI has not been, and is not now, a friend to Trump. That sentence about the FBI paying a visit implies that Trump and his team have control. Trump isn't the president yet and he definitely wasn't during the period of time that the FBI apparently "paid a visit". In fact, even when Trump was running for president and during his 2016 presidency, it became apparent that the FBI was working against him....do you think we have forgotten about Russia Russia Russia? I believed every bad thing i heard and read about Trump. There is good, substantive reason to believe that the FBI and the CIA are operating on their own terms and are in a world of their own, with a law of their own. Who do I believe? First, the 13 FBI agents who walked away and blew the FBI whistle and told us about the false evidence and malicious tactics to ruin a people...I wish more people would read about their testimonies. I believe the federal government whistle-blowers like the woman who just appeared before Congress with a panel of witnesses who testified on child trafficking and confirmed the 320,000 missing children as young as 3 months, along with facts to support that these children are sold for sex, labour, drug trafficking and organ and limb harvesting--which we were told for years was another "conspiracy theory" spread by tin-foil hat wearers. These witnesses also confirmed that the child trafficking escalated since 2021, that the federal government, cartels, sponsors/NGOs are involved and complicit; that the fed government has data on the sponsors and will do nothing. I believe the FBI whistle-blower who reported that there are about 14,000 agents and that if all they did was work on child trafficking/abuse, there would be plenty of work for them but there is very little interest and budget in having agents work on any of these case---but plenty of money set aside to set up hoaxes, chase after Americans who protested at January 6, lawfare, etc....yep plenty of budget and interest there. Why isnt the FBI visiting these people? I also believe the FBI agent who appeared recently before congress and used his 90 seconds to tell Americans that the FBI is out of control and "will not be reined in" and gave Americans advice for whatis to come. You see, when you mention FBI, I ask, who are they really serving, who is in control of them-- and when you get that answer, then we will know who the problem is with when they go visiting.