In a coordinated effort that began in April 2020, a coalition involving the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), NATO, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and other entities embarked on a mass censorship campaign across various social media platforms to censor any questioning the legitimacy of mail-in ballots.
Stanford University, The University of Washington, Graphika, and The Atlantic Council, all “Pentagon cutouts,” were identified as players in this initiative, indicating their operational ties to the Pentagon in executing the censorship campaign. These institutions pressured social media companies to adopt the new speech violation category “delegitimization,” covering any content challenging the legitimacy of mail-in voting, early voting dropboxes, or ballot tabulation on election day.
The pressure exerted on the tech companies went beyond advisory, as there was governmental force and consequences for non-compliance, as direct channels of communication were set up with tech company executives to expedite content takedown requests, causing countless posts, particularly those questioning the security of mail-in ballots, were either removed or restricted, amounting to potentially hundreds of millions of affected posts.
The censorship campaign began seven months before the election, driven by concerns over the perceived legitimacy of a potential victory for then-candidate Joe Biden in what was termed a ‘red mirage, blue shift event.’ The coalition strategists recognized that Biden’s path to victory relied heavily on Democrat use of mail-in ballots while fearing a scenario where initial results appeared to favor President Donald Trump, only to be reversed in favor of Biden as mail-in ballots got tallied in the days following the election.
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