Homeland Security's backdoor social media censorship

The Department of Homeland Security has greatly expanded its efforts in recent years to control the flow of information across major social media platforms, documents obtained and published on Monday by Lee Fang and Ken Klippenstein of The Intercept reveal. Texts and emails show tech executives in regular communication with government agents about their efforts to battle "misinformation" related to topics ranging from the pandemic to U.S. elections to the war in Afghanistan. One document shows that Facebook even created a special portal for government agents to report problematic posts.

"Behind closed doors, and through pressure on private platforms, the U.S. government has used its power to try to shape online discourse," write Fang and Klippenstein.

Reason's Nick Gillespie, Robby Soave, and Zach Weissmueller on Thursday at 1 p.m. ET will discuss these revelations, what it means for free speech on the internet, and what steps might be taken to counter these attempts by the national security state to police American political discourse by exerting pressure out of the sight of the American people.