New Media's Top 10 Independent Voices: No. 8 — Mike Benz

Whistleblower unmasking the censorship industry, one story at a time.

Dec 14, 2024

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“The censorship industry is this whole-of-society framework that our government uses for its counter-misinformation work, which ties together four different stakeholder institutions: government agencies, private sector companies, civil society institutions, and media institutions.”
— Mike Benz

ONE of the advantages of individuals of good conscience defecting from government agencies is the rare glimpse they offer into an establishment that thrives on confidentiality and secrecy to conduct unchecked, hegemonic operations worldwide. Without such fearless whistleblowers, much of what we know about how our government operates would remain hidden in the shadows. Figures like Edward Snowden and Daniel Ellsberg risked everything—including their own lives—to reveal the NSA’s global surveillance programs and the Pentagon’s secret actions during the Vietnam War, respectively.

Since 2016, Mike Benz has followed in the tradition of courageous Americans who risk a lot to bring high-level government disclosures to light. Unlike most whistleblowers, who typically release troves of documents to independent journalists or mainstream outlets, Benz has adopted a methodical, investigative approach. Through careful dissection and play-by-play analysis of internal government records, documents, calls, conferences, and more—all hidden in plain sight—he has been steadily exposing the intricate and sprawling system known as the Censorship Industrial Complex—a behemoth born from the shift toward waging war through information via media rather than military might.

A former corporate lawyer turned White House speechwriter for President Trump and later a State Department official, Mike Benz now serves as the Executive Director of the Foundation for Freedom Online. His work focuses on international communications, digital freedoms, and civil liberties. Active since the early emergence of today’s censorship industry, Benz has been a vocal advocate, warning about its far-reaching implications and engaging both policymakers and the public on issues surrounding digital governance, censorship, and technology.

Mike Benz developed his methodical, investigative approach to expose the intricate and rapidly growing censorship industry—a web of collaboration between government agencies, private corporations, civil society groups, news media, and fact-checking organizations. His goal is to unravel these connections while making the information accessible to the public. This method is reflected in his layered Twitter/𝕏 threads, his signature “walk and talk” video series, in-depth interviews and analyses on Rumble and YouTube, and his forthcoming book, tentatively titled Weapons of Mass Deletion—a project he humorously describes as an “unpublishable monstrosity.” Through these efforts, Benz is managing to simplify complex narratives while educating audiences about the deceptive framing tactics of the institutions driving the push for online censorship.

Few people are as deeply entrenched in the labyrinth of internet censorship as Mike Benz—a commitment that has earned him both recognition and sharp criticism, including hit pieces from mainstream outlets like NBC News. Behind the scenes of the groundbreaking Twitter Files, Benz served as a key resource for journalist Michael Shellenberger, one of the reporters selected by Elon Musk to help rebuild trust in Twitter by exposing its government-linked censorship framework. “He’s super deep into this stuff,” Shellenberger noted during a 2023 appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience. “He has been documenting this more than anybody. He’s just really in the weeds, like it’s really detailed. It was hard to understand, you have to really go through it to unpack it. I used a bunch of [his findings] in my testimony. I talked to him. I interviewed him a lot.”

In a hit piece on Benz, NBC News reporter Brandy Zadrozny dismisses his organization’s investigative efforts as mere “grand conspiracies”—a predictable smear that underscores just how disruptive Benz’s meticulous work is to the government agencies in his crosshairs:

Benz and his organization were also cited in reports and witness testimony from the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, led by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, as well as the Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs. Benz also amplified the “Twitter Files,” documents released by Musk that revealed internal debates about content moderation and communications with outside organizations, governments, journalists and researchers. For months, in videos and threads posted to Twitter, Benz has framed those internal debates as grand conspiracies and maligned the academic researchers and institutions involved as government spies and plants.

On any given day, from his Twitter/𝕏 platform, he is committed to uncovering every layer of the sprawling censorship industry—from “fact-checking” entities like Newsguard and the Global Disinformation Index to NATO’s involvement and the cartel-like systems regulating news. He delves into initiatives such as the Transition Integrity Project and the strategic use of capacity-building methods designed to suppress alternative, populist voices online, leaving no stone unturned in his pursuit of transparency and digital liberties.

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¹ Twitter/𝕏 — Free and subscription-based daily deep-dives and explainers on the censorship industry.