This is just an excerpt from The Ezra Levant Show. To see new, ad-free episodes, which air Monday – Friday @ 8 p.m. ET | 6 p.m. MT, become a subscriber to RebelNews+. This episode originally aired on February 9, 2024.
On last Friday’s episode of The Ezra Levant Show, Ezra was joined by Allum Bokhari, Managing Director of Foundation for Freedom Online, to discuss the rise of censorship in the media industry.
Allum’s new report, “Protection Racket: Why The Censorship Industry Needs to Bail Out The Media,” argues that the online censorship industry is rigging the distribution of information in favour of the mainstream media. “In this particular report, we’re sort of looking at the other side of the coin to censorship. Censohrsip is the suppression of disfavoured speech, speech the establishment doesn’t want to be out there. But the other side of that is the artificial promotion of the establishment’s speech and narratives that they do like,” Album said.
Ezra and Allum discussed different routes that lobbyists and interest groups have tried to enshrine government sponsorship of the media, something that is already well underway in Canada. Though the American government is far less interventionist when it comes to the free press, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) is one such proposal that Allum fears would create a permanent legal cartel of media outlets.
“Of course, the media writes its own rules as to who is and isn’t allowed in the cartel,” Allum added.
