The Illusion of Free Speech

I didn’t set out to create a publishing platform.

I just wanted to write — to speak plainly about what I saw, what I knew, and what I felt needed saying. But that became impossible. The moment I veered from the accepted mainstream narrative, I was deboosted, shadow banned — and in some cases, eventually banned altogether.

My Substack account was recently suspended after I published a piece about Gaza. It wasn’t an opinion piece. It was factual. Meticulously sourced. But none of that mattered. Facts that make people uncomfortable aren’t protected. If you challenge the wrong story, you disappear.

I’ve seen it happen repeatedly — not just with that piece, not just on Substack. On X and Twitter, I’ve run multiple accounts, and I can say with certainty: shadow banning is real. Deboosting is real. Suppression is real. I know, because I’ve tested it — again and again. And the results are always the same.

I don’t attack people. I don’t scream into the void. I simply post facts. I counter narratives with data. I question the story we’re all expected to repeat. And for that, I’m silenced.

Even under Elon Musk, it hasn’t changed. My accounts are buried. The algorithm works against me. And if a post does break through, it’s immediately swarmed by a brigade of self-righteous outrage — not with evidence, but with condescension. A wall of noise designed to drown me out.

That’s the part that’s hardest to explain. It’s not just about numbers or visibility. It’s about the feeling.

The feeling that you have something to say — and you're not allowed to say it.
The feeling of duct tape on your mouth, while you're forced to sit in the corner and watch the rest of the world promote false narratives with uneducated opinions.
The feeling of being erased for knowing too much — or daring to say it out loud.

And I know I’m not the only one.

I’ve spoken to others. Writers. Thinkers. Everyday people who hit “post” and watch their content quietly vanish. No one tells them why. No rule is cited. No appeal is heard. They’re just... gone. Invisible. Because they said something true that someone didn’t want repeated.

This Isn’t Paranoia — It’s Documented

For years, anyone who said this out loud was dismissed as a conspiracy theorist. Now, we know better. We have the receipts.

The Twitter Files, released in late 2022 by journalists like Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger, revealed what many of us had long suspected: the federal government was actively working with social media companies to suppress speech. Not just “misinformation” — but inconvenient facts, opposing opinions, even jokes.

The FBI flagged accounts. The DHS sent takedown requests. The White House asked platforms to censor critics and reduce the visibility of people they disagreed with. And the platforms complied.

This wasn’t just about COVID or election denial. It extended to topics like:

• The origins of COVID-19
• Vaccine mandates and side effects
• The Hunter Biden laptop
• Gaza and Israel
• Immigration and crime
• Gender ideology in schools

In one case, the Biden administration asked Facebook to remove a meme. In another, a senior Twitter executive approved visibility filtering of a Stanford doctor who criticized lockdowns — a credentialed expert with real data, made digitally invisible because he contradicted the narrative.

Then came Missouri v. Biden, a lawsuit brought by state attorneys general alleging unconstitutional collusion between the government and Big Tech. A federal judge called it “arguably the most massive attack on free speech in United States history.”

I wasn't alone in my experience. It was protocol.

How They Silence You Without Saying a Word

Censorship today rarely looks like deletion. That would be too obvious. Instead, they’ve mastered something more insidious: the illusion of freedom.

They let you post. They let you publish. But they make sure almost no one sees it.

This is how it works:

• Shadow banning: Your content exists, but it’s hidden from feeds.
• Deboosting: You’re penalized by the algorithm and can't be discovered organically.
• Search invisibility: People have to type your name letter-for-letter just to find you.
• Reply suppression: Your comments are buried or invisible to others.
• Engagement throttling: Likes, shares, and follows don’t behave normally — or stop entirely.

No notification. No warning. You just start to feel like you’re being quietly erased.

And it’s not limited to social platforms. Email services filter your newsletter into spam. Payment processors shut down your store. Ad networks blacklist your books. All without clear justification. All in the name of “safety” or “community standards” — terms so vague they can be used against anyone.

The Psychological Toll

This doesn’t just inconvenience people. It changes them.

Censorship creates:

• Self-doubt — You start second-guessing what you’re saying and why no one seems to hear it.
• Frustration — You wonder if your reach is being limited, or if you’re just being ignored.
• Exhaustion — You spend more time trying to be seen than actually creating.
• Isolation — You feel like you're one of the few willing to say what others are afraid to.

And when the world is flooded with false narratives, uninformed opinions and consensus theater, while your voice — careful, sourced, honest — is sidelined, it doesn’t just feel unfair. It feels like warping reality.

You’re watching a scripted reality be built in real time, and you’re not allowed to interrupt.

So What Now?

I don’t have all the answers. But I know the first step is refusing to disappear.

That’s what led me here.
That’s what made me write two books.
That’s what built Blackout Editions.

Because if they won’t let us speak in their spaces, we’ll build our own — with and on the platforms that still allow it.

For now, that means Ghost. That means direct outreach. That means finding cracks in the wall before they close, too.

We’ll say what they silence.
We’ll platform the voices they’ve buried.
We’ll have the conversations they’re afraid the public might hear.
And we’ll do it without asking for permission.

If you’ve felt this too — the weight of silence, the frustration of being ignored, the sting of being silenced — this is your invitation.

Write.
Speak.
Push back.

You’re not crazy.
You’re not alone.

And if they try to bury you — make them hear you anyway.

Blackout Editions
No bios. No signatures. Just truth, in black and white.
blackouteditions.com

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