Was Going Independent Worth It?

A Giving Tuesday appeal for phase two of this project

When I published the Trump campaign’s J.D. Vance dossier in September, my first thought was, Wow, this is what independent journalism is all about: the freedom to publish what corporate outlets won’t. I would soon realize that that freedom isn’t absolute.

Retribution was swift. The FBI made a threatening visit to my home. X (née Twitter) suspended my account and froze any others linking to the story. Meta’s Facebook and Threads blocked links and later notified every user who had ever posted any links to my newsletter that it violated their “community standards.” Even Google Drive banned users from storing the dossier on the service. 

Major media outlets from The New York Times to Politico refused to publish the obviously newsworthy story. If a story about a vice presidential candidate’s political liabilities isn’t news, what is? 

While Elon Musk himself was denouncing me as “evil,” my immediate concern was survival. I was now independent, but clearly I was also hostage to private companies working with the federal government to enforce conformity and only accept officially sanctioned news. How could I get my story out to the public if Silicon Valley and the federal government were working hand in glove to create a social media no-fly zone? 

The answer was you, the public. 

The Streisand effect kicked in, that is, where people were intrigued to see the forbidden dossier. The ban became a boost, and the story was discussed and debated online. Thousands protested. Some users found clever ways around the blackout, like by changing their usernames to things like “Visit kenklippenstein.com to read the Vance Dossier” (lol). X backed down and reinstated my account.

People’s outrage over the blatant act of censorship was heartening and, I imagine, the reason X lifted my suspension. But if I’m honest, hardly anyone would have cared had my article not been about a Vice Presidential candidate just weeks before the election.

Just look at other orgs that publish things the national security state doesn’t approve of, like the nonprofit whistleblower site DDoSecrets, which also had their social media accounts suspended. But lacking the same pitchforks-and-torches public outcry that helped me, their suspensions were never lifted.

The lesson is clear: when you come at the king, expect his entire court to come after you. Zuckerberg, Musk, whoever Google’s CEO is (someone named Sundar Pichai apparently) — they may not be the government, but they act like it. The Trump campaign, as the New York Times later revealed, “connected with X to prevent the circulation of links to the material [my story] on the platform …” 

Facebook, I later learned, had issued its blanket ban on the advice of the FBI. Meta had established a “kill switch” to automatically take down content deemed by the Bureau to be part of a foreign influence campaign. The FBI conveyed warnings to major media platforms like Reuters, all of whom declined to publish the dossier, a phenomenon that they continue today even as J.D. Vance is the Vice President-elect.

Reflecting on my FBI visit, a passage in a favorite novel came to mind: “Whom the gods notice, they destroy. Be small … and you will escape the jealousy of the great.” 

For the first time I could remember, I even felt empathy for corporate media. I understood why those guys don’t take chances, why they choose to be small.

But what the country needs is something big — big enough to stand up to the leviathan that keeps not just the Vance dossier but countless other stories from reaching the public. That’s why I’m embarking on phase two of this project: a digital war room to keep you informed of what the leviathan is up to in near real time and between newsletter articles (which I’ll continue doing). Think of it as the White House situation room but for the public.

Being blacklisted by platforms like X was a sobering reminder of just how reliant I am on social media. I want to build a digital fortress and declare independence from the whims of mercurial social media billionaires. The plan is to create a self-hosted, self-sufficient news bunker fortified against the external pressures and perverse incentives of social media that are a big reason so much of the news sucks.

I never wanted to start a news website. Hosting costs, maintenance, design — it all just seemed so expensive.

That’s why today, on Giving Tuesday, I’m asking that you become a paid subscriber (or if you prefer a one-time contribution, visit our GoFundMe). In exchange, you’ll be supporting the Substack newsletter we’ve been doing but you’ll also get a stand alone news website that will keep you up on the national security state, that will directly challenge the control of the social media empire and the government’s heavy hand.

There are all sorts of stories — literally dozens each week — that I’m not sending you because they just don’t lend themselves to a full-length newsletter article. In many cases, they’re too short. Also, I just don’t want to blow up people’s emails. 

So was going independent worth it? That’s the wrong question. Like I said before, freedom isn’t absolute: it’s a constant struggle of becoming more free. Please support that struggle by becoming a paid subscriber. If just five percent of the people who subscribe to this newsletter became paid subscribers, we would reach our budget goal this year. We can do this!

— Ken 

GoFundMe link

— Edited by William M. Arkin