Why the war on misinformation is backfiring on the media
The media screams “misinformation” to silence dissent. But the harder they push, the more people wake up and turn to the voices that same media fears.
For years, the mainstream media and its institutional backers weaponized a single word like a blunt instrument: misinformation.
They sling it at anything that challenges their grip on the narrative, from dissenting doctors and journalists to podcasters and Substack writers. One day it’s COVID lab leak theories, the next it’s skepticism about Ukraine, digital ID rollouts, or climate lockdowns.
But here’s the thing: If what these so-called “misinformation” outlets say is so obviously false, why do they keep growing? Why do platforms like The Corbett Report, despite being blacklisted, censored, and algorithmically buried, still have a loyal, expanding audience?
Because suppression doesn’t kill truth. It amplifies it.
Censorship doesn’t build confidence
You don’t silence something unless you fear it.
Think about it. If the legacy press, Big Tech, and federal mouthpieces actually believed in the strength of their narrative, they’d welcome open debate. They’d obliterate dissent with evidence, logic, and transparency.
But they don’t. Instead, they suppress, demonize, and label dissenting viewpoints.
Why?
Because their narrative can’t hold up to scrutiny. Not anymore, anyway, after decades of regurgitating provable lies, manufactured consent, and coordinated gaslighting.
And the moment the public starts catching on, they default to panic mode: “MISINFORMATION!”
Banning brews curiosity, and curiosity brews loyalty
When the system slaps a warning label on something or deplatforms a creator, they’re not scaring people away. They’re drawing attention to it.
The Streisand Effect is real. Tell people, “Don’t watch this,” and it becomes the thing to watch.
That’s how audiences find The Corbett Report, Tom Woods, Jordan Peterson, James Lindsay, Jimmy Dore, and countless others. They’re just the people asking the questions the media won’t touch, and documenting their work with real citations.
Alt media’s track record has crushed the mainstream’s
Let’s not pretend legacy media still holds any moral authority.
These are the same institutions that:
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Swore Iraq had weapons of mass destruction
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Covered for the CIA’s torture program
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Echoed false narratives about Libya, Syria, Afghanistan
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Claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation”
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Blacked out the Epstein network
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Mocked and censored early warnings about COVID’s lab origin
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Laughed off vaccine injury concerns until they couldn’t anymore
Alt media platforms, often smeared as ‘conspiratorial,’ outperformed legacy outlets on key issues. While they don’t always get everything right (nobody can), their track record speaks volumes.
People remember that.
The establishment only cares about monopoly
The war on misinformation’s about preserving monopoly power over information, not protecting facts.
Massive corporations own the mainstream media, and they include defense contractors, banks, and big pharma conglomerates. And would you have it? They want compliance, consensus, and uniformity, all while keeping the public pacified.
Alternative voices threaten that, so the media’s solution is demonization, so they don’t need to engage in a debate they know they’ll lose.
That’s why you see coordinated censorship campaigns, like fact-checking arms with elite foundations (Poynter Institute, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) funding them, and sudden “independent content monitors” pretending to arbitrate truth.
That’s narrative management disguised as journalism.
But the backlash has already brewed
There’s a reason mainstream outlets are hemorrhaging trust and viewers.
When people notice that the corporate press and federal agencies sound like one unified voice while trying to silence and/or erase dissenters, they start wondering if the misinformation label is just code for, “This challenges power.”
That suspicion grows with every banned tweet, censored video, and blacklisted domain. And eventually, people go looking for the truth themselves. They stumble onto Substacks, Rumble channels, and archives of people like Corbett.
And they don’t find craziness. Instead, they get well-researched critiques, primary documents, and dots that connect.
The genie doesn’t go back in the bottle.
They may’ve already lost control
Censorship is no longer a sign of strength if it ever was. It’s a desperate attempt to plug a sinking ship.
Calling everything misinformation doesn’t work like it used to. People have already woken up, and platforms like The Corbett Report aren’t going away.
They’re growing because the establishment can’t control them, and because more people are realizing that what they were told to ignore might be exactly what they needed to hear.
Let them scream misinformation, because every time they do, they expose themselves. And every time they silence a voice, a thousand others rise up in its place.
Know who else the establishment tried silencing in my own work? Ella Kinnunen, our brave protagonist in Deceived Mage. Ella overhears a conspiracy to destroy a city she’d spent her entire childhood and teenage years admiring.
And when the establishment, led by her father, of all people, catches on, Ella becomes their No. 1 enemy. But she ain’t going down without a fight.
