Government censorship unit sees 95% fall in ‘flagged’ online content

Is the tide turning against the censorship-industrial complex? Just weeks after the UK Government confirmed it would no longer fund the Global Disinformation Index, which blacklisted UnHerd, there is fresh evidence that the censorship machine is breaking down.

According to new FOI data, the Government’s secretive Counter-Disinformation Unit (CDU) has drastically reduced its “flagging” of online speech to social media companies by 95%. In 2020 the number of “flags” was 779, meaning that at least three cases of online speech per working day were reported by this government unit to social media companies for removal. But over the next three years, this number fell from 785 in 2021 to just 35 pieces of content were flagged after Big Brother Watch (BBW) launched an investigation into the practice.