Episode 5: Navigating the Complex World of Digital Rights and Censorship: An Interview with Andrew Lowenthal

This week in the pod I interview Andrew Lowenthal, all round expert on the censorship industrial complex and whip smart digital rights activist come COVID contrarian. In this conversation, Andrew and I discuss his background in digital rights and activism, his work with the Twitter Files, and the investigation into the misinformation and disinformation industry. He shares insights from his time working with NGOs in Southeast Asia, highlighting the evolving challenges in the field of digital liberties. He reflects on the shifts in progressive politics, the impact of government and corporate control over information, and the broader implications for freedom of speech. The conversation delves into how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced public discourse, government policies, and civil liberties. The episode also covers Andrew's current work, a project on U.S. government spending related to narrative control, and his upcoming book on the censorship industrial complex.

 

00:00 Introduction and Initial Greetings

01:08 Discussing Backgrounds and Personal Stories

02:39 Exploring Identity and Cultural Reflections

03:18 Controversial Topics and Social Issues

08:48 Professional Background and Digital Rights

13:35 Misinformation and Disinformation in Southeast Asia

19:13 Involvement with the Twitter Files

27:16 Censorship and Government Influence

31:54 Reflections on Liberal Democracy and Civil Liberties

46:09 Reflecting on Missed Opportunities

46:47 Isolation and Silencing of Dissent

47:35 Contradictions in the Rebel Community

48:22 The Role of Big Pharma and Trans Activism

48:47 Academic Perspectives on Power and Control

49:47 The Digital ID and Freedom Debate

50:30 Critique of Naomi Wolf and Public Perception

54:24 The Impact of COVID-19 Policies

01:01:27 Government and Big Tech Censorship

01:06:19 Database on Misinformation Funding

01:14:52 The Censorship Industrial Complex

01:17:32 Concluding Thoughts and Future Plans

 

Andrew’s bio

Andrew Lowenthal (Director) is a leader, writer and researcher. He worked closely with Matt Taibbi on the Twitter Files, breaking stories on the Virality Project, the Atlantic Council, and Australia’s censorship regime, and was the lead researcher and project manager for the Censorship Industrial Complex exposé. He also helped coordinate the Westminster Declaration.

He is the co-founder and former Executive Director of EngageMedia, an Asia-Pacific digital rights and open technology non-profit. He is a former fellow of Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, the Harvard Film Studies Center, and MIT’s Open Documentary Lab.

He writes on Substack at Network Affects and Racket.News, and tweets at @naffects.

 

References in the show

Andrew Lowenthal’s non-profit digital rights organisation – liber-net

Andrew’s forthcoming book - The Censorship-Industrial Complex, Skyhorse, 2025.

Andrew’s Substack – Network Affects - https://networkaffects.substack.com/

Liber-net’s searchable database of U.S. government grants awarded to fight ‘mis/disinformation’. Racket news reported on the database here.

 

Key articles and interviews

 

Twitter Files

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files

Twitter Files Substack - https://twitterfiles.substack.com/p/1-thread-the-twitter-files

Andrew Lowenthal, ‘Twitter Files Extra: The Covid Censorship Requests of Australia's Department of Home Affairs’, Racket news, May 24, 2023. 

Australian Government Department of Home Affairs. Countering Violent Extremism. 

Counter Extremism Project. Australia: Extremism and Terrorism. 

Matt Taibbi, ‘Australia's Creepy Covid Cops’, Racket news, May 24, 2023.

Matt Taibbi, ‘The Twitter Files: The Censorship Industrial Complex with Matt Taibbi’, William F. Buckley Institute, Yale University, April 23, 2023. 

Kenan Malik, ‘The Twitter Files should disturb liberal critics of Elon Musk – and here’s why’, The Guardian, January 1, 2023. 

John Storey, ‘Australia Censored Episode 3: Free Speech and Civil Liberties Online with Andrew Lowenthal’, Institute of Public Affairs, 23 February 2024. 

Patrick Hannaford, ‘“It was horrible”: Pregnant mother arrested during Covid reveals the ‘huge strain’ her two year legal battle had on her and her family’, Sky News, July 10, 2023. 

James Dowling, ‘AstraZeneca vaccine withdrawn after fatal blood clot revelation’, The Australian, May 8, 2024. 

Engage Media. The Pandemic of Control: Digital Authoritarianism and COVID-19 in the Asia-Pacific. 2021.

Mattias Desmet, The Psychology of Totalitarianism, Chelsea Green, 2022.

Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception, Routledge, 1994. Originally published in 1963

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951.

Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Pantheon Books, 1988

Toby Rogers, ‘There is no political left; what appears like leftism today is BlackRock, the WEF, & the CIA engaged in left cosplay’, UTobian, May 29, 2023. https://tobyrogers.substack.com/p/there-is-no-political-left-what-appears

Naomi Wolf, The Bodies of Others: The New Authoritarians, Covid-19 and the War Against the Human, Skyhorse Press, 2024.

C.J. Hopkins, Fear and Loathing in the New Normal Reich: Consent Factory Essays, Vol. IV (2022–2024), Skyhorse, 2025.

Giorgio Agamben, The State of Exception, University of Chicago Press, 2004.

Giorgio Agamben, Where are we Now? The Epidemic as Politics, Rowman & Littlefield, 2020.

Petra Bueskens, ‘The Paradigm Wars, Part-3: A Wrench in the Fabric of Reality: A New Paradigm’, UK Column, 26 June 2024. 

Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Knopf. 2007.

QALY – Quality Adjusted Life Year.

Matt Taibbi, ‘Big Brother is Flagging You’, Racket News, 10 November, 2023. 

Michael Shellenberger on X, ‘Victory! Stanford Shuts Down Censorship Operation’.

Julia Steinberg, ‘My First Job, at the Stanford Internet Observatory, The Free Press, 19 June, 2024. 

Atlantic Council. Digital Forensic Research Lab.

Martin Kulldorff interview, ‘Fired by Harvard for Getting Covid Right’. UnHerd, 15 March, 2024. 

 

Liber-net’s new database

Greg Collard, ‘Do Your Own Research: Liber-net's Misinfo Grant Database’, Racket news, May 6, 2025. 

Rebekah Barnett, ‘How the US Government funded narrative control operations around the globe’, Dystopian Downunder, April 17, 2025. 

SOMA: Disinformation Observatory.

Peraton - https://www.peraton.com/

Emilia Terson, ‘Victoria's coronavirus 'single-person bubble' begins — and it's complicated for some singles in lockdown’, ABC News, September 13, 2020. 

Gigi Foster with Sanjeev Sabhlok, Do Lockdowns and Border Closures Serve the “Greater Good”? Connor Court Publishing, 2022.

 

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