How the “censorship-industrial complex” is changing the Internet and US policy

“审查-工业复合体”如何改变互联网与美国政策

I first heard the term “censorship-industrial complex” on April 15, 2025. That’s when I got the tip that a small office in the U.S. State Department, which focused on monitoring and countering foreign disinformation from the likes of Russia, Iran, and China, was facing imminent shutdown—the next day. 我第一次听到“审查-工业复合体”（censorship-industrial complex）这个词是在2025年4月15日。当时我收到消息称，美国国务院内一个专注于监测和反击来自俄罗斯、伊朗和中国等国虚假信息的办公室，即将面临关闭——就在第二天。

And the reason? R/FIMI, as the office was called, was accused of serving as the State Department’s central hub in the so-called censorship-industrial complex—a sprawling constellation of government agencies, academics, civil society groups, and Big Tech platforms allegedly conspiring to suppress conservative and populist speech online under the guise of combating disinformation. 原因何在？这个被称为R/FIMI的办公室被指控为所谓的“审查-工业复合体”的国务院核心枢纽。该复合体被认为是一个由政府机构、学术界、民间社会团体和大型科技平台组成的庞大网络，被指控打着打击虚假信息的幌子，合谋压制网上的保守派和民粹主义言论。

I broke the story around 10:30AM on April 16, (and broke more in the weeks that followed) but for me, it was just the start of a deep reporting rabbit-hole into an idea that had moved from the fringes of the right-wing Internet into the mainstream, championed and spread by a network of well-funded conservative media platforms and non-profits, and finally as a sort of prevailing logic behind much of the second Trump administration’s domestic and foreign policy. 我在4月16日上午10:30左右发布了这篇报道（并在随后的几周里又发布了更多相关报道），但对我而言，这仅仅是深入挖掘这一概念的开始。这一概念已从右翼互联网的边缘走向主流，受到资金雄厚的保守派媒体平台和非营利组织网络的支持与传播，并最终成为特朗普第二任期内许多国内和外交政策背后的某种主流逻辑。

But this isn’t just a policy story. The weaponization of ideas about censorship also affects the billions of people globally who get information, or interact with each other, online—which is to say, all of us. For more on what the narrative means for the Internet, read my story here. 但这不仅仅是一个政策故事。关于审查制度观念的武器化，也影响着全球数十亿在网上获取信息或进行互动的人——也就是说，影响着我们所有人。欲了解这一叙事对互联网意味着什么，请点击此处阅读我的报道。