STFU: Censorship Is Go! | DMZ America Podcast | Ep 254

Everywhere you look, people are getting told to STFU by censors afraid that truth-tellers might expose or offend them. At Stars and Stripes, the Pentagon has fired editor Erik Slavin, publisher Max Lederer and Middle East reporter Lara Korte have been fired by the Pentagon. Not for anything they actually published or wanted to publish. Slavin told an interviewer he would fight “hypothetical censorship.” The DOD called that theoretical stance “insubordination.” A song by Elizaveta Gyrdymova has been purged from the Russian version of “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” because she’s a Russian who fled to Ukraine and criticizes Russia. Not to be outdone, Ukraine also purged the song—because she’s Russian. Zelensky has officially sanctioned the popular Russian cartoon ‘Masha and the Bear’ in a step to ban the children’s show, accusing the producers of spreading “pro-Russian narratives” and threatening Ukrainian national security. If your censorship victim dies, however, you might face blowback. Neutrogena broke its silence following the death of Hayden Panettiere and mounting backlash over the skincare brand's treatment of the actress, acknowledging that it made her "feel unsupported during a very difficult time." They fired her for talking about postpartum depression. Editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) ask the question: Why don’t we censor the censors?