The Pentagon Is Running a Coordinated Censorship Operation Around the Iran War

The American and Israeli bombing of Iran began on February 28, and within hours, the Pentagon was already more concerned with managing the language around it than with anything else. Quietly, without announcement, it issued guidance to private satellite companies telling them what words to use and, more importantly, what words to avoid.

Of course, that guidance didn't stay hidden for too long. A leaked Space Force document, published by journalist Ken Klippenstein on March 24, 2026, shows the U.S. military instructing satellite companies to avoid phrases like "Target destroyed" and "Strike successfully destroyed the facility," with approved language like "Imagery shows the structure largely collapsed" offered in their place. But the satellite script is just one piece of a much larger operation.

The Satellite Script Nobody Was Supposed to See

About 100 American companies are licensed to operate their own reconnaissance satellites, a $6–7 billion per year industry. The "big four" (Maxar Intelligence, Planet Labs, BlackSky Technology, and Spire Global) operate roughly 350 satellites whose data informs journalists, academics, and think tanks.

The guidance is framed as advisory, but companies comply because their revenue depends almost entirely on government contracts, and, naturally, after a public standoff with Anthropic over AI for autonomous weapons, nobody in the industry wants to put up a fight.

Planet Labs has already blocked public access to imagery of the entire Iran war theater, first imposing a 96-hour delay on February 28, then extending it to a 14-day blackout by March 10, claiming the decision was its own. A source quoted in Klippenstein's report was blunter, saying the goal is to "make things seem less bad than they are." This is what happens when the Pentagon's relationship with private tech runs entirely on contract dependency.

The Pentagon's Press Corps Is Now a Fan Club

In October 2025, the Pentagon required journalists to sign an acknowledgment before keeping their press passes. At least 30 news organizations refused, including The New York Times, which sued the Pentagon and Secretary Pete Hegseth in December 2025. On March 20, 2026, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman ruled the policy unconstitutional under both the First and Fifth Amendments, finding it designed to "weed out disfavored journalists" and replace them with those "on board and willing to serve" the administration. He ordered the reinstatement of The Times' seven reporters.

The Pentagon replaced them with Laura Loomer, Mike Lindell, Matt Gaetz, and James O'Keefe, who had pleaded guilty to federal charges involving trespassing and deceit, making them presumptively ineligible under the policy's own terms. Yet, the Pentagon credentialed them anyway, while Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson praised the new corps for being "on board and willing to serve our commander in chief."

Voice of America Becomes the War's PR Arm

On March 23, 2026, four VOA journalists and three press freedom organizations filed a federal lawsuit against Kari Lake and USAGM acting CEO Michael Rigas. The complaint alleges that VOA's Persian service censored coverage of anti-regime protests across Iran in January, blocking interviews, footage, and stories about opposition figures, while staff were told in in-person meetings that loyalty to the administration means keeping their jobs.

Lake appeared in a five-minute VOA segment praising Trump, and the Persian service aired an hour-long retrospective on his first year back in office with full anchor praise from the outlet that for decades broadcast independent journalism into authoritarian countries.

Trump had already slashed VOA's 49 language services down to six following a March 2025 executive order, and courts ordered full staff reinstatement. This lawsuit targets the content itself, arguing VOA's editorial independence is protected by statute and that converting it into a partisan outlet is illegal.

Three Fronts, One Playbook

Satellite language, press corps composition, and state broadcaster content. Each could be explained away in isolation as a security concern or an editorial disagreement. Together, they describe a government systematically controlling every layer through which the public receives information about a war it's paying for, including the researchers who study that access, while two federal judges have ruled against them in recent days.

I won't pretend there's a gray area here, because there isn’t. When a government scripts satellite imagery language, installs loyalists in the press room, and converts its state broadcaster into a propaganda outlet, all in the same month, that's information warfare directed at the American public. Anyone calling it anything softer is just choosing not to say it plainly. But regardless of what you call it, the situation is incredibly dire.