WordPress purges Michael Roberts’s blog

Below is the English translation of the editor’s note accompanying the Turkish translation of Michael Roberts’s article, “Venezuela ve Petrol” [Venezuela and Oil].

This article is a Turkish translation of economist Michael Roberts’s piece entitled Venezuela and Oil. Last night (6 January 2026), after completing the translation, I visited Roberts’s blog this morning with the intention of publishing the article in full -including the tables and charts from the original- and providing a link to the English version. What I encountered, however, was shocking: the blog had been taken down by WordPress.

For this reason, I am unable to include in this translation the tables and charts contained in the original article; nor can I provide a direct link to the English version. This is not the result of a technical malfunction, but a clear and unequivocal act of censorship.

What has taken place here is profoundly serious. Michael Roberts is a widely respected Marxist economist of international standing who, for many years, has analysed the crises of global capitalism, imperialist policies and class contradictions from a data-driven, consistent and critical perspective. For the blog of such a figure to be taken down by a vast digital platform without any transparent justification constitutes a direct assault on freedom of expression. This is not the free circulation of ideas, but the exposure of a digital order in which platform owners determine which ideas are allowed to circulate.

What is more ironic still is this: platforms that loudly proclaim their commitment to “freedom of expression”, the “open society” and “pluralism” on a global scale show no hesitation whatsoever in resorting to censorship when confronted with analyses that criticise imperialism or question the capitalist order. This practice once again demonstrates that claims of neutrality are nothing more than a fable, and that the digital sphere is, in reality, policed through an ideological filter.