The U.S. government funded various online censorship tools, some of which went missing after President Donald Trump took office. Others, however, are still operating today — potentially limiting what Americans see online, especially regarding health issues. […]
Studies show NewsGuard’s ratings are heavily skewed against anti-establishment media sources. Its advertiser exclusion lists include some of the most prominent destinations for non-mainstream news, including Newsmax, Breitbart News, The Federalist, and One America News. While conservative websites bear the brunt, left-wing websites with an anti-establishment, anti-war tendency, like Consortium News, have also found themselves on NewsGuard’s blacklists.
We’re up against a much actually deeper, darker problem with this USAID scandal,” Benz told Rogan. “And as people will see increasingly the, the scandals that will break open at the Pentagon and the State Department,“ which is that we have a Smith-Mundt problem for funding and operations, it’s not just propaganda.” […]
“The partnership between USAID and the Global Engagement Center is bad news for the American people. Add in the fact that they were coordinating with internet censorship enforcers at NewsGuard and Poynter, and you can start to see just how dangerous this unholy alliance is for free speech and free expression. Thankfully, the GEC is shuttered and USAID is being exposed — but lawmakers should take note of this example as they consider legislation to ensure the federal government actually serves American principles and interests,” said Andrew Block., America First Legal Senior Counsel […]
Perhaps Connor O’Keeffe of the Mises Institute said it best:
Voice of America absolutely should go away. Employees and supporters of VOA like to describe the outlet’s purpose as providing “objective” and “balanced” reporting on current events. But dig a little deeper and you’ll find out that what VOA staffers are really passionate about is “promoting democracy” abroad and helping in a global fight against authoritarianism. … It’s a propaganda outlet that we’re all forced to fund. It is one part of the broader regime change apparatus that got a lot of exposure earlier in the year with the gutting of USAID. Funding foreign propaganda campaigns is not our responsibility. Your average American family does not have a moral obligation to send part of their paycheck to try and turn people in Belarus against their government. […]
The VOA, an arm of the government, was promoting Russiagate and unsubtly nudging voters to turn against Trump during three presidential elections in violation of its charter and mission. And the man behind some of these articles had been recruited by a related arm of the government back in the 1980s during his days as a Jihadist to engage in a war of propaganda. Now that propaganda was being aimed within the United States against the president.
And it’s still going on.
A propaganda machine once aimed at America’s enemies is now run by our enemies and aimed at us. The story of Masood Farivar shows why the Voice of America needs urgent reform. […]
Federal law requires applicants with excessive foreign ownership to file a petition for declaratory ruling at the same time that they seek FCC approval for the relevant license transfers, they must then complete that process before the FCC can approve the assignment of licenses, and that process must enable Executive Branch agencies with national security and specific policy expertise to weigh in.
Carr continued, “Did they obtain approval from the FCC for their excessive foreign ownership? No, they did not. Did the Applicants afford the Executive Branch agencies with national security and relevant policy expertise an opportunity to consider their application as well as the source and amount of foreign investment? No, they did not. […]
While this may appear benign, it is a shocking admission — the government sponsored a massive network of fake social media accounts that it could manipulate, capable of capturing users’ data.
“This DARPA contract involved the development and deployment of technology to create and manage fake social media accounts at scale,” The Federalist’s CEO Sean Davis posted on X. “This is far more insidious than a simple government payment to a news agency.” […]
Since we live in a time now dominated by those who seek to manipulate reality and to control thought and speech, it is useful to consider the incredible ease with which human perception of the empirical world can be molded to fit a certain politically acceptable point of view[12] which people today are increasingly compelled to adopt. […]
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