Truth Cops: Leaked Documents Outline DHS Plan To Police Disinformation (1 Viewer)

[SaintForLife]

THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY is quietly broadening its efforts to curb speech it considers dangerous, an investigation by The Intercept has found. Years of internal DHS memos, emails, and documents — obtained via leaks and an ongoing lawsuit, as well as public documents — illustrate an expansive effort by the agency to influence tech platforms.

The work, much of which remains unknown to the American public, came into clearer view earlier this year when DHS announced a new “Disinformation Governance Board”: a panel designed to police misinformation (false information spread unintentionally), disinformation (false information spread intentionally), and malinformation (factual information shared, typically out of context, with harmful intent) that allegedly threatens U.S. interests. While the board was widely ridiculed, immediately scaled back, and then shut down within a few months, other initiatives are underway as DHS pivots to monitoring social media now that its original mandate — the war on terror — has been wound down.

Behind closed doors, and through pressure on private platforms, the U.S. government has used its power to try to shape online discourse. According to meeting minutes and other records appended to a lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is also running for Senate, discussions have ranged from the scale and scope of government intervention in online discourse to the mechanics of streamlining takedown requests for false or intentionally misleading information.

“Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov’t. It’s really interesting how hesitant they remain,” Microsoft executive Matt Masterson, a former DHS official, texted Jen Easterly, a DHS director, in February.

In a March meeting, Laura Dehmlow, an FBI official, warned that the threat of subversive information on social media could undermine support for the U.S. government. Dehmlow, according to notes of the discussion attended by senior executives from Twitter and JPMorgan Chase, stressed that “we need a media infrastructure that is held accountable.”

Key Takeaways

• Though DHS shuttered its controversial Disinformation Governance Board, a strategic document reveals the underlying work is ongoing.
• DHS plans to target inaccurate information on “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.”
• Facebook created a special portal for DHS and government partners to report disinformation directly.

-The work is primarily done by CISA, a DHS sub-agency tasked with protecting critical national infrastructure.

-DHS, the FBI, and several media entities are having biweekly meetings as recently as August.
DHS considered countering disinformation relating to content that undermines trust in financial systems and courts.

-The FBI agent who primed social media platforms to take down the Hunter Biden laptop story continued to have a role in DHS policy discussions.

...In retrospect, the New York Post reporting on the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop ahead of the 2020 election provides an elucidating case study of how this works in an increasingly partisan environment.

Much of the public ignored the reporting or assumed it was false, as over 50 former intelligence officials charged that the laptop story was a creation of a “Russian disinformation” campaign. The mainstream media was primed by allegations of election interference in 2016 — and, to be sure, Trump did attempt to use the laptop to disrupt the Biden campaign. Twitter ended up banning links to the New York Post’s report on the contents of the laptop during the crucial weeks leading up to the election. Facebook also throttled users’ ability to view the story.

In recent months, a clearer picture of the government’s influence has emerged.

In an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast in August, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Facebook had limited sharing of the New York Post’s reporting after a conversation with the FBI. “The background here is that the FBI came to us — some folks on our team — and was like, ‘Hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election,’” Zuckerberg told Rogan. The FBI told them, Zuckerberg said, that “‘We have it on notice that basically there’s about to be some kind of dump.’” When the Post’s story came out in October 2020, Facebook thought it “fit that pattern” the FBI had told them to look out for.

Zuckerberg said he regretted the decision, as did Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter at the time. Despite claims that the laptop’s contents were forged, the Washington Post confirmed that at least some of the emails on the laptop were authentic. The New York Times authenticated emails from the laptop — many of which were cited in the original New York Post reporting from October 2020 — that prosecutors have examined as part of the Justice Department’s probe into whether the president’s son violated the law on a range of issues, including money laundering, tax-related offenses, and foreign lobbying registration.

Documents filed in federal court as part of a lawsuit by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana add a layer of new detail to Zuckerberg’s anecdote, revealing that officials leading the push to expand the government’s reach into disinformation also played a quiet role in shaping the decisions of social media giants around the New York Post story.

Leaked Documents Outline DHS’s Plans to Police Disinformation

Under the guise of counterterrorism, the government is accelerating pressure on social media companies to crack down on speech the feds deem disinformation.

theintercept.com

 

[RobF]

I knew you wouldn't answer the question lol because you think misinformation is a bigger threat than wars. You have been brainwashed by the corporate media.

You're confusing an opinion - the one you personally hold - with the only possible view. You do that a lot.

Whether misinformation is a bigger threat than wars depends on your terms and perspective. If, for example, it's from the perspective of the threat to an individual's life, then an argument can certainly be made that for many people misinformation is a bigger threat than war. To give just one example, smoking has killed, and continues to kill, millions of people every year. It's not hard to argue that misinformation was fundamental in perpetuating that. As that example also illustrates, there isn't a clear separation of concepts. Misinformation, typically in the form of propaganda, is intertwined with war. It affects the manner and speed in which we address climate change fueling extreme weather events. It can be used to increase societal polarization, etc., etc. Hence - and especially if you think it's important to think about causes and not just outcomes, as you quote Silver arguing (while ironically missing his own point) - a rational case can be made that misinformation is the highest societal risk.

That's not say I'd rank them in that order; to be honest, I don't think I'd rank them at all, I don't think it can be that meaningful or useful an exercise. But I can still see that someone can rationally hold that view.

I look forward to your response which will very probably just ignore all of that and just consist of, "Haha, you think misinformation is a bigger threat than wars!".

 

[RobF]

That sounds good for some professions, but not for misinformation reporters. They are normally activists pushing for censorship. Also when you consider that those misinformation reporters are usually funded by governments, NATO, weapons manufacturers, billionaires, then it's ridiculous to think that they should be the arbiters of what's true and not.

You are obviously okay with governments, weapons manufacturers, billionaires, NATO, corporate media, etc telling you what you should and shouldn't believe. You apparently are naive enough to think that restricting what we can and can't say online under the guise of fighting misinformation is okay.

A misinformation reporter typically posts fact checks, that contain sources and reasoning, that can be used to consider the veracity of something that has already been said.

I am fine with that. Why do you think that should be censored?

 

[SaintForLife]

 

[SaintForLife]

 

[SaintForLife]

The Democrats have been screaming about book banning while behind the scenes they were getting Amazon to....ban books.

The Biden administration pressured Amazon to censor books related to COVID-19 vaccines in early 2021 citing concerns that the material contained “propaganda” and “misinformation,” internal company emails released by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) appear to show.

The documents were obtained by the House Judiciary Committee and the Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government via subpoena, Jordan said in a X thread Monday, which he dubbed, “THE AMAZON FILES.”

Who can we talk to about the high levels of propaganda and misinformation and disinformation of [sic] Amazon?” Andrew Slavitt, a former White House senior advisor for COVID-19 response, wrote to the online retailer in a March 2, 2021, email, released by Jordan.

“If you search for ‘vaccines’ under books, I see what comes up,” Slavitt wrote in a follow up message that same day. “I haven’t looked beyond that but if that’s what’s on the surface, it’s concerning.”

 

[MT15]

SFL - how is this censorship? Please be specific.

 

[SaintForLife]

SFL - how is this censorship? Please be specific.

There are more examples in the thread.

 

[MT15]

There are more examples in the thread.

I want you to explain it to me. These emails don’t show censorship, IMO, so reading more of them won’t help. Explain to me how this interchange is censorship in your own words.

 

[SaintForLife]

I want you to explain it to me. These emails don’t show censorship, IMO, so reading more of them won’t help. Explain to me how this interchange is censorship in your own words.

I said ban books. You said censorship.

 

[MT15]

I said ban books. You said censorship.

The tweets you posted say censorship. But okay - how do these tweets actually ban books?

 

[RobF]

The tweets you posted say censorship. But okay - how do these tweets actually ban books?

Do also note that the tweet that claims it has emails showing that Amazon "caved to Biden White House pressure" actually has an email showing Amazon responding to... Buzzfeed writing a story about COVID-19 books on Amazon.

They're basically trying to substitute 'Buzzfeed' with 'Biden White House', on the flimsy premise that things were happening at the same time, and hoping no-one notices, while trying to conflate not actively promoting something with censoring it. I wouldn't say it's the dumbest thing I've seen of this nature, but it's pretty darn dumb. The existence of media pressure shows there was a public concern about Amazon pushing harmful anti-vax garbage. The government naturally has a concern in public health - obviously - but it's the usual garbage of pretending they don't (!?) and that Amazon can't possibly have been responding to the harm to their own image and the concerns of their own customers, and the media pressure that comes with that.

 

[SaintForLife]

Do also note that the tweet that claims it has emails showing that Amazon "caved to Biden White House pressure" actually has an email showing Amazon responding to... Buzzfeed writing a story about COVID-19 books on Amazon.

Here's that specific email

They're basically trying to substitute 'Buzzfeed' with 'Biden White House', on the flimsy premise that things were happening at the same time, and hoping no-one notices, while trying to conflate not actively promoting something with censoring it. I wouldn't say it's the dumbest thing I've seen of this nature, but it's pretty darn dumb. The existence of media pressure shows there was a public concern about Amazon pushing harmful anti-vax garbage. The government naturally has a concern in public health - obviously - but it's the usual garbage of pretending they don't (!?) and that Amazon can't possibly have been responding to the harm to their own image and the concerns of their own customers, and the media pressure that comes with that.

Do you think people are unable to see the other emails talking about which books the Biden administration wanted removed or buried in search results?

What about the senior Biden official Andy Slavitt? Did he actually work for Buzzfeed?

 

[MT15]

Jordan is assuming he knows why Amazon took a meeting with Buzzfeed. He doesn’t know why.

Do you assert that the US government has no role in trying to curb the spread of dangerous misinformation that will harm public health?

That’s a yes or no answer BTW. Maybe you can manage to answer it.

 

[SaintForLife]

Jordan is assuming he knows why Amazon took a meeting with Buzzfeed. He doesn’t know why.

Do you assert that the US government has no role in trying to curb the spread of dangerous misinformation that will harm public health?

That’s a yes or no answer BTW. Maybe you can manage to answer it.

The government has no role in pressuring social media companies to censor Americans social media post because of the pesky 1st ammendment.

The government could publish information about misinformation, but they can't do anything that restricts American's 1st ammendment rights like the Biden Administration has got caught doing.

 

[SaintForLife]

I'll post the MAP's 2nd favorite commentator Tucker only behind Glenn Greenwald.

But seriously this is the definitive and most comprehensive explanation of the US censorship regime. You will be shocked at how far they have taken this illegal censorship. If you have any intellectual curiosity about this subject, then it's a must watch.

 

[MT15]

The government has no role in pressuring social media companies to censor Americans social media post because of the pesky 1st ammendment.

The government could publish information about misinformation, but they can't do anything that restricts American's 1st ammendment rights like the Biden Administration has got caught doing.

There is no first amendment right to have Twitter or anyone host your lies. Nobody was censored by the government no matter how much your propagandists keep lying about it. The government has the right to ask for lies to be corrected just like you or I do, and that’s what happened. Twitter only responded about half the time and Trump made just as many requests as Biden did.

You never learn anything. Just keep spouting the same lies over and over.

 

[SaintForLife]

There is no first amendment right to have Twitter or anyone host your lies. Nobody was censored by the government no matter how much your propagandists keep lying about it. The government has the right to ask for lies to be corrected just like you or I do, and that’s what happened. Twitter only responded about half the time and Trump made just as many requests as Biden did.

You never learn anything. Just keep spouting the same lies over and over.

I know this was posted in the other thread, but I'll post again since you continue to lie about it.

1st ruling:

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey Obtains Court Order Blocking the Biden Administration from Violating First Amendment | Attorney General Office of Missouri

 

[SaintForLife]

The Supreme Court Will Rule on Censorship​

Missouri v. Biden goes to the high court, setting up a historic showdown. Did administration lawyers make a tactical error?​

SEP 15, 2023

https://www.racket.news/p/the-supreme-court-will-rule-on-censorship/comments


The Borg has made a mistake.

Yesterday, just shy of a week after the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an injunction barring the White House, the FBI, the Surgeon General, and four other government entities from flagging content to social media companies, attorneys for the Biden administration applied to the high court to stay the ruling. Missouri v. Biden is headed to the Supreme Court.

It wasn’t a certainty they’d do this. The 5th Circuit after all vacated each of district court Judge Terry Doughty’s ten orders on social media contacts but one, and “tailored” the remaining 6th provision to a single paragraph:

Defendants, and their employees and agents, shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly, to coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social-media content containing protected free speech. That includes, but is not limited to, compelling the platforms to act, such as by intimating that some form of punishment will follow a failure to comply with any request, or supervising, directing, or otherwise meaningfully controlling the social-media companies’ decision-making processes.

After the 5th Circuit ruling, in other words, only government action against protected free speech remained barred by this injunction. The Biden administration just told the world “grave and irreparable harm” would result from such limitations.

In addition to the appalling optics, this looks like a serious tactical error. The 5th Circuit ruling already “tailored” so much from the district injunction that a state-driven “censorship enterprise” could have continued much as before, just without license to flout legal speech openly and in writing. Official “anti-disinformation” efforts could have been routed through offices taken out of the order, like Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Multiple people close to the case, in fact, were concerned that a strategic-minded set of state attorneys might grasp this, and quietly “take the L” for practical reasons.

Administration lawyers however apparently couldn’t let the principle of a ruling saying the Biden White House was “in violation of the First Amendment” stand:

“IN VIOLATION”: White House, FBI may not have been able to let these lines stand.

Instead of keeping the whole censorship store and losing only the right to violate the Bill of Rights openly, they’re going to a hostile Supreme Court to put everything at risk. “They took the cheese,” is how one lawyer put it.

Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, one of the plaintiffs in the case, expressed a similar thought. “If I were advising the Biden Administration, I would suggest to them it would be better to abandon the case and dismantle the Ministry of Truth they built,” he said. “But then if I were advising the administration, I would have suggested that it never erect a Ministry of Truth in the first place.”

“It would’ve been better I think if the government had just accepted that they should stop censoring,” agreed fellow plaintiff Dr. Martin Kulldorff, on leave at Harvard. “But that’s not the case.”

Government defendants will now be forced to argue the righteousness of the worst evidence in the case. This includes White House officials telling a platform, “Cannot stress the degree to which this needs to be resolved immediately” with regard to a parody meme, or telling Facebook it needed to “get moving on the process of having it removed ASAP” with regard to a Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. tweet, or complaining about content that is “still up,” and the many other communications “phrased virtually as orders,” as 5th Circuit judges put it.

Administration lawyers in yesterday’s application previewed arguments they will make. “A central dimension of presidential power is the use of the Office’s bully pulpit,” they wrote, as if having aides e-whisper demands to companies that they remove accounts critical of the White House is in the same universe as a president publicly arguing his or her policies.

In oral arguments in August, the government complained about activities they claimed were threatened, despite the fact that those activities — communications about “criminal activity or criminal conspiracies” or posts that “threaten the public safety” — were exempted by Doughty’s injunction. This argument visibly irritated appelate judges. In this application now, they’re complaining to Supreme Court judges about things they’re already allowed to do.

They write that “FBI agents risk being haled into court if they flag content posted by terrorists.” Not one but two exceptions exist already for communications about “national security” threats. The application goes on to complain of virtually every activity already exempted by Doughty. It almost seems like the Biden administration’s lawyers made their complaints by culling language from Doughty’s exceptions list:

Doughty’s July 4th exemptions
Sure, Doughty gave us an exception for criminal activity, the government says, but what about almost-criminal activity? “Law-enforcement officials may be uncertain whether a social-media post involves unprotected criminal activity,” they write.

They go on to complain about having to “tread carefully” when trying to protect “national security, public safety, or the security of federal elections” — all exempted already — and note “one of the central duties and prerogatives of the President… is to speak to the public on matters of public concern,” also allowed, in those exact words. They even note that “every President has engaged with the press to promote his policies and shape coverage of his Administration,” despite the fact that “promoting government policies,” too, is exempted.

Doughty’s injunction leaves room for every government agency to communicate with platforms as much as they want, even in ways that free speech advocates might find uncomfortable, like “deleting, removing, suppressing, or reducing posts.” The sole caveat is that these posts not be “protected free speech.” This underscores the fact that the Biden administration is going to the Supreme Court specifically to seek permission to meddle with and/or suppress legal expression.

They’ve decided to engage in a public fight for the right to try to suppress things like criticism of lockdown policies by plaintiff physicians Bhattacharya, Kulldorff and Aaron Kheriaty. As Bhattacharya puts it, this is true scientific opinion, targeted “just because the speech contradicts government policy.”

Napoleon once said, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” For censorship opponents, this moment might qualify. At minimum, it’s a historic opportunity to argue one of the defining issues of the age. See you in Washington.

The Supreme Court Will Rule on Censorship

Missouri v. Biden goes to the high court, setting up a historic showdown. Did administration lawyers make a tactical error?

www.racket.news

The Biden Administration is appealing to be able to censor protected free speech. That's authoritarian.