Apparnetly the decision by DHS to shut down the ‘Ministry of Truth’ disinformation board earlier this year wasn’t the end of their efforts to try and control what people say.
According to new documents, it’s been revealed that DHS and the FBI have been working with social media companies Facebook and Twitter to influcence what peple are allowed to say by issuing take down notices of things they do not like.
Here’s the short version:
Docs show Facebook and Twitter closely collaborating w/ Dept of Homeland Security, FBI to police “disinfo.” Plans to expand censorship on topics like withdrawal from Afghanistan, origins of COVID, info that undermines trust in financial institutions. https://t.co/Zb3zmI1dQF
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) October 31, 2022
FBI agent Laura Dehmlow was in communications w Facebook that led to the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020 over the false allegation that it was “disinfo.” This year, she met w/ Twitter/DHS to stress “we need a media infrastructure that is held accountable.” pic.twitter.com/17LqhEyMN0
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) October 31, 2022
Facebook and Twitter created special portals for the government to rapidly request takedowns of content. The portals, along with NGO partners used to censor a wide range of content, including obvious parody accounts and content disagreeing w gov pandemic policy. pic.twitter.com/Jth0WUfXAI
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) October 31, 2022
The emails and documents show close collaboration b/w DHS & private sector. Twitter's Vijaya Gadde (fired by @elonmusk last week) met monthly with DHS to discuss censorship plans. Microsoft exec texted DHS: "Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov't" pic.twitter.com/Z19yLM3miB
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) October 31, 2022
How does DHS justify its evolving mission from countering foreign terror groups to policing domestic "disinfo" on social media? Leaked planning docs show the agency argues false information is a source of radicalization & violence.
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) October 31, 2022
Earlier this year, DHS launched a widely panned "Disinfo Governance Board" which it later shuttered following criticism. But the same agenda lives on w/ DHS sub-agency "CISA" which argues disinfo is a threat to American "critical infrastructure" #dhsleaks https://t.co/OPl6m5GVGX
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) October 31, 2022
Here’s more via The Intercept’s article:
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.”
“We do not coordinate with other entities when making content moderation decisions, and we independently evaluate content in line with the Twitter Rules,” a spokesperson for Twitter wrote in a statement to The Intercept.
There is also a formalized process for government officials to directly flag content on Facebook or Instagram and request that it be throttled or suppressed through a special Facebook portal that requires a government or law enforcement email to use. At the time of writing, the “content request system” at facebook.com/xtakedowns/login is still live. DHS and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, did not respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined to comment.
DHS’s mission to fight disinformation, stemming from concerns around Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election, began taking shape during the 2020 election and over efforts to shape discussions around vaccine policy during the coronavirus pandemic. Documents collected by The Intercept from a variety of sources, including current officials and publicly available reports, reveal the evolution of more active measures by DHS.
According to a draft copy of DHS’s Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, DHS’s capstone report outlining the department’s strategy and priorities in the coming years, the department plans to target “inaccurate information” on a wide range of topics, including “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.”
“The challenge is particularly acute in marginalized communities,” the report states, “which are often the targets of false or misleading information, such as false information on voting procedures targeting people of color.”
The inclusion of the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is particularly noteworthy, given that House Republicans, should they take the majority in the midterms, have vowed to investigate.
There’s a lot more in the article, but clearly the Biden administration has continued it’s efforts to censor people on social media, which really sets a very dangerous precedent.
The whole point of free speech is that you can express yourself in the public square without government inteference. That’s also what’s behidn the freedom of relgion and freedom of the press clauses in the Constitution.
Twitter and Facebook have made themselves into quasi public square but now they are allowing the government to silence people in the name of misinformation.
I suspect Elon Musk will deal with this at Twitter and this is another great reason for him acquiring the platform. But I don’t know that there is much hope for Facebook.
What really needs to happen though, after Republicans take back the Congress, is for them to investigate and expose all of this as well as pass new safeguards to prevent this from happening in the future.