Author: Foundation for Freedom Online

Microsoft Promotes Media Literacy as ‘Inoculation’ Against ‘Disinformation’

Foundation for Freedom Online
Robots reading newspapers

Microsoft has staked a claim in the growing field of “media literacy” and “digital literacy,” which aims to instruct members of the public – especially schoolchildren – in what types of digital media they ought to trust and distrust. As FFO has previously reported, media and digital literacy is the latest in a long string of pretexts by the ideologically biased censorship industry to prevent the public from accessing disfavored information sources.

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Analysis: Global Censorship Hub ‘National Endowment for Democracy’ Reached Agreement with State Department to Conceal Government Grants from the Public

Foundation for Freedom Online
National Endowment for Democracy

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has – since at least 2021 – failed to comply with transparency requirements regarding the more than $300 million of taxpayer funding it receives from the U.S. Department of State, potentially violating federal regulations under 22 CFR 67.4 and the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA).

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The Advertising Industry’s Deepening Role in Online Censorship

Foundation for Freedom Online
X User

In the arsenal of the censorship-industrial complex, few weapons have been more effective than advertiser boycotts. Long before online censorship reached its peak in 2020 and 2021, advocates of online censorship had identified online advertisers as the most important source of pressure on social media companies to restrict free speech. When direct appeals to social media platforms fail, pro-censorship campaigners use the threat of advertiser boycotts to produce the desired result.

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