Tag: disinformation

Federal ‘Censorship Nerve Center’ Likely to Shutter, but State Would ‘Realign’ Staff for Same Work

Just the News
Global Engagement Center website

The State Department is planning to change how it engages with the globe as it braces for unified Republican government that promises to gut the so-called censorship-industrial complex, the subject of a four-part Just the News series this fall.

But like the evolution of the broader global public-private partnership to label, throttle, remove and defund purported misinformation, disinformation and “true but inconvenient” malinformation (MDM) on tech platforms, State’s change may only be in name.

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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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Commentary: Project 2025 and the Continued Democrat Meltdown

Admin
Project 2025

Tying Donald Trump to Project 2025 is the latest desperation tactic from Democrats. But it’s likely to backfire. It might actually create a new generation of Conservatives in the process.

Last year, the Heritage Foundation published the Mandate for Leadership as assembled by a consortium of people and think tanks called Project 2025. It is a compilation of long-standing recommended Conservative policies for the next Republican administration. The Project 2025 group claims the document is “the Conservative movement’s unified effort to be ready for the next Conservative administration to govern at noon, January 20, 2025.”

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Commentary: Obama’s Intel Czar Rigged 2016 and 2020 Debates Against Trump

RealClearWire
James Clapper

Just before Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton faced off in their second presidential debate, then-National Intelligence Director James Clapper met in the White House with a small group of advisers to President Obama to hatch a plan to put out a first-of-its-kind intelligence report warning the voting public that “the Russian government” was interfering in the election by allegedly breaching the Clinton campaign’s email system.

On Oct. 7, 2016 – just two days before the presidential debate between Trump and Clinton – Clapper issued the unprecedented intelligence advisory with Obama’s personal blessing. It seemed to lend credence to what the Clinton camp was telling the media — that Trump was working with Russian President Vladimir Putin through a secret back channel to steal the election. Sure enough, the Democratic nominee pounced on it to smear Trump at the debate.

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Commentary: Deepfakes, Disinformation, Social Engineering, and Artificial Intelligence in the 2024 Election

Admin
Computer Programmer

Artificial intelligence (AI) and its integration within various sectors is moving at a speed that couldn’t have been imagined just a few years ago. As a result, the United States now stands on the brink of a new era of cybersecurity challenges. With AI technologies becoming increasingly sophisticated, the potential for their exploitation by malicious actors grows exponentially.

Because of this evolving threat, government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), alongside private sector entities, must urgently work to harden America’s defenses to account for any soft spots that may be exploited. Failure to do so could have dire consequences on a multitude of levels, especially as we approach the upcoming U.S. presidential election, which is likely to be the first to contend with the profound implications of AI-driven cyber warfare.

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Kari Lake’s Attorney Bryan Blehm Files Answer to the State Bar of Arizona’s Disciplinary Charges, Addresses Issue Regarding 35,563 Unaccounted for Ballots

Rachel Alexander
Arizona State Bar

The State Bar of Arizona (SBA) is proceeding with two counts against Kari Lake’s attorney Bryan Blehm for referencing in a brief that 35,563 ballots were unaccounted for due to chain of custody problems at Maricopa County’s third-party early ballot processor, Runbeck Election Services, and for criticizing the Arizona judiciary. Representing himself, Blehm filed a 94-page Answer to the SBA’s charges on January 25. 

In Count 1, the SBA accused Blehm of “misleading” the Arizona Supreme Court. The first half of the SBA’s case against Blehm consists of claiming that he lied when he stated in a pleading that both parties in Lake’s election challenge agreed that there was a discrepancy of 35,563 ballots unaccounted for due to chain of custody problems at Runbeck. Blehm asserted in the Lake brief, “The record indisputably reflects at least 35,563 Election Day early ballots, for which there is no record of delivery to Runbeck, were added at Runbeck….” 

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Commentary: Seven Ridiculous Examples of Government Waste in 2023

Admin
Congress Spending

Almost nobody doubts that the federal government wastes a lot of money. Every day we hear stories of fraud, mismanagement, and misplaced priorities that cost taxpayers millions, and sometimes billions, of dollars.

But just how much money is wasted? In his annual Festivus report—named after the fictional Seinfeld holiday—Senator Rand Paul tallies up some of the most egregious examples of government waste from the year. The report for 2023 came out on December 22, and as usual, the stories spanned the range from hilarious to deeply disconcerting. In all, Paul identified $900 billion in government waste from 2023.

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Censorship Concerns Rise over State and Local Governments Registering Their Domain Names with CISA

Rachel Alexander

Pinal County’s website, Maricopa County’s website, and other government websites across the country recently switched their registrars from the federal government’s General Services Administration to a new registrar started by the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

CISA has come under heightened scrutiny in recent years for targeting “disinformation” through its Disinformation Governance Board. The board works with Big Tech to shut down unpopular information about COVID-19, elections, and other controversial topics.

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Concerns Arise over Arizona Supreme Court’s Task Force on Countering Disinformation

Rachel Alexander

The Arizona Supreme Court launched a Task Force on Countering Disinformation in 2019 that is raising concerns. It is the first state court system in the country to establish one. The task force has issued two reports with recommendations since its launch.

The task force members include some partisans, and none of them appear to be conservative.

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Minnesota Secretary of State: Election Officials Within Their Rights to Work with Big Tech to Fight ‘Outright Disinformation’

Admin

Fresh off a legislative session where Steve Simon was able to check off nearly every item on his election reform “wish list,” the recently re-elected Minnesota secretary of state took some time to speak to both national and local media about how he views the landscape of the upcoming 2024 election, and as he calls it the “democracy business.”

According to Simon, those who intend to suppress the vote with election-related “disinformation” or intimidation may be tripped up by new election-reform laws recently passed by the Democrat trifecta in the Minnesota Legislature. But he told the Washington Post in an interview this week that he doesn’t believe those new voter protections in Minnesota will necessarily deter disinformation efforts come 2024.

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Commentary: Censorship Is More Dangerous Than Disinformation

Admin

The First Amendment is under assault by the very people entrusted to protect it. The Biden administration and the corporate media removed any doubt about this after a July 4 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty. Evidence revealed during the discovery process in Missouri v. Biden convinced the judge that administration officials illegally pressured social media platforms to censor disfavored views. Doughty issued a 155-page opinion and an injunction prohibiting federal officials from “pressuring or coercing social-media companies in any manner to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce posted content of postings containing protected free speech.”

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Senators Tell Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Turn over All Correspondence with Hunter Biden

M.D. Kittle

Secretary of State Antony Blinken wasn’t straight with congress about his communications with President Joe Biden’s ne’er-do-well son Hunter, according to emails and a transcript of a 2022 interview first reported by The Star News Network. 

Now, U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI), whose committees have long investigated allegations of Biden family corruption, are demanding the Secretary of State “produce and preserve” all records related to his correspondence with Hunter Biden.

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Biden’s AI Czar Wants to Crack Down on ‘Misinformation,’ Prevent ‘Discriminatory Outcomes’

Admin

The Biden administration is moving toward artificial intelligence (AI) regulation that would mandate government reviews to ensure reliable and unbiased results, according to Assistant Commerce Secretary for Communications and Information Alan Davidson’s remarks at the University of Pittsburgh on Tuesday.

This may include evaluations of whether AI is spreading misinformation and disinformation, said Davidson, who leads the National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA). He suggested government audits may help establish trust in this rapidly advancing technology, comparing it to the financial industry.

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Commentary: The Problematic Rise of ‘Media Literacy Education’

RealClearWire

New Jersey is enlisting public-school teachers and librarians to show children how to combat what it calls the grave threat of disinformation.

“Our democracy remains under sustained attack through the proliferation of disinformation,” Gov. Phil Murphy said in signing the nation’s first law mandating “information literacy” instruction for all K-12 students. The law, which aims to provide students with the “critical thinking” skills necessary to differentiate between “facts, points of view, and opinions” will, Murphy proclaimed, ensure “that our kids … possess the skills needed to discern fact from fiction.”

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Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Warns NewsGuard Against ‘Disinformation’ Attack on Conservative Groups

M.D. Kittle

Jimmy Patronis, the state of Florida’s chief financial officer, is warning the top executives of a so-called “disinformation” tracking group it’s playing with fire in targeting conservative organizations in what has been described as a defunding campaign. In a letter to NewsGuard CEOs and Editors-in-Chiefs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, Patronis warns that he will not hesitate to “use the full force” of his office to shed light on an organization that has financially hurt conservative outlets with its rating system. “In short, your enterprise may affect the finances of your clients through triggering Florida’s divestment laws, and it may be subject to legislative scrutiny in the upcoming legislative session,” Florida’s CFO wrote. As the Washington Examiner reported last month in its series, “Disinformation Inc.,” NewsGuard is part of a growing army of self-styled “disinformation tracking organizations that are cracking down on conservative media and part of a lucrative operation that aims to defund disfavored speech.” As the Examiner reported: Major ad companies are increasingly seeking guidance from purportedly “nonpartisan” groups claiming to be detecting and fighting online “disinformation.” These same “disinformation” monitors are compiling secret website blacklists and feeding them to ad companies, with the aim of defunding and…

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More Evidence Reveals CDC Colluded with Social Media Giants to Silence COVID ‘Misinformation’

Susan Berry, PhD

America First Legal (AFL) released a fourth set of documents obtained from litigation against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that reveals more evidence of alleged collusion between the nation’s public health agency and social media companies to censor free speech and silence Americans under the government’s label of “misinformation.”

Last week, AFL’s 600-page document release uncovered evidence that Twitter operated a “Partner Support Portal” for government employees and other selective “stakeholders” that would allow them to delete or flag posts viewed as “misinformation,” noted AFL, which is led by former President Donald Trump’s immigration advisor Stephen Miller.

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Far-Left Pennsylvania Democrat Proposes Board to ‘Combat Election Disinformation’

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania state Representative Christopher Rabb (D-Philadelphia) this week proposed a bill to establish an “Election Integrity Board” that would monitor politicians rhetoric regarding electoral matters and “combat” what the panel deems “disinformation.” 

In a memorandum seeking cosponsors for his legislation, the far-left lawmaker who represents Philadelphia’s Chestnut Hill and Mount Airy neighborhoods lamented the nomination in the 2022 primary of over 100 individuals he considers “election-denying candidates.” He blasted them for asserting what he insists are “unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud” and opined that “our elections are highly secure.” He suggested that politicians and hopefuls who raise concerns about such issues create unnecessary doubt in the minds of the electorate.

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Commentary: The Tentacles of the Social Media Octopus

Admin
Washington DC

by Victor Davis Hanson   A shared theme in all dystopian explorations of future and current totalitarian regimes – whether China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, or Cuba – is government control of all media information, fueled by electronic surveillance. A skeptical public learns to say one thing publicly but quite another privately. It nervously nods yes at the news while at work, but at home cynically assumes the opposite of whatever is publicly said to be true. RIP, First Amendment Such electronic propaganda has sadly become characteristic of the world’s oldest consensual government. In America we once believed our First Amendment prevented a government monopoly on information. But in the age of globalization, the Internet, and social media, the state has become the enemy – not the protector – of free speech. One obvious sign is that the Biden Administration keeps trying to create new sorts of ministries of truth or “Disinformation Governance Boards.” It alleges such Orwellian censors must combat “disinformation” and “misinformation.” In fact, these bureaucracies are designed to criminalize unwanted free expression while also advancing state propaganda. Among our Washington officials, the following myths were once declared the official version of the “truth”: Mounted border patrol agents “whipped”…

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Radicalized Medical Associations Ask DOJ and Big Tech to Censor and Prosecute Journalists Opposing Gender Surgeries for Minors

Susan Berry, PhD

National medical associations that have been infiltrated by radical leftists wrote to Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland this week requesting the Department of Justice (DOJ) “do more” to block the views of those who spread “disinformation” regarding transgender surgeries for minors and to “take swift action to investigate and prosecute all organizations, individuals, and entities responsible.”

Journalist and author Christopher Rufo posted the letter from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the Children’s Hospital Association to Garland.

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Gavin Newsom Signs Bill to Punish Doctors for Providing COVID-19 Vaccine Informed Consent Information Not Backed by Government and Big Pharma

Susan Berry, PhD

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Friday a bill that allows the medical boards of California to be used as government overseers as they discipline doctors who provide their patients with informed consent about the risks of the COVID-19 mRNA shots and the benefits of early treatment for COVID disease with off-label drugs.

Newman signed AB 2098, which labels as “unprofessional conduct,” a doctor’s discussion about the benefits of early treatment of COVID with effective, readily available, and inexpensive medications already in use for years.

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Maricopa County to Require Press Pass to Cover 2022 Election

Neil Jones

Maricopa County announced Tuesday that it will now require a press pass for media personnel to enter its facilities or cover events related to the 2022 General Election.

“Because of logistical and security considerations, it is impossible to give the public and media limitless access to Members of the Board of Supervisors, the County Recorder and election experts for events such as press conferences and availabilities,” according to Maricopa County.

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Commentary: Congress Authorized DHS and CISA’s ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ Activities in 2018

Admin

In 2018, Congress unanimously passed legislation, H.R. 3359, that authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to disseminate information to the private sector including Big Tech social media companies in a bid to combat disinformation by potential foreign and domestic terrorists.

According to the agency’s website, CISA says it “rout[es] disinformation concerns” to “appropriate social media platforms”: “The [Mis, Dis, Malinformation] MDM team serves as a switchboard for routing disinformation concerns to appropriate social media platforms and law enforcement.”

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Commentary: Obama Wants the ‘Contest of Ideas’ Rigged

Admin

Barack Obama holds court these days as a great authority on the preservation of a civilized democracy. He says that nothing worries him more than “disinformation.” Never mind that he rose to power as a manipulative acolyte of Saul Alinsky, the famously amoral Chicago activist who endorsed disinformation as a tool of “community organizing.” Much of Alinsky’s activism consisted of duping ordinary Americans. Were Alinsky alive today, he would no doubt enjoy the spectacle of a former president steeped in his duplicitous methods lecturing Americans on the dangers of disinformation.

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Democrat Anti-‘Disinformation’ Group Still Funding Organizations Behind Steele Dossier

Admin
Dan Jones

A Democrat-backed nonprofit intended to combat alleged “disinformation” paid large sums of money to organizations responsible for the Steele dossier, which advanced false claims regarding former President Donald Trump’s relationship with Russia.

The Democracy Integrity Project (TDIP) is nonprofit run by Daniel J. Jones, a former staffer of Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, that has received funding from prominent Democrat and left-wing donors, including George Soros.

The organization’s mission is to “educate the public on matters such as foreign election interference, global extremism, corruption, and coordinated disinformation,” according to filings with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

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Discrepancy Found Between Nikki Fried’s English and Spanish Websites

Casey Owens

A discrepancy between Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried’s English and Spanish websites has been recently criticized as a deliberate attempt to withhold progressive ideas from Hispanic and Latino voters.

Newsweek noticed the discrepancy and quickly questioned Fried’s campaign team who, without responding, changed the Spanish website to match the English website.

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Biden Recommended to Appoint ‘Reality Czar’ to ‘Tackle Disinformation’

Admin

Experts have recommended that President Joe Biden appoint a “reality czar” to “tackle disinformation,” the New York Times reported Tuesday.

Technology columnist Kevin Roose’s piece examines how to combat disinformation in media, citing QAnon group chats, OAN reporting, and “YouTube videos alleging that the inauguration was a prerecorded hoax that had been filmed on a Hollywood soundstage.”

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