Posted on Nov 11, 2023
How the GOP muzzled the quiet coalition that fought foreign propaganda
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The FBI put a pause on briefings with tech companies due to an ongoing lawsuit, adding to a broader breakdown in a system meant to guard against influence operations and to ensure election integrity.
A once-robust alliance of federal agencies, tech companies, election officials and researchers that worked together to thwart foreign propaganda and disinformation has fragmented after years of sustained Republican attacks.
The GOP offensive started during the 2020 election as public critiques and has since escalated into lawsuits, governmental inquiries and public relations campaigns that have succeeded in stopping almost all coordination between the government and social media platforms.
The most recent setback came when the FBI put an indefinite hold on most briefings to social media companies about Russian, Iranian and Chinese influence campaigns. Employees at two U.S. tech companies who used to receive regular briefings from the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force told NBC News that it has been months since the bureau reached out.
In a testimony last week to the Senate Homeland Security Committee, FBI Director Christopher Wray signaled a significant pullback in communications with tech companies and tied the move to rulings by a conservative federal judge and appeals court that said some government agencies and officials should be restricted from communicating and meeting with social media companies to moderate content. The case is now on hold pending Supreme Court review.
A once-robust alliance of federal agencies, tech companies, election officials and researchers that worked together to thwart foreign propaganda and disinformation has fragmented after years of sustained Republican attacks.
The GOP offensive started during the 2020 election as public critiques and has since escalated into lawsuits, governmental inquiries and public relations campaigns that have succeeded in stopping almost all coordination between the government and social media platforms.
The most recent setback came when the FBI put an indefinite hold on most briefings to social media companies about Russian, Iranian and Chinese influence campaigns. Employees at two U.S. tech companies who used to receive regular briefings from the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force told NBC News that it has been months since the bureau reached out.
In a testimony last week to the Senate Homeland Security Committee, FBI Director Christopher Wray signaled a significant pullback in communications with tech companies and tied the move to rulings by a conservative federal judge and appeals court that said some government agencies and officials should be restricted from communicating and meeting with social media companies to moderate content. The case is now on hold pending Supreme Court review.
How the GOP muzzled the quiet coalition that fought foreign propaganda
Posted from nbcnews.com
Republicans
Propaganda
FBI
Elections
Integrity
Posted 6 mo ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."In a podcast interview on “On with Kara Swisher” in June, Easterly explained that CISA will also no longer help flag state and local election officials’ concerns to social media companies.
“I need to ensure we are able to do our core mission, to reduce risk to critical infrastructure. And at this point in time, I do not think the risk of us dealing with social media platforms is worth any benefit, quite frankly,” Easterly said, though she did not specify the source of the risk.
“I made a decision not to do that. So we are not doing that. Local election officials can give that to the platforms themselves, and I think that’s the right place for us to be,” she said.
Through an agency spokesperson, Easterly declined to comment. In an emailed statement, she said: “Election security is one of CISA’s top priorities, and along with our interagency partners, we’re fully focused on supporting state and local election officials as they prepare for the 2024 election cycle. As we have since 2017, CISA will continue to lean forward and do our part to ensure the American people can have confidence in the security and resilience of our most sacred democratic process.”
Meanwhile, some platforms have cut back on trust and safety teams. Tech companies are still sharing their findings with each other, a Meta spokesperson told NBC News. The exception is X, whose owner Elon Musk released a giant cache of emails and company documents related to its previous trust and safety efforts and also made huge cuts to its trust and safety and election integrity teams. During the Israel-Hamas war, X has left viral terror videos from Hamas go viral and linger on the site for days.
One current X employee, who wasn’t authorized to speak for the company, said they had no remaining faith that the company could handle propaganda campaigns.
“The company no longer has the team, the tools, or the capabilities to identify and mitigate these attacks,” they said."
..."In a podcast interview on “On with Kara Swisher” in June, Easterly explained that CISA will also no longer help flag state and local election officials’ concerns to social media companies.
“I need to ensure we are able to do our core mission, to reduce risk to critical infrastructure. And at this point in time, I do not think the risk of us dealing with social media platforms is worth any benefit, quite frankly,” Easterly said, though she did not specify the source of the risk.
“I made a decision not to do that. So we are not doing that. Local election officials can give that to the platforms themselves, and I think that’s the right place for us to be,” she said.
Through an agency spokesperson, Easterly declined to comment. In an emailed statement, she said: “Election security is one of CISA’s top priorities, and along with our interagency partners, we’re fully focused on supporting state and local election officials as they prepare for the 2024 election cycle. As we have since 2017, CISA will continue to lean forward and do our part to ensure the American people can have confidence in the security and resilience of our most sacred democratic process.”
Meanwhile, some platforms have cut back on trust and safety teams. Tech companies are still sharing their findings with each other, a Meta spokesperson told NBC News. The exception is X, whose owner Elon Musk released a giant cache of emails and company documents related to its previous trust and safety efforts and also made huge cuts to its trust and safety and election integrity teams. During the Israel-Hamas war, X has left viral terror videos from Hamas go viral and linger on the site for days.
One current X employee, who wasn’t authorized to speak for the company, said they had no remaining faith that the company could handle propaganda campaigns.
“The company no longer has the team, the tools, or the capabilities to identify and mitigate these attacks,” they said."
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After years of Trump Russia collusion fostered onto America by Hillary, the media and FBI buying into to it along with Hunter’s lap top and 51 former Intelligence experts saying it looked like Russian disinformation and the BS with Covid they should be disbanded. Retired FBI agents cozied up to tech platforms and fed government lies into the tech companies, people who were actual experts in the fields being discussed were bared from social media platforms. So who was right? Did Trump colluded with Russia? Nope. Was Hunter’s laptop Russian disinformation? Nope. Did the Wuhan virus start in the Wuhan lab ? Probably . Etc etc etc. The government being in charge of truth is like putting your bank accounts in the hands of a crack addict.
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