In the Spotlight
Frank Bergman March 3, 2023
From Slay News
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The latest installment of the âTwitter Filesâ has revealed that taxpayer money being handed out by the federal government to tackle so-called âdisinformationâ funded a âcottage industryâ of censorship âlabs.â
Twitter boss Elon Musk tasked journalist and author Matt Taibbi with detailing the findings in the 17th installment of the companyâs internal communications files.
In his latest Twitter Files report published Thursday, Taibbi notes the U.S. federal governmentâs role in creating a ânew cottage industryâ of âdisinformation labs.â
These labs were given tax dollars to ostensibly combat fraudulent online propaganda in the interest of national security.
The âTwitter Files #17â thread focuses on the Global Engagement Center (GEC).
The GEC is a subsidiary of the State Department.
Its claimed objective is to ârecognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations.â
According to the Twitter Files, The Atlantic Councilâs Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRL), which is funded by the federal government via the GEC, regularly sent blacklists of online profiles to Twitter executives and staffers requesting censorship.
Taibbi emphasized how news media were more compliant than Twitter in accepting the governmentâs âdisinformationâ claims at face value.
He describes news media personalities as âan easier markâ than Twitter staffers for false and unsubstantiated claims made by the GEC and DFRL regarding online âdisinformation.â
Taibbi continues by highlighting the vapidity of the newly-manufactured âanti-disinformationâ organizations.
He notes the subservient compliance of news media outlets to such organizationsâ claims.
âMost of these âexpertsâ know nothing,â he writes.
âMany have skill, if you can call mesmerizing dumb reporters a skill, but in the area of identifying true bad actors, few know more than the average person on the street.â
âThe scary angle on GEC is not so much the agency as the sprawling infrastructure of âdisinformation labsâ that have grown around it,â he adds.
Taibbi concludes that his findings prove that American taxpayers are funding digital blacklists used to manipulate them.
The government-funded GEC âlittered the media landscape with flawed or flat-out wrong news stories,â he writes.
âExacerbating matters, Americans in both cases paid taxes to become the subject of these manipulative operations.â
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