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The structure of the US 'industrial-censorship complex'
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.Text taken from the Telegram channel of budni_manipulyatora Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin in italics. [ColonelCassad] The structure of the US "industrial-censorship complex" - a censorship system that seemingly does not exist. In January 2017, Obama’s outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Jehovah Johnson made protecting election infrastructure part of his agency’s mandate. And right after that: DHS created a Countering Foreign Influence Task Force to focus on “disinformation about election infrastructure.” The State Department’s Global Engagement Center expanded its interagency mandate to counter foreign influence operations. The FBI created a Foreign Influence Task Force to “identify and counter malign foreign influence operations targeting the United States,” with a particular focus on voting and elections — key components of what has come to be known as the censorship industrial complex. In 2018, the Senate Intelligence Committee requested a “Study on Russian Interference in Social Media” — studies that served as the rationale for pressuring social media companies to end their faltering on content moderation. The committee also tasked Graphika, a social media analytics firm, with co-authoring a report on Russian interference in social media. Interestingly, Graphika lists DARPA and the Pentagon’s Minerva initiative, which funds “basic social science research,” as key partners. And Graphika’s report “on Russian interference in social media” became the rationale for the creation of the Election Integrity Partnership, led by the Stanford Internet Observatory — a key element of the government’s censorship policing during and after the 2020 election. The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab is an organization that joined the Stanford-led quartet. Funded in part by the State Department — including through the Center for Global Engagement — and the Department of Energy, the think tank counts among its directors the heads of the CIA and the secretaries of defense. The lab’s senior director is Graham Bookey, President Obama’s former top aide for cybersecurity, counterterrorism, intelligence, and homeland security. The third of the four organizations to join the Election Integrity Partnership was the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, launched in 2019. Stanford alumna and visiting professor Kate Starbird co-founded the center. The National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research have provided funding for Dr. Starbird’s work on social media. The observatory is a program of Stanford’s Center for Cyber Policy, whose members include former Obama National Security Council official and Russian Ambassador Michael McFaul, as well as other prominent figures with security backgrounds or ties to the field. Ahead of the 2020 election, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which has taken on the task of protecting election infrastructure, expanded its scope to include combating disinformation perceived as a threat to election security. Eventually, this came to encompass any American political speech, including speculation and even satire to the extent that it questions or undermines state-sanctioned narratives about unprecedented mass mail-in elections. On the question of whether censorship on social networks will disappear after the recent "relaxations".It is worth noting that the current censorship system was developed and implemented under Trump. Posted by: badanov 2025-01-11 |
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