Free Republic

U.S. intelligence officials are watching for any influence campaigns from Russia or China that are aimed at amplifying existing political divisions or stoking unrest among Americans over the indictment of former President Donald Trump, according to two U.S. officials.Officials have been on alert since the indictment was confirmed last week and so far have not seen significant signs of Russian or Chinese interference in the country’s political discourse beyond the efforts that have become standard, the U.S. officials said.But after Trump’s arraignment Tuesday, one of the officials said the intelligence community is watching “very closely” for any signs of such...

About 500 hours of video gets uploaded to YouTube every minute. The online video-sharing platform houses more than 800 million videos and is the second most visited site in the world, with 2.5 billion active monthly users. Given the deluge of content flooding the site every day, one would surmise that YouTube must have an army of people guarding against the spread of misinformation — especially in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection that was fueled by lies on social media. Well, not actually. Following recent cutbacks, just one person is in charge of misinformation policy worldwide, according...

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has made the sensational claim that the United States was behind the bombing of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline in September last year. Writing in his blog on Substack on Wednesday, Hersh said US Navy divers planted explosives at the pipelines in June last year, under the guise of BALTOPS 22 NATO exercise. The article says that the bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline was the culmination of months-long planning and preparations by the US. President Joe Biden and all his top leadership team participated in a series of top secret discussions in...

SAN DIEGO (KUSI) – AB 2098, recently signed into law by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, qualifies spreading COVID-19 “misinformation” as unprofessional conduct and makes it punishable as such.Attorneys say AB 2098 is unconstitutional and a violation of 1st Amendment.The parameters for misinformation regarding the pandemic are widely debated, with studies continuing to contradict one another well into society’s recovery from the global crisis — especially in relation to vaccines. The bill states: “Misinformation’ means false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care.”KUSI’s Paul Rudy was joined by Board-Certified Physician Dr. Jeff Barke to...

How did harmful content and misinformation online get so bad — after so much time, money, and scores of people trying to limit the spread of inaccurate, violent, obscene, and harmful content? For starters, the problem is much bigger than it used to be, and human-driven efforts cannot keep up. Even with tens of thousands tackling the problem (Meta’s Trust & Safety team has swelled to an army of more than 40,000) the sheer amount of digital content is too overwhelming. Moderating this content by human review is not only time-consuming, ineffective, and error-prone, it also can endanger the mental...

...now control the eastern bank of the Oskil River in the Kharkiv region, while Moscow continues to launch attacks against civilian infrastructure in Ukraine following its military setbacks in the country’s east. Strategic Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces posted a video on social media on Sunday that appeared to show an armored vehicle crossing the river, along with the message, “Ukraine controls the left bank.” The claim suggests Ukraine’s push east is continuing after its forces seized about 3,500 square miles of territory in the northeastern Kharkiv region in a lightning offensive earlier this month that put Moscow on...

The Department of Homeland Security has officially terminated its Orwellian plans for a Disinformation Governance Board. The action follows MRC Free Speech America, in conjunction with MRC Business, exposing the DGB’s leftist bias — including its connections to liberal billionaire George Soros. The DHS announced in an Aug. 24 press release that Homeland Security Secretary Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas terminated the Disinformation Governance Board and rescinded its charter Thursday after a recommendation from the Homeland Security Advisory Council. This development follows the DGB pausing operations after mass public backlash. MRC Business was the first to expose how the DGB’s former co-chair,...

From branding parents speaking out against critical race theory and sexual ideology in schools as terrorists to the Mar-a-Lago raid, Attorney General Merrick Garland’s radicalized Justice Department transforms pre-election political opposition into national security threats. The infamous DOJ letter on schools was sent out a month before the gubernatorial election in Virginia, where the National School Board Association, not to mention much of the D.C. establishment, is based. Much as Garland’s DOJ operatives feared, the school protests helped elect Gov. Glenn Younkin and nearly toppled New Jersey’s Democrat governor in the bargain. The Mar-a-Lago raid was carefully timed around the...

“You tried to create a censorship board inside a law enforcement agency of the federal government,” Posobiec continued, “And I took it down. We don’t do that in the United States of America.” In late May Jankowicz publicly named Posobiec as the person she most singularly blames for her downfall and the Ministry of Truth‘s evisceration. In her first interview since the board’s end, Jankowicz told MSNBC host Chris Hayes that her resignation was the result of a grandiose conspiracy or “coordinating mechanism” as “all these sensationalized narratives about what people thought the board was going to do was completely...

Jankowicz was scrutinized for her history of spreading misinformation, such as a story denying the existence of the Hunter Biden laptop. According to critics, DHS’ new board resembled George Orwell’s ‘Ministry of Truth’ from 1984 and was designed to silence conservative voices. It is clear from the novel that the ministry was used to spread information – and that it was able to rewrite the history of a fictional world in order to change the facts. After just a few weeks, the DHS shut down the board for a “pause”, and its head, Jankowicz, resigned.

"With Independence Day upon us let's celebrate an under-appreciated American archetype - the hyper-partisan defender of democracy. That is politicians who put country over party in times of crisis. Charles Thomson was the secretary for the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1789. Along with John Hancock his was one of only two names to appear on the original printing of the Declaration of Independence. Thomson wrongly thought that the new country couldn't survive a two-party system, that polarization would reign supreme and the new nation would inevitably devolve into two mobs vying for power every four years. Thomson didn't know...

Obama Issues Executive Order for the government to use individual's behavioral data.

Under the newest version of a code of conduct originally established in 2018, nearly three dozen entities vowed to step up efforts to detect false claims, to label political advertising more transparently and to restrict advertising around disinformation, among other moves. Demonetizing disinformation is the “cornerstone” of the new initiative, said Thierry Breton, a European commissioner and one of the EU’s top digital regulators. Many of the biggest platforms signing onto Thursday’s agreement had already been operating under the older set of 21 commitments, which ranged from supporting fact-checking to scrutinizing ad placement. This week’s expansion grows the list of...

The New York Times appeared to be tickled pink over liberal-run states shoehorning President Joe Biden’s Disinformation Governance Board idea into their own election governance processes. The Times technology and regulation reporter Cecilia Kang celebrated Connecticut for a reported recent state effort to hire an election “misinformation” expert with a $150,000 salary. Kang’s story painted the idea of Connecticut’s so-called state “misinformation” officer like he or she would be a dogged crime-fighter. The story had a fawning headline: “Help Wanted: State Misinformation Sheriff.” Kang whined how the state faced “a bevy of falsehoods about voting that swirled around online.” To...

Three weeks: That's how long it took for the Department of Homeland Security to go from announcing a board intended to combat disinformation to suspending it. In those three weeks, both the Disinformation Governance Board and its leader, Nina Jankowicz, came under relentless and sometimes vicious attack from right-wing media and Republican lawmakers. DHS initially shared few details about the board's function and purview, leading to speculation and fears it would police online speech. As the board's public face, Jankowicz became a lighting rod. A well-regarded authority in online disinformation, who has studied Russian information operations and advised governments including...

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) on Wednesday announced plans to create a police unit designed to, in part, combat “hate speech” in the wake of the tragic shooting in Buffalo, promising to “confront this epidemic head-on.” “We’re proposing a comprehensive plan to combat domestic terrorism, strengthen state gun laws, & investigate social media platforms promoting violent extremism,” Hochul announced Wednesday. In wake of the racist act of terror in Buffalo, New York will lead the charge to confront this epidemic head-on,” she added:

The New York Times had a cow over the apparent demise of President Joe Biden’s Disinformation Governance Board and painted it as a victim of — wait for it — disinformation. Times “veteran” foreign and national security correspondent Steven Lee Meyers published an asinine story headlined: “A Panel to Combat Disinformation Becomes a Victim of It.” Meyers mourned that the Department of Homeland Security was “suspending the work” of the DGB “intended to combat disinformation after what the department described as a deliberate disinformation campaign.” According to Meyers’ lament, “the fiercest denunciations came from the right,” which included correct characterizations...

The now-former head of the Biden administration’s abortive disinformation board said in an interview Wednesday that she received death threats almost every day during her three weeks on the job. Nina Jankowicz made the claim to MSNBC “All In” host Chris Hayes hours after she announced her resignation following the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to “pause” the Disinformation Governance Board. “I have maybe had one or two days I didn’t report a violent threat,” she said. “Something like, ‘We’re coming for you and your family’, ‘You and your family should be sent to Russia to be killed’, [they] encouraged...

Following a report detailing the death-rattle of the Biden administration's Disinformation Governance Board, Executive Director Nina Jankowicz has officially resigned her post with the disinfo board and Department of Homeland Security. UPDATE:Following a report detailing the death-rattle of the Biden administration's Disinformation Governance Board, Executive Director Nina Jankowicz has officially resigned her post with the disinfo board and Department of Homeland Security.UPDATE: Nina Jankowicz has officially resigned from Disinformation Governance Board and the DHS. https://t.co/rLi3FvUNMw https://t.co/z4hdwTBFIB— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) May 18, 2022ORIGINAL POST:After a rough three weeks in which conservatives landed significant hits on and exposed major flaws with the...

As soon as the DHS agency to combat disinformation was created, director Nina Jankowicz found herself on the receiving end of a concerted campaign by the very same forces disinformation her office would face.