Truth Cops: Leaked Documents Outline DHS’s Plans to Police Disinformation

[mountaineer]

Truth Cops: Leaked Documents Outline DHS’s Plans to Police Disinformation
Ken Klippenstein, Lee Fang
October 31 2022, 5:00 a.m.

The Department of Homeland Security is quietly broadening its efforts to curb speech it considers dangerous, an investigation by The Intercept has found. Years of internal DHS memos, emails, and documents — obtained via leaks and an ongoing lawsuit, as well as public documents — illustrate an expansive effort by the agency to influence tech platforms.

The work, much of which remains unknown to the American public, came into clearer view earlier this year when DHS announced a new “Disinformation Governance Board”: a panel designed to police misinformation (false information spread unintentionally), disinformation (false information spread intentionally), and malinformation (factual information shared, typically out of context, with harmful intent) that allegedly threatens U.S. interests. While the board was widely ridiculed, immediately scaled back, and then shut down within a few months, other initiatives are underway as DHS pivots to monitoring social media now that its original mandate — the war on terror — has been wound down.   ...

There is also a formalized process for government officials to directly flag content on Facebook or Instagram and request that it be throttled or suppressed through a special Facebook portal that requires a government or law enforcement email to use. At the time of writing, the “content request system” at facebook.com/xtakedowns/login is still live. DHS and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, did not respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined to comment.

DHS’s mission to fight disinformation, stemming from concerns around Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election, began taking shape during the 2020 election and over efforts to shape discussions around vaccine policy during the coronavirus pandemic. ...

Full story at The Intercept
Key Takeaways

    *Though DHS shuttered its controversial Disinformation Governance Board, a strategic document reveals the underlying work is ongoing.
    *DHS plans to target inaccurate information on “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.”
    *Facebook created a special portal for DHS and government partners to report disinformation directly.

[mountaineer]

Lee Fang
@lhfang
FBI agent Laura Dehmlow was in communications w Facebook that led to the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020 over the false allegation that it was “disinfo.” This year, she met w/ Twitter/DHS to stress “we need a media infrastructure that is held accountable.”

11:23 AM · Oct 31, 2022

The emails and documents show close collaboration b/w DHS & private sector. Twitter's Vijaya Gadde (fired by @elonmusk
 last week) met monthly with DHS to discuss censorship plans. Microsoft exec texted DHS: "Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov't"
12:09 PM · Oct 31, 2022

More:

https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1587114424925442049

[mystery-ak]

DHS LEAKS: Starting in 2020, DHS began meeting with Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia and more monthly to coordinate 'content moderation' efforts

Prior to 2020, it was reported that DHS met with Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, and other platforms in order to coordinate "content moderation" operations.


Libby Emmons
Brooklyn NY
Oct 31, 2022

The Department of Homeland Security has been working to influence big tech platforms. This became originally evident when the Biden administration launched the ill-fated Disinformation Governance Board early in 2022, but has been a focus of their efforts even beyond that now-defunct unit, and before.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt filed a lawsuit that revealed via appended meeting minutes that former Microsoft executive Matt Masterson, who was formerly an official with DHS, told a DHS director in February 2022 that "Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov't. It's really interesteding how hesitant they remain." This according to The Intercept.

Prior to 2020, it was reported that DHS met with Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, and other platforms in order to coordinate "content moderation" operations. These meetings were part of an ongoing initiative which saw collusion and collaboration between DHS and big tech to determine how "misinformation" would be dealt with on those platforms.

Areas that came under this purview included the withdrawal from Afghanistan, undertaken disastrously by President Joe Biden in August 2021 as well as the origins of the Covid-19 virus, which became controversial enough that users were kicked off social media platforms for expressing the hypothesis that the virus originated in a Wuhan, China lab. A Senate report found last week that this was the most likely scenario. Information that could undermine trust in financial institutions was also targeted.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act, signed by President Donald Trump, opened the door to this as it formed a new branch within DHS, which then undertook to deal with online "disinformation." CISA stated its understanding that the mission of that branch of DHS was "evolved," and meant to communicate their concerns on "disinformation" to social media companies. Social media companies took DHS' word for it.

DHS used concerns about "marginialized communities" to justify their reach.

https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1587095890983936000

more
https://thepostmillennial.com/dhs-leaks-starting-in-2020-dhs-began-meeting-with-twitter-facebook-wikipedia-and-more-monthly-to-coordinate-content-moderation-efforts?utm_campaign=64483


additional info
https://theintercept.com/2022/10/31/social-media-disinformation-dhs/

[mystery-ak]

Report: Twitter and Facebook Had Regular Meetings with DHS on Censoring Americans

Executives from Facebook and Twitter, including the recently-fired head of trust & safety Vijaya Gadde, held regular meetings with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to discuss censorship on a wide range of topics, including the withdrawal from Afghanistan, coronavirus, and “racial justice,” according to leaked documents.

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2022/10/31/report-twitter-and-facebook-had-regular-meetings-with-dhs-on-censoring-americans/