News roundup: U.S. gov't and social media companies collaborate to stop 'disinformation'
The Intercept reports on internal documents revealing the U.S. government and Facebook are partnering against online speech in a dangerous way
Happy Tuesday and welcome to the latest news roundup for the Weekly Dystopia! We’re starting with a shocking news story from The Intercept shedding light on bad behavior by Big Tech and the U.S. government.
U.S. GOV’T AND FACEBOOK COLLABORATE ON POLICING DISINFO: Social media and the U.S. government have been collaborating to stop the spread of online discourse they deem is disinformation, according to The Intercept’s Ken Klippenstein and Lee Fang.
This story was posted on The Intercept early yesterday, but I’m placing it at the top at here because it slipped under my radar (and apparently the radar of the mainstream media). The story suggests a fundamental disregard in the U.S. government for freedom of speech — and the willingness of social media companies to go along with it.
Although the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year shut down a widely criticized “Disinformation Governance Board,” the underlying work appears to continue. Conservations have continued at high levels between U.S. government officials charged with stopping the spread of misinformation and social media companies, The Intercept reports.
Among the material The Intercept reported on was an internal DHS document clarifying what it sees as disinformation:
According to a draft copy of DHS’s Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, DHS’s capstone report outlining the department’s strategy and priorities in the coming years, the department plans to target “inaccurate information” on a wide range of topics, including “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.”
In other words, DHS is seeking to suppress information on subjects potentially embarrassing to the U.S. government and challenging narratives by public officials widely seen as misleading. Even if the information is incorrect, the U.S. government is taking on a new and dangerous role by actively seeking to contain public discourse.
More from The Intercept:
How disinformation is defined by the government has not been clearly articulated, and the inherently subjective nature of what constitutes disinformation provides a broad opening for DHS officials to make politically motivated determinations about what constitutes dangerous speech.
DHS justifies these goals — which have expanded far beyond its original purview on foreign threats to encompass disinformation originating domestically — by claiming that terrorist threats can be “exacerbated by misinformation and disinformation spread online.”
The social media company operating Facebook and Instagram appear to be acting on this collaboration. According to The Intercept, the company Meta has set up a special portal allowing government officials to report what they deem is misinformation. The “content request system” was still online as this newsletter was being wrapped up late yesterday. It can be found at facebook.com/xtakedowns/login.
The Intercept also reports on minutes from a March meeting where FBI official Laura Dehmlow, who had a role in successfully urging social media companies to suppress the 2020 story on Hunter Biden’s laptop, delivered an internal briefing on the scope scope of the efforts and was quoted as saying “we need a media infrastructure that is held accountable.”
PENGUIN STANDS BY JUSTICE BARRETT AMID CALL TO CANCEL HER BOOK: In an increasingly uncommon display of a company sticking to its guns in the face of a public relations threat, Penguin Random House announced on Monday it would continue to publish a book by Justice Amy Comey Barrett despite demands it withdraw her deal, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Penguin Random House on Monday said it is committed to publishing a coming book by Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett despite a dissenting online open letter that has garnered more than 600 signatures, including many from the publishing world.
The open letter with 600 signatories, who appear primarily to be staffers within the publishing industry, called on the publisher to cancel the $2 million deal with Barrett on the basis she committed an “assault on inalienable human rights” by being part of the Supreme Court decision to Roe v. Wade.
It was perfectly within the right of 600 staffers to object to the deal between Penguin Random House and Barrett. Had the publisher caved, however, it would have been the latest incident of the mob being able to deplatform an individual for holding a contrary view, especially when the issue at hand, in this case abortion, inspires widely divergent viewpoints.
Side note: The left has been outraged over what they call book bans on material with LGBTQ-related themes, which instead has largely been public libraries and schools declining to shelve sexually explicitly content in collections intended for children. The same anger over suppression doesn’t appear to apply when a publisher is seeking to distribute a book written by an author they don't like.
SEN. MURPHY CALLS FOR INVESTIGATION OF SAUDI STAKE IN TWITTER: Sen. Chris Murphy is calling for an investigation into the Saudi share of Twitter, citing concerns about national security implications.
Sen. Murphy made the request to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States on Monday just days after Elon Musk completed his acquisition of the company.
From Sen. Murphy’s news statement:
“As you know, CFIUS has the responsibility to review transactions that could result in an American business being controlled by a foreign person. However, CFIUS must also review non-controlling investments in certain sensitive U.S. businesses, including companies that develop critical technologies and businesses that possess sensitive personal data on U.S. citizens. The purpose of these reviews is clear: to protect the national security interests of the United States and American citizens.”
Sen. Murphy’s statement cites as reasons for his national security conners the Saudi government’s ”repression of free speech and political dissent inside and outside of the Kingdom’s borders, including the brutal murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”
The Saudi government has a reputation for using Twitter badly. In August, a former Twitter employee was convicted of charges related to spying on behalf of Saudi Arabia, included the supply of information on dissidents who use the platform, according to a report in Axios.
In an initial tweet, Sen. Murphy characterized the relationship as the Saudi government having “purchased” Twitter, as if that happen recently. When critics pointed out that was incorrect, Sen. Murphy tweeted back the situation is more complicated.
Sen. Murphy’s call echoes a report in Bloomberg News earlier this month the U.S. government was weighing whether to investigate Musk over national security issues on his acquisition on Twitter and tweets about cutting satellite services to Ukraine. The request for an investigation, additionally, comes at a time of significant anxiety on the left about Musk’s new ownership.