The US Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Center on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) created an internal “Disinformation Primer” that revealed the agency’s explicit praise for private sector censorship strategies and proposed additional censorship practices and techniques.
USAID’s censorship proposals were aimed at influencing private sector technology companies, media organizations, education ministries, national governments and funding bodies.
USAID endorsed “Advertiser Outreach” for the purpose of getting corporate advertisers to financially throttle disfavored media sources and social media accounts.
USAID recommended Google’s Redirect Method and “prebunking” (i.e., psychological inoculation) as potential solutions to stop the erosion of traditional media influence over citizen hearts and minds.
USAID proposed targeting gamers and gaming sites, pushing the need to censor their formation of “interpretations of the world that differ from ‘mainstream’ sources” and interrupting the process by which “individuals contribute their own ‘research’” to collectively form their own “populist expertise.”
USAID — the foreign-facing wing of the federal government that purports to use taxpayer dollars for “strengthening resilient democratic societies” and exporting American democratic ideals abroad — has been quietly pushing private sector technology companies, media organizations, education ministries, national governments and funding bodies to adopt social media censorship practices, according to newly revealed internal documents.
USAID’s 97-page proprietary “Disinformation Primer,” labeled “for internal use only” was obtained by America First Legal (AFL), a public interest law firm conducting a number of major investigations and lawsuits into the censorship industry and its government partner agencies, after a lengthy process in which the US Department of State failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and was compelled to turn over government documents after AFL succeeded in a formal lawsuit.
The USAID Disinformation Primer reveals a detailed compilation of the agency’s advocacy for some the most economically damaging censorship strategies — many of which had been deployed in America to throttle populists in the 2020 elections and afterwards — and endorses recommendations from some of the most controversial censorship industry institutions under scrutiny by the US Congress.
much more of the tactics being used
The “Media Literacy” scam is accelerating way too fast & it has to be stopped NOW.
Here’s why: pic.twitter.com/GCr7Q54adF
— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) November 21, 2023