Leaked Docs Reveal Shocking Extent
Of DHS "Disinfo" Collusion With
Twitter, Facebook

"Basically, the background here is the FBI, I think, basically
came to us- some folks on our team and was like, 'Hey, just so
you know, like, you should be on high alert… We thought that
there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election.

We have it on notice that, basically, there's about to be some
kind of dump of that's similar to that. So just be vigilant,"
Zuckerberg told Rogan.
Now, leaked documents provided to The Intercept
(https://theintercept.com/2022/10/31/social-mediadisinformation-
dhs/) reveal that government collusion with
big tech goes much deeper.

The effort began in 2018, after former President Donald
Trump signed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security
Agency Act in the wake of several high-profile hacking
incidents, forming a new wing of DHS devoted to protecting
critical national infrastructure.

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.

Behind closed doors, and through pressure on private
platforms, the U.S. government has used its power to try to
shape online discourse. According to meeting minutes
(https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23175380-dhscybersecurity-
disinformation-meeting-minutes) and other
records appended to a lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney
General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is also running for
Senate, discussions have ranged from the scale and scope of
government intervention in online discourse to the mechanics
of streamlining takedown requests for false or intentionally
misleading information. -The Intercept

"Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov’t. It’s really
interesting how hesitant they remain," said Microsoft exec
and former DHS official Matt Masterson in a February text to
Jen Easterly, a DHS director.
Then, in a March 2022 meeting, FBI official Laura Dehmlow
warned that the 'threat of subversive information on social
media' could undermine support for the US government -
stressing "we need a media infrastructure that is held
accountable."

Twitter has denied the report, telling The Intercept: "We do
not coordinate with other entities when making content
moderation decisions, and we independently evaluate content
in line with the Twitter Rules."

Except...

More via The Intercept:

This apparatus had a dry run during the 2020 election, when
CISA began working with other members of the U.S.
intelligence community.

Office of Intelligence and Analysis
personnel attended “weekly teleconferences to coordinate
Intelligence Community activities to counter election-related
disinformation.” According to the IG report, meetings have
continued to take place every two weeks since the elections.

Emails between DHS officials, Twitter, and the Center for
Internet Security outline the process
(https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23131810-
cisa-emails) for such takedown requests during the period
leading up to November 2020. Meeting notes show that the

tech platforms would be called upon
(https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23132393-cismeeting-
notes) to “process reports and provide timely
responses, to include the removal of reported misinformation
from the platform where possible.” In practice, this often
meant state election officials sent examples of potential
forms of disinformation to CISA, which would then forward
them on to social media companies for a response.

Under President Joe Biden, the shifting focus on
disinformation has continued. In January 2021, CISA replaced
(https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2022-
08/OIG-22-58-Aug22.pdf) the Countering Foreign Influence
Task force with the “Misinformation, Disinformation and
Malinformation” team, which was created “to promote more
flexibility to focus on general MDM.” By now, the scope of the
effort had expanded beyond disinformation produced by
foreign governments to include domestic versions. The MDM
team, according to one CISA official quoted in the IG report,
“counters all types of disinformation, to be responsive to
current events.”

What's more, the DHS plans to accelerate their efforts.

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.”

Why? Racism, apparently.

"The challenge is particularly acute in marginalized
communities, which are often the targets of false or
misleading information, such as false information on voting
procedures targeting people of color," reads the report.
Read more here...
(https://theintercept.com/2022/10/31/social-mediadisinformation-
dhs/)