Our Glorious Elites try mightily to keep us peons from expressing #WrongThink, two high profile media firings, and more Blue City decline. Enjoy a short but sweet Friday LinkSwarm!<\/p>\n
It transpires that the infamous incident before the 2020 election in which 50 former intelligence officials signed an open letter declared a New York Post expose about Hunter Biden\u2019s laptop to have the \u201cclassic earmarks of a Russian information operation\u201d was instigated at the behest of the Joe Biden campaign. This at least is the allegation in a letter to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken released by Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government.<\/p>\n
In that letter, which is not easy to find, you\u2019ll see three snippets of dialogue from questioning of Morell, who appears to have organized the open letter. In the first snippet, he explains that the idea originated with a call from Blinken, then of the Biden campaign.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It looks like every campaign to fight “disinformation” was just a tool to silence dissenting voices.<\/a>
\nI knew things were bad in my world, but the truth turned out to be much worse than I could have imagined.<\/p>\n
My name is Andrew Lowenthal. I am a progressive-minded Australian who for almost 18 years was the Executive Director of EngageMedia, an Asia-based NGO focused on human rights online, freedom of expression, and open technology. My resume also includes fellowships at Harvard\u2019s Berkman Klein Center and MIT\u2019s Open Documentary Lab. For most of my career, I believed strongly in the work I was doing, which I believed was about protecting and expanding digital rights and freedoms.<\/p>\n
In recent years, however, I watched in despair as a dramatic change swept through my field. As if all at once, organizations and colleagues with whom I\u2019d worked for years began de-emphasizing freedom of speech and expression, and shifted focus to a new arena: fighting \u201cdisinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Long before the #TwitterFiles, and certainly before responding to a Racket call for freelancers to help \u201cKnock Out the Mainstream Propaganda Machine,\u201d I\u2019d been raising concerns about the weaponization of \u201canti-disinformation\u201d as a tool for censorship. For EngageMedia team members in Myanmar, Indonesia, India, or the Philippines, the new elite Western consensus of giving governments greater power to decide what could be said online was the opposite of the work we were doing.<\/p>\n
When Malaysian and Singaporean governments introduced \u201cfake news\u201d laws, EngageMedia supported networks of activists campaigning against it. We ran digital security workshops for journalists and human rights advocates under threat from government attack, both virtual and physical. We developed an independent video platform to route around Big Tech censorship and supported campaigners in Thailand fighting government attempts to suppress free expression. In Asia, government interference in speech and expression was the norm. Progressive activists in search of more political freedom often looked to the West for moral and financial support. Now the West is turning against the core value of free expression, in the name of fighting disinformation.<\/p>\n
Before being put in charge of tracking anti-disinformation groups and their funders for this Racket project, I thought I had a strong idea of just how big this industry was. I\u2019d been swimming in the broader digital rights field for two decades and saw the rapid growth of anti-disinformation initiatives up close. I knew many of the key organizations and their leaders, and EngageMedia had itself been part of anti-disinformation projects.<\/p>\n
After gaining access to #TwitterFiles records, I learned the ecosystem was far bigger and had much more influence than I imagined. As of now we\u2019ve compiled close to 400 organisations globally, and we are just getting started. Some organisations are legitimate. There is disinformation. But there are a great many wolves among the sheep.<\/p>\n
I underestimated just how much money is being pumped into think tanks, academia and NGOs under the anti-disinformation front, both from the government and private philanthropy. We\u2019re still calculating, but I had estimated it at hundreds of millions of dollars annually and I\u2019m probably still being naive – Peraton received a USD $1B dollar contract from the Pentagon.<\/p>\n
In particular, I was unaware of the scope and scale of the work of groups like the Atlantic Council, the Aspen Institute, the Center for European Policy Analysis and consultancies such as Public Good Projects, Newsguard, Graphika, Clemson\u2019s Media Forensics Hub and others.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit<\/a>.)<\/p>\n
“Eric Adams Blasts Biden, Says Border Crisis Has \u2018Destroyed\u2019 NYC<\/a>.”
\nNew York City Democratic Mayor Eric Adams ripped President Joe Biden\u2019s policies on the southern border Friday, saying that the White House\u2019s position on the issue has turned the Big Apple into a disaster.<\/p>\n
Adams has repeatedly asked for assistance from the federal government as New York City deals with thousands of illegal immigrants who have made their way to the city thanks to Biden\u2019s lax border policies. New York City will spend $4.2 billion to house and care for illegal immigrants by the middle of 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city is being destroyed by the migrant crisis,\u201d the first-term mayor said during a panel discussion hosted by the African American Mayors Association, the New York Post reported.<\/p>\n
The Democrat then said that his city would have seen the biggest financial turnaround in the city\u2019s history if it hadn\u2019t been for the illegal immigration crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you removed the $4.2 billion that have been dropped into my city because of a mismanaged asylum seeker issue, you [would have] probably witnessed one of the greatest fiscal turnarounds in the history of New York City,\u201d he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Adams is delusional if he thinks illegal aliens alone are destroying his city. Graft, corruption, high crime engendered by leftwing Social Justice policies, high taxes, horribly burdensome regulation, and all the other hallmarks of undivided Democratic Party rule all played bigger roles in New York City’s demise. But the extra illegal aliens didn’t help. So how do you think Texas citizens have felt about the crisis all this time? <\/p>\n
“Dem Bigwigs Caught Hobnobbing With Secret Chinese Police Mole<\/a>.” “New York Sen. Chuck Schumer was recently caught on video rubbing elbows with one of two men arrested for running a secret \u2014 and illegal \u2014 Chinese police station in New York City\u2019s Chinatown. The hobnobbing occurred at a gala for the Fukien American Association.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit<\/a>.)\n “Bud Light\u2019s Marketing VP Takes a Leave of Absence and Will Be Replaced<\/a>.” Not good enough<\/b>. Alissa Heinerscheid needs to be fired for cause for destroying billions in shareholder value.\n Taking the next two in the order they were announced, not order of importance: Don Lemon fired from CNN<\/a>. Also:\n Tucker Carlson fired from Fox News<\/a>. The problem with pairing these is that Don Lemon had one of the lowest rated shows on cable news, while Tucker Carlson had the highest<\/a>, and ten times Lemon’s ratings (albeit evening rather than morning). Lemon was fired for naked partisanship and low ratings; Carlson was fired for wrong partisanship<\/i> despite extremely high ratings. Carlson’s own statement after his firing:
\n\nGood evening pic.twitter.com\/SPrsYKWKCE<\/a><\/p>\n
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) April 27, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n