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| Marco Rubio |
Rubio surrenders… The State Dept. has officially dismantled the Counter Foreign State Information Manipulation unit, which was designed to root out misinformation and disinformation planted in social media by America’s adversaries Russia, China and Iran.
The death notice came via a Sept. 17 press release, celebrating the US championing of free expression. Oh brother, Rubio just extended a golden information for America’s antagonists to run amok in social medialand.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio contends the Global Engagement Center created by the Biden administration devolved into a political censorship bureau, and that Americans are savvy enough to detect foreign propaganda when it is presented on X, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram. I wouldn’t bet on that.
State’s timing is lousy. The Associated Press reports a wave of foreign disinformation swept across the US in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Within hours of that murder, Russia amplified online conspiracy theories, seeding social media with claims that the US had plunged into civil war.
Chinese bots pushed the idea that the killing proves just how polarized, violent and dysfunctional the US has become.
Iran claimed that Israel masterminded the assassination, which was accepted by white supremacist groups.
NewsGuard’s Reality Check counted 6,200 mentions of “Charlie Kirk” across Russian, Chinese and Iranian state-run medias from Sept. 10 to Sept. 17.
An Iranian outlet that is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp. reported: “The Israeli regime’s dark history of false flag operations and Trump’s use of the assassination of Charlie Kirk to suppress Palestinian supporters have led independent analysts to suspect the possibility of Mossad’s role in the assassination.”
Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Newsmax that claims of his country’s involvement in the Kirk killing are “insane.”
But who knows how many media outlets or individuals bought that Big Lle? One thing for sure: nobody at the State Dept was around to debunk it.
During his press conference about Kirk’s killing, Utah governor Spencer Cox said there have been bots from all over the world that are trying to instill disinformation and encourage violence.
His solution: log off social media and spend time with your family. Sorry, gov but that’s not going to happen.
A cynic might say Rubio’s decision to disband the foreign manipulation unit is just another part of Team Trump’s effort to discredit the US media by flooding it with overseas junk to chase down and verify.
The goal: Get rid of all that hold the Trump administration accountable for its rampant corruption and crazed domestic and international “policies.”
Going after the "haters." In the aftermath of Kirk’s murder, Donald Trump suggested that unfavorable coverage of the White House could be designated as “hate speech.”
He told ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl to watch out. “We’ll probably going after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. You have a lot of hate in your heart.” That threat is from a president of the US.
Eager to make brownie points with the boss, Attorney General Pam Bondi distinguished between “free” and “hate” speech. “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech,” she said.
Upon receiving a wave of criticism from conservatives, including popular commentator Erick Erickson, who posted on X that our AG “is apparently a moron,” Bondi backtracked.
For as Kirk posted in 2024: “Hate speech does not legally exist legally in America. There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech. And All of it is protected by the First Amendment.” Amen to that.
Bondi should think about returning to the PR business. She’s in over her head.
Perish the thought. Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr said ABC’s decision to yank Jimmy Kimmel’s show off the air was the right thing to do.
Trump's media consigliere said of Disney-owned ABC's shameful capitulation: “This is an important turning point,”
But an important turning point to where? A muzzled press? McCarthyism? Authoritarianism?
Is Carr now the official tastemaker of broadcast media? Must content measure up to his standards? It’s a sad day when the FCC assumes the power to tell the media what to air and what not to air.
That may be the situation in Trump’s favorite countries such as Russia and Hungary but it’s not suppose to happen here.
But then again, who could have dreamed that a country that once took great pride in its governmental system of checks and balances, would let a despotic president run rampant.
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