U.S. quietly creates ‘Ministry of Truth’ to counter ‘other’ information

[grey boy 2]

U.S. quietly creates ‘Ministry of Truth’ to counter ‘other’ information
By Curtis Stone (People's Daily Online) 16:05, December 28, 2016

On December 23, 2016, President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 into law. Buried deep inside the Act is a little-known provision called the Portman-Murphy Counter-Propaganda Bill. The Bill requires the U.S. Department of State to set up and run a “Ministry of Truth” to counter online information from China and “other enemies” of the U.S.

The sole purpose of the new Bill is to amplify America’s message to the world while de-amplifying the world’s message to America. The U.S. has long been a staunch supporter of an open and global platform for communication, but this new Bill questions America’s commitment to the free exchange of ideas. “Our enemies are using foreign propaganda and disinformation against us and our allies, and so far, the U.S. government has been asleep at the wheel,” U.S. Senator Rob Portman said.

The Cold War-style “counter propaganda with propaganda” bill was introduced by U.S. senators Portman and Chris Murphy in March 2016, and is designed to counter foreign disinformation and propaganda with all elements of America’s national power, including new media. The adoption of the Bill suggests that America’s message to the world is losing its appeal in the face of a much more fiercely competitive market place of ideas.

The fabric of American democracy is threatened by the creation of a comprehensive agency for the purpose of deciding the truthfulness of foreign information and ideas. What constitutes disinformation and propaganda is not defined, and it is unclear how the U.S. government will make that decision in a system based on the free flow of information and ideas and with respect to constitutional rights.

The Bill is organized around two main priorities to help achieve the goal of combating foreign disinformation from America’s enemies. The first is developing a government strategy for countering foreign propaganda and disinformation. Though mainly focused on Russia, China is labeled an enemy and accused of using disinformation and other propaganda tools to influence the policies and social and political stability of America and its allies. The second is to leverage outside expertise, mainly at the local level. According to the Bill, the U.S. will fund and support local groups, such as local NGOS, to counter official messages and influence the policies and social and political stability of China and other enemies.

A “whole-of-government approach” is called for to counter disinformation, meaning multiple government departments will work closely with the U.S. Department of State. This includes the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the parent organization to Voice of America, as well as various other government agencies. The new interagency center housed at the State Department will be responsible for all government initiatives intended to promote America’s message to the world.

In the name of national security, the U.S. government can now smear and exclude foreign media views and opinion, an important counterbalance to America’s message in the global marketplace of ideas. The adoption of the Bill comes at a time when China’s message to the world is strengthening. People’s Daily (@PDChina) and other Chinese media outlets have been building their online presence in recent years by relying more and more on international new media to tell the story of China and to present news and views from a Chinese perspective.

"Looks like the so-called great American soft power is going downhill much faster than expected, such desperate action speak louder than words"
http://en.people.cn/n3/2016/1228/c90000-9160363.html

 

[Dungeness]

Now Americans are having a taste of their own medicine. When it comes to the war of disinformation, they are second to none.

 

[terranMarine]

With China's CGTN, Russia RT and media from other countries doing a great job countering garbage US MSM more people are starting to raise awareness and look at the US from a better perspective. More shall wake up from the US brainwashing propaganda seeing the US as nothing more than a warmonger trying to destabilize countries with lies and all the killings. Unfortunately dumb people are always around buying the good old US peace keeper crap.

 

[bobsm]

New law lets government fight propaganda with propaganda

ROCCO MAGLIO

After this year’s election, a topic which has seen a lot of coverage is “fake news.” There were some stories that were shared that sounded plausible to some, but were not true. There was other information that was provided that was true, but may have been obtained by foreign powers.

Some in Congress reacted to this and thus we have the Portman-Murphy Counter-Propaganda Bill. The new law was built into the enormous $611 billion defense appropriations bill signed into law by President Obama on December 23, 2016.

The bill aims to “improve the ability of the United States to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation from our enemies by establishing an interagency center housed at the State Department to coordinate and synchronize counter-propaganda efforts throughout the U.S. government.

To support these efforts, the bill also creates a grant program for NGOs, think tanks, civil society and other experts outside government who are engaged in counter-propaganda related work. This will better leverage existing expertise and empower our allies overseas to defend themselves from foreign manipulation. It will also help foster a free and vibrant press and civil society overseas, which is critical to ensuring our allies have access to truthful information and inoculating people against foreign propaganda campaigns.”

These grants appear to be the government increasing their ability to generate propaganda through the use of third parties. The stated intention is to counter propaganda, but it could potentially be used to generate propaganda even possibly propaganda aimed at the American People.

The official press release also establishes two priorities of the bill:

“The first priority is developing a whole-of-government strategy for countering the foreign propaganda and disinformation being waged against us and our allies by our enemies. The bill would increase the authority, resources, and mandate of the Global Engagement Center to include state actors like Russia and China as well as non-state actors. The Center will be led by the State Department, but with the active senior level participation of the Department of Defense, USAID, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the Intelligence Community, and other relevant agencies. The Center will develop, integrate, and synchronize whole-of-government initiatives to expose and counter foreign disinformation operations by our enemies and proactively advance fact-based narratives that support U.S. allies and interests."

“Second, the legislation seeks to leverage expertise from outside government to create more adaptive and responsive U.S. strategy options. The legislation establishes a fund to help train local journalists and provide grants and contracts to NGOs, civil society organizations, think tanks, private sector companies, media organizations, and other experts outside the U.S. government with experience in identifying and analyzing the latest trends in foreign government disinformation techniques. This fund will complement and support the Center’s role by integrating capabilities and expertise available outside the U.S. government into the strategy-making process. It will also empower a decentralized network of private sector experts and integrate their expertise into the strategy-making process."

The sponsoring Senators made the following statements in the press release.

“Our enemies are using foreign propaganda and disinformation against us and our allies, and so far the U.S. government has been asleep at the wheel,” Portman said. “But today, the United States has taken a critical step towards confronting the extensive, and destabilizing, foreign propaganda and disinformation operations being waged against us by our enemies overseas. With this bill now law, we are finally signaling that enough is enough; the United States will no longer sit on the sidelines. We are going to confront this threat head-on. I am confident that, with the help of this bipartisan bill, the disinformation and propaganda used against us, our allies, and our interests will fail.”

“The use of propaganda to undermine democracy has hit a new low. But now we are finally in a position to confront this threat head on and get out the truth. By building up independent, objective journalism in places like eastern Europe, we can start to fight back by exposing these fake narratives and empowering local communities to protect themselves,” said Murphy. “I’m proud that our bill was signed into law, and I look forward to working with Senator Portman to make sure these tools and new resources are effectively used to get out the truth.”

This new law appears intended to allow the United States to create news organizations that provide true news or news fact checkers. The definition of what exactly “fake news” is a bit murky. It appears that many of the truly fake news stories were spread by sites that counted on unique stories that were not true to drive visitors to their site and generate ad revenue. Some of these sites are parody and others interest people since they provide shocking, but possibly believable stories based on your world view. Some of these stories are difficult to determine if they are real or not.

Then there are the sites like Wikileaks that host information and are not concerned about how the information was obtained. The information that they provide is usually vetted to establish its validity, but not who provided the information. Wikileaks came to prominence when they released hundreds of thousands of United States State Department cables starting February 18, 2010 in coordination with El País, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, The Guardian and The New York Times. The cables are believed to have been uploaded to Wikileaks by a disgruntled United States Army soldier Bradley Manning.

They increased their standing on April 5, 2010 by releasing a video in which a US Apache gunship killed a wounded Reuters employee in Iraq who the gunship mistook for an insurgent. Reuters had unsuccessfully tried to obtain the video via a Freedom of Information Act request. Wikileaks provocatively entitled the video “Collateral Murder.”

During the election, Wikileaks published a number of emails belonging to DNC employees and former chairman of the Hillary Clinton Campaign John Podesta. These emails put the campaign in a bad light. There was discussion of how to help Hillary Clinton from DNC officials who were supposed to be impartial. There were reporters acting more as campaign workers than independent journalists. There was a reporter providing a debate question to Mrs. Clinton. This release of the internal communications of the DNC and campaign affected the campaign negatively. In a close election it might have been the difference between winning and losing.

The emails leaks contain google hashes which verified that they were unaltered. This would make them accurate internal communications, but they may have been copied and provided by a foreign government. To some this would constitute “fake news,” since it is a foreign organization possibly influencing a United States election.

This law seems to be aimed at the latter definition of “fake news” where true information is disseminated by foreign agents.

https://hernandosun.com/propaganda_20161230

 

[TaiShang]

The Bill requires the U.S. Department of State to set up and run a “Ministry of Truth” to counter online information from China and “other enemies” of the U.S.

What a neo-fascist way of looking at the world at large.

The US runs the most well-oiled state-embedded media propaganda machine, along with the crude ones such as the VOA, but they still weep over their incapacity.

When compared to all the neo-fascist media powerhouses that the US regime runs, what could RT, Press TV, or CGTN even do? And yet, even that much of counter propaganda is too much for the US.

 

[52051]

The sole purpose of the new Bill is to amplify America’s message to the world while de-amplifying the world’s message to America.

If this is the whole point, you know, the american can learn a thing or two from north korea