US Taxpayers Are FUNDING Censorship On Behalf Of State Department: Matt Taibbi — Transcript

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1. 0:04[Music]
2. 0:08[Applause]
3. 0:11the house committee on small businesses
4. 0:13published a scathing report finding
5. 0:14evidence of taxpayer funded censorship
6. 0:17in the global engagement Center a
7. 0:18counter messaging operation of the state
8. 0:20department created during President
9. 0:22Barack Obama's final year in office
10. 0:24confirming previous reporting by racket
11. 0:26news as well as the Washington examiner
12. 0:28now independent journalist Matt Ki said
13. 0:30the state department was guilty of
14. 0:32censorship and profound corruption the
15. 0:34committee wrote earlier this month quote
16. 0:36the federal government has funded
17. 0:37developed and promoted entities that aim
18. 0:39to demonetize news and information
19. 0:42Outlets because of their lawful speech
20. 0:44the committee added that the gec
21. 0:46circumvented its strict International uh
22. 0:48mandate by funding private contractors
23. 0:51with domestic censorship capabilities
24. 0:53joining us now to discuss is Matt taibe
25. 0:55of Racket news thanks Matt for joining
26. 0:57us thanks for having me so this
27. 1:01organization and there's so many of
28. 1:03these
29. 1:04alphabet various funded groups that are
30. 1:07some are explicitly government some are
31. 1:09nonprofits some are associated with
32. 1:11think tanks or academic departments so
33. 1:13it's all confusing I think very much
34. 1:16deliberately in order to you know mask
35. 1:18the source of this which is often
36. 1:19actually just the government um but talk
37. 1:22to us about what happened here I I know
38. 1:23the the what the the global
39. 1:25disinformation index is the organization
40. 1:28that um threatened one of my own
41. 1:30employers reason magazine where I also
42. 1:32write said we were an unsafe a risky
43. 1:34News website they said that to I think
44. 1:36the Federalist and Daily Caller in some
45. 1:38other places like that and with the goal
46. 1:41of of um persuading advertisers not to
47. 1:45work with these sites based on um
48. 1:49alleged sins that were just totally
49. 1:51invented totally made up had not were
50. 1:54were not accurate were themselves
51. 1:56misinformation which I called out and
52. 1:59then they quickly changed their mind
53. 2:00about that but describe the the how this
54. 2:03was actually at the root of it was
55. 2:05government
56. 2:07action right so the global
57. 2:09disinformation index the GDI that is a
58. 2:13UK based uh private or quasi private
59. 2:18organization and this is a very common
60. 2:21pattern by the way with this whole
61. 2:23disinformation scheme which is that
62. 2:25you'll find something um an NGO or some
63. 2:28kind of organization that exists outside
64. 2:30the United States but if you trace its
65. 2:32funding back you'll find that it's
66. 2:34getting money from the American
67. 2:36government in this case uh the money
68. 2:38came from the GE not the GDI the gec
69. 2:42which is the global engagement Center
70. 2:44which is a wing of the state department
71. 2:47which confusingly um from its uh
72. 2:50Beginnings was actually mostly funded by
73. 2:52the Department of Defense um but
74. 2:55essentially what you you're describing
75. 2:57is exactly right so there's State
76. 3:00Department money that is going to a
77. 3:02foreign uh media scoring operation that
78. 3:06not only down ranks companies according
79. 3:08to their uh safety um but also um has
80. 3:13something called a dynamic exclusion
81. 3:15list which is just a fancy word for a
82. 3:18blacklist uh which yet again circulates
83. 3:20to advertisers and the biggest ones like
84. 3:22Google um uh so that they can then
85. 3:27essentially cut off sources of r Vue for
86. 3:30disfavored media outlets now that's
87. 3:32explicitly part of their mission is is
88. 3:35uh cutting off Revenue as a source for
89. 3:38these unsafe Outlets so you have
90. 3:41basically an
91. 3:42American uh Department which is funding
92. 3:47uh economic damage to American companies
93. 3:49and essentially they're doing this
94. 3:52because they're not promoting a point of
95. 3:53view that the government would like uh
96. 3:57American taxpayers might be surprised to
97. 3:59learn that they're paying their
98. 4:02government to provide funds to a foreign
99. 4:06organization to advise censorship of
100. 4:10American citizens opinions this is an
101. 4:13incredibly complicated situation to you
102. 4:16know to end up to do some runaround the
103. 4:18First Amendment um so this came up in in
104. 4:21this house uh report which was able to
105. 4:25confirm not just a lot of what you've
106. 4:27talked about here but also that you and
107. 4:30Gabe Kaminsky who's done a lot of good
108. 4:31work on this at the Washington examiner
109. 4:33were there was an attempt to discredit
110. 4:35your looking into
111. 4:37this yeah this didn't make me Terribly
112. 4:40Happy I mean one of the things we found
113. 4:41out um as this report came out is that
114. 4:45the state department in briefing this
115. 4:47committee um had some things to say
116. 4:49about me personally they were tried to
117. 4:51discredit my reporting by talking about
118. 4:53my past uh mentioning specifically that
119. 4:56I lived in Russia and some unsavory
120. 4:59behavior on my part during that time um
121. 5:03that's another taxpayer funded activity
122. 5:05I'm not sure I feel very positively
123. 5:06about is having the Government tried to
124. 5:09discredit reporting that's legitimate
125. 5:11and factual um you know using personal
126. 5:13smears and that sort of thing uh but uh
127. 5:17they've they also did some sneaky things
128. 5:19with Congressman uh Jim Banks who had
129. 5:23written a letter complaining about uh
130. 5:24this same activity there's a memo that
131. 5:28the the committee uncovered
132. 5:30talking about banks with a list of
133. 5:33talking points about how to respond to
134. 5:35him and one of them does a very sneaky
135. 5:38thing it quotes him in Ria noesy which
136. 5:41is a Russian news agency but the quote
137. 5:43didn't come from rovesti he never talked
138. 5:45to
139. 5:46rovy uh Rio noesy took that quote from
140. 5:48the Washington examiner which is the
141. 5:50real Source uh of the quote so they're
142. 5:53trying to create the impression that
143. 5:54this Congressman was talking to Russian
144. 5:57uh sort of State News agencies which I I
145. 5:59thought you know that has shades of
146. 6:01McCarthyism to it uh very unpleasant the
147. 6:04whole thing you also in your recent
148. 6:07piece describing what is going on you
149. 6:09again remind your readers that the
150. 6:11moderators at Twitter who again were the
151. 6:14The Last Link in the chain of the
152. 6:16attempted censorship is the state
153. 6:19department funded forces trying to
154. 6:21convince persuading social media
155. 6:23moderators that they should take action
156. 6:25against pieces of content and again you
157. 6:27point out that there was Inc actual
158. 6:29incredible initial skepticism on the
159. 6:30point of the moderators at the company
160. 6:32with Yol Roth describing the methodology
161. 6:35as shoddy and bogus um calling attention
162. 6:38to some of the well these are Russian
163. 6:40Bots being wrong it's now been proven to
164. 6:42be wrong totally the Hamilton 68 list um
165. 6:45but that over time they they didn't
166. 6:48change their mind they didn't eventually
167. 6:49decide oh the state department and all
168. 6:51these forces are right about this they
169. 6:52just decided the cost to them of
170. 6:55refusing the government was getting to
171. 6:56be too high
172. 6:59yeah and this is a complicated story and
173. 7:01it's one of the harder things to to
174. 7:03follow in the Twitter files but
175. 7:05essentially the global engagement Center
176. 7:07is a relatively new organization uh in
177. 7:10the government as as you mentioned
178. 7:12Barack Obama created it by executive
179. 7:14order in
180. 7:152016 uh its previous incarnations um in
181. 7:19its previous incarnations it was a
182. 7:21counterterrorist organization that
183. 7:22mostly focused on countering the
184. 7:24messaging of groups like Al-Qaeda and
185. 7:26Isis but they turned Inward and they
186. 7:29started Ed to look more at domestic
187. 7:31speech and domestic operations and
188. 7:35that's why they got into the business of
189. 7:36doing things like funding groups that
190. 7:39would disfavor or downrank uh American
191. 7:42Media outlets now when they came on the
192. 7:46scene there was already um a
193. 7:48relationship between Twitter and the FBI
194. 7:51the office of the Director of National
195. 7:54Intelligence um even the department of
196. 7:56hland
197. 7:57security Twitter essentially was had
198. 8:01gone through a lot of struggle um and
199. 8:04had sort of let these people in the door
200. 8:07of their content moderation process and
201. 8:09didn't want to let in this new
202. 8:11organization they thought they were
203. 8:13shoddy they thought they their
204. 8:15methodology was poor that they jumped to
205. 8:16conclusions that they were politicized a
206. 8:19great example was you know that one of
207. 8:21the examples they brought up was you
208. 8:23know if you're in the yellow vest that
209. 8:25means that equals Moscow controlled to
210. 8:28them right so they would just make these
211. 8:30leaps of logic that if you are
212. 8:32associated with a certain point of view
213. 8:34then that means you're in moscow's what
214. 8:36they call information ecosystem it's
215. 8:38sort of a guilt by
216. 8:40association uh tactic that Twitter
217. 8:43didn't agree with but they just got so
218. 8:44much pressure in the end from other
219. 8:47government actors and from lobbying from
220. 8:49the state department that finally they
221. 8:52just had to give in and they allowed the
222. 8:56global engagement Center to join this
223. 8:57sort of spiraling group of government
224. 9:00agencies that had a say in U moderating
225. 9:04content Matt it's not a surprise many
226. 9:07people talk about Shadow Banning
227. 9:08especially since 2016 uh for any folks
228. 9:12that may be challenging um you know
229. 9:14mainstream institutions and I felt it
230. 9:17you felt it I'm sure you felt it too
231. 9:19with that being said there's also this
232. 9:20other issue that these digital platforms
233. 9:23have in that they're not transparent
234. 9:25with their algorithms there are
235. 9:27definitely a lot of fake accounts out
236. 9:28there boo boosting certain narratives so
237. 9:30to me what I find bizarre about this is
238. 9:33you know the government we have free
239. 9:36speech in this country and it should be
240. 9:37protected but simultaneously we have
241. 9:40platforms that are pushing certain
242. 9:42speech higher up in the algorithm to see
243. 9:45for folks to see more and other speech
244. 9:48may just not get out there um and and
245. 9:50also the weaponization of bots by all
246. 9:52different types of actors uh domestic
247. 9:54International everyone does it
248. 9:55corporations do it so why wouldn't the
249. 9:58US government just deal with that issue
250. 10:00so that they don't have this complicated
251. 10:02you know money funneling scheme with
252. 10:04poor methodology that could get somebody
253. 10:05on a on a band list uh when they just
254. 10:08happen to be wearing a yellow us that
255. 10:12day well I I think they view uh the
256. 10:16private status of these corporations as
257. 10:18a positive because essentially it allows
258. 10:21them to
259. 10:22Outsource activity that would normally
260. 10:25be blatantly
261. 10:27unconstitutional um to private
262. 10:30corporations that they have very
263. 10:32intricate uh relationships with uh so in
264. 10:36the in the case of all these um internet
265. 10:39platforms like Facebook or Twitter or um
266. 10:43you know YouTube any of them Google
267. 10:45they're all very heavily ryant on
268. 10:48essentially government subsidies to
269. 10:50exist and so when you know the Senate
270. 10:54intelligence committee or the global
271. 10:56engagement Center or the Department of
272. 10:57Homeland Security knocks on their door
273. 10:59and says hey we want to get involved in
274. 11:01content moderation the companies don't
275. 11:03really have a lot of latitude to say no
276. 11:06they can kind of um put up a little bit
277. 11:09of a fight about it but ultimately what
278. 11:12they end up getting is this situation
279. 11:15which is perfect for them for the
280. 11:16government from a legal point of view we
281. 11:18don't have to take the DraStic step of
282. 11:21of doing something baldly constitutional
283. 11:24and exercising prior restraint on tens
284. 11:27of thousands of posters who are things
285. 11:29we don't like we can just sort of nudge
286. 11:32the company in that direction and they
287. 11:33can do it in their mind completely
288. 11:35legally I would argue that that is
289. 11:37illegal and that the fights over that
290. 11:40continue but I think the government
291. 11:43wants this arrangement I I don't think
292. 11:45they uh they want to focus just on the
293. 11:49narrow issue of actual foreign Bots and
294. 11:52you know actual Bad actors I think they
295. 11:55want to expand their purview into um all
296. 11:58sorts of different kinds of speech and
297. 12:00this uh framework allows them to do that
298. 12:03very easily and unfortunately with in
299. 12:06tremendous
300. 12:07efficiency Matt taibe thank you so much
301. 12:09for joining us always our
302. 12:11pleasure thanks for having me on
303. 12:17[Music]