(Jul 25th 2023)
„40 Senators have sponsored a bill to make sure you have to upload your driver’s license before you can use your First Amendment on the internet. That’s what they want. That’s what this bill is.
This bill is designed to make sure that they have your home address before you can actually post about ANYTHING on the internet.“
On Monday, Musk is set to share an audio chatroom with Robert Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaccine activist and Democratic candidate for president.
The decision to host Kennedy again highlights, for the second time in as many weeks, Musk’s unique potential to shape public opinion through a combination of his own personal celebrity and his private control of a social media megaphone.
The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit also intended to use social media influencers in order to sway Israeli public opinion.
It is unclear if the IDF paid the Instagram account holders for their services. According to a source familiar with the inner workings of the unit, this is not the only time such cooperation has taken place.
(December 10, 2019)
Section 1631(b) expressly affirms that the Defense Department can conduct “military operations” in the information environment, “including clandestine operations,” for certain purposes. I’ll have more to say about that reference to “clandestine” below. First, let’s note the broad list of purposes.
The military’s role comes into play in three scenarios. First, defense of the United States itself. Second, defense of allies. Third, defense of the “interests” of the United States. The statute notably does not clarify what nature or degree of threats to these objects count, and so the invitation can only be described as quite broad.
(September 19, 2022)
The measure, known as Section 1631, allows the military to carry out clandestine psychological operations without crossing what the CIA has claimed as its covert authority, alleviating some of the friction that had hindered such operations previously.
“Combatant commanders got really excited,” recalled the first defense official. “They were very eager to utilize these new authorities. The defense contractors were equally eager to land lucrative classified contracts to enable clandestine influence operations.”
(20.09.2022)
13.9.2020 President Trump’s recent remarks that top Pentagon officials continue to push for war because they want to keep defense contractors “happy” has drawn a firestorm of criticism by those who would like to conflate the remarks with the allegation that the president is anti-military. What’s actually uncomfortable for many of those commentators, however, is the degree to which the president is speaking the truth.
On the surface, the cryptically named Institute for Statecraft is a small charity operating from an old Victorian mill in Fife.
But explosive leaked documents passed to the Sunday Mail reveal the organisation’s Integrity Initiative is funded with £2million of Foreign Office cash and run by military intelligence specialists.
The “think tank” is supposed to counter Russian online propaganda by forming “clusters” of friendly journalists and “key influencers” throughout Europe who use social media to hit back against disinformation.
(9.12.2018)