State Department Won’t Say If It’s Colluding With Big Tech To Censor Speech Ahead Of 2024 Election – By Shawn Fleetwood (The Federalist) / June 14, 2024
The State Department didn’t respond when pressed on whether it’s colluding with Big Tech to censor so-called ‘disinformation.’
The State Department is refusing to say whether it is communicating with Big Tech platforms to censor free speech online leading up to the 2024 election.
The agency’s silence on the matter came after The Federalist asked about a new working group launched by the United States and Poland on Monday that seeks to counter Russian “disinformation” about Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Called the “Ukraine Communications Group (UCG),” the body will involve the two aforementioned countries and representatives from NATO states, and work to “coordinate messaging, promote accurate reporting of Russia’s full-scale invasion, amplify Ukrainian voices, and expose Kremlin information manipulation.”
According to the Associated Press, James Rubin, the special envoy and coordinator for the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), was involved with and attended the UCG’s inaugural launch in Warsaw. As The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland previously explained, GEC “funded the development of censorship tools” that work to silence (primarily conservative) speech online and “used ‘government employees to act as sales reps pitching … censorship products to Big Tech.’”
Notably, Rubin and the GEC are named defendants in a lawsuit filed by The Federalist, The Daily Wire, and the state of Texas in December to stop the federal government’s censorship operations.
