Global Management

How USAID promoted censorship:

The GEC, which was forced to shut down in December 2024, was designed to “combat foreign disinformation abroad.” However, through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, AFL uncovered that the GEC engaged in state-sponsored propaganda, repeatedly using willing participants from private media organizations. Further, AFL’s lawsuit against the GEC revealed that USAID had created an internal “Disinformation Primer” that explicitly praised private sector censorship strategies and recommended further censorship tactics. The new documents released by AFL show: The GEC and USAID coordinated efforts to censor “COVID-19 misinformation” and counter “COVID-19 propaganda.” The GEC collaborated with officials in the British Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office on disinformation efforts. The GEC coordinated with private media censorship firms, including Poynter and NewsGuard, which provided samples of its Misinformation Fingerprints artificial intelligence (AI) tool, designed to identify and rate websites based on their perceived “misinformation.”

One person's dissent was their "misinformation..."