Former FBI Agent Falsely Claims US Must Do More to Address Disinformation
“The US needs to get serious now about fighting back against disinformation,” stated Adam Marrè, a former FBI Agent, in an interview with CNET. “Our election systems are pretty well protected in terms of cybersecurity…But what's going to protect them against social media mis- and disinformation?"
However, Marrè not only overstates the significance of disinformation in the current media landscape, but he ignores the significant efforts made by the US government to address alleged disinformation on social media. As revealed by Graham Brookie’s emails, the Department of Homeland Security(DHS) directed the creation of two projects through a small group of academic and research firms.
These projects, known as the Election Integrity Project (EIP) and Virality Project (VP), resulted in at least “22 million tweets” flagged and sent to Twitter. Other projects pertaining to disinformation that received funding from US government sources include the Information Futures Lab (IFL) at Brown University, Meedan, Graphika, Primer, Park Advisors, the Center for European Policy Analysis, and more. Public presentations published by defense contractors demonstrate problematic media ranging from content “mocking/ridiculing” NATO or insinuating “NATO is a joke - Not a real threat” to “anti-Trudeau narratives.” In fact, the Department of Defense has experimented with misinformation detection since 2002, specifically funding research to identify “false or misleading statements in textual documents” in their Misinformation Detection (MInDet) program.
Many government-funded and government-directed projects exist regarding social media “disinformation” and have existed prior to its creation. This suggests that if disinformation is truly still a problem, it exists independently of, if not worsened by, government intervention.
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