{"id":38379,"date":"2018-09-28T05:45:34","date_gmt":"2018-09-28T10:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=38379"},"modified":"2018-09-28T05:48:12","modified_gmt":"2018-09-28T10:48:12","slug":"facebooks-new-propaganda-partners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=38379","title":{"rendered":"Facebook\u2019s New Propaganda Partners"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Facebook\u2019s New Propaganda Partners<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
\"Facebook\u2019s<\/a><\/div>\n
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\"Reuters:<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/strong> (9\/19\/18<\/a>) described two branches of the National Endowment for Democracy, set up by the Reagan administration during the Cold War to promote US foreign policy objectives, as \u201ctwo US nonprofits.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Media giant Facebook<\/b> recently announced (Reuters<\/b>, 9\/19\/18<\/a>) it would combat \u201cfake news\u201d by partnering with two propaganda organizations founded and funded by the US government: the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI). The social media platform was already working closely with the NATO-sponsored Atlantic Council think tank (FAIR.org<\/b>, 5\/21\/18<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In a previous FAIR article (8\/22\/18<\/a>), I noted that the \u201cfake news\u201d issue was being used as a pretext to attack the left and progressive news sites. Changes to Facebook<\/b>\u2019s algorithm have reduced traffic significantly for progressive outlets like Common Dreams<\/b> (5\/3\/18<\/a>), while the pages of Venezuelan government\u2013backed TeleSur English<\/b>and the independent Venezuelanalysis<\/b> were shut down without warning, and only reinstated after a public outcry.<\/p>\n

The Washington, DC\u2013based NDI and IRI are staffed with senior Democratic and Republican politicians; the NDI is chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright<\/a>, while the late Sen. John McCain<\/a> was the longtime IRI chair. Both groups were created in 1983 as arms of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a Cold War enterprise backed by then\u2013CIA director William Casey (Jacobin<\/b>, 3\/7\/18<\/a>). That these two US government creations, along with a NATO offshoot<\/a> like the Atlantic Council, are used by Facebook<\/b> to distinguish real from fake news is effectively state censorship.<\/p>\n

Facebook<\/b>\u2019s collaboration with the NED organizations is particularly troubling, as both have aggressively pursued regime change against leftist governments overseas. The NDI undermined the Sandinista government of Nicaragua in the 1980s, and continues to do so to this day<\/a>, while the IRI claimed a key role in the 2002 coup against leftist President Hugo Ch\u00e1vez of Venezuela, announcing<\/a> that it had<\/p>\n

served as a bridge between the nation\u2019s political parties and all civil society groups to help Venezuelans forge a new democratic future\u2026. We stand ready to continue our partnership with the courageous Venezuelan people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook\u2019s New Propaganda Partners Reuters (9\/19\/18) described two branches of the National Endowment for Democracy, set up by the Reagan administration during the Cold War to promote US foreign policy objectives, as \u201ctwo US nonprofits.\u201d Media giant Facebook recently announced (Reuters, 9\/19\/18) it would combat \u201cfake news\u201d by partnering with two propaganda organizations founded and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[21949,135,1493,20526,2779,379,21951,1426,21950,21952,553,655,683],"class_list":["post-38379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-alan-macleod","tag-cia","tag-facebook","tag-fairness-and-accuracy-in-reporting","tag-fake-news","tag-government","tag-international-republican-institute","tag-misinformation","tag-national-democratic-institute","tag-national-endowment-for-democracy","tag-nato","tag-propaganda","tag-reuters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38379"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38381,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38379\/revisions\/38381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}