Far from the "huge pyramidal structure of gleaming white concrete" described by George Orwell in his novel 1984, Washington's Ministry of Truth is invisible. It is called CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency), is embedded in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and is dedicated to monitoring and communicating, to the main digital social network companies, the information that the Government understands as harmful, and that must be eliminated.
Revelations published last Monday by the alternative media The Intercept, and later replicated by the American press, collect memos, emails and internal DHS documents, obtained "through leaks, an ongoing lawsuit, as well as public documents, and illustrate an expansive effort by the agency to influence technology platforms".
According to a government report, also leaked, it is intended to monitor "social networking platforms of all sizes, major media outlets, cable news, hyper-partisan media, radio shows and other online resources," both foreign and domestic.
There are emails in which CISA requests Twitter to remove even parody accounts, with favorable responses from the company, and the existence of an internal Facebook portal in which DHS agents tell the platform what "harmful" information should be limited in scope or removed is revealed, leading The Intercep to assert that the U.S. government "has used its power to try to shape online discourse."
In what is considered disinformation, and the evaluation of the effectiveness of its confrontation, the government's hand should not appear. As revealed by The Intercept, a CISA official named Geof Hale recommended "the use of non-profit, third-party information sharing organizations as an "information clearinghouse to avoid the appearance of government propaganda."
Arguably, government agencies in any country see their bosses less often than U.S. technology and communications companies see national security operators.
If before the 2020 election meetings between federal agencies (FBI and DHS, and other government representatives) with entities such as Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, Discord, Wikipedia, Microsoft, LinkedIn and Verizon Media were monthly, now similar meetings are held every 15 days.
According to the takeaways, the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of vaccines against the disease, racial justice, U.S. laws, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of Washington's support for Ukraine have been at the forefront of DHS and CISA's work on the networks.
So, if you posted online on any of those topics, with a focus not aligned with that of the US government, and didn't get very far, The Intercept offers a why, to achieve that reach you should not forget the three slogans on the walls of the Orwellian Ministry of Truth: "War is Peace," "Freedom is Slavery," and "Ignorance is Strength."
