Not too long ago, a whistleblower stepped ahead with documented proof revealing the origins of the Censorship Industrial Advanced following the election of President Donald Trump and the passage of Brexit within the UK.
The report was written by Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag.
Michael Shellenberger posted the report on Twitter-X on Tuesday.
CTIL Recordsdata #1: US And UK Army Contractors Created Sweeping Plan For World Censorship In 2018, New Paperwork Present
Whistleblower makes trove of latest paperwork accessible to Public and Racket, displaying the beginning of the Censorship Industrial Advanced in response to Brexit and Trump… pic.twitter.com/upfhL2ES05
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) November 28, 2023
“Hogwarts School of Misinformation”
“SJ called us the ‘Hogwarts school for misinformation and disinformation,’” stated the whistleblower. “They were superheroes in their own story. And to that effect you could still find comic books on the CISA site.”
CTIL, the whistleblower… pic.twitter.com/dgr8Rvb7V8
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) November 28, 2023
Please tune in to @mtaibbi https://t.co/l8I1wD6BJK
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) November 28, 2023
Shellenberger additionally posted this on Twitter X on the US and UK army origins of the Censorship Industrial Advanced.
This was additionally posted at his Substack page.
A whistleblower has come ahead with an explosive new trove of paperwork, rivaling or exceeding the Twitter Recordsdata and Fb Recordsdata in scale and significance. They describe the actions of an “anti-disinformation” group referred to as the Cyber Risk Intelligence League, or CTIL, that formally started because the volunteer venture of information scientists and protection and intelligence veterans however whose techniques over time seem to have been absorbed into a number of official tasks, together with these of the Division of Homeland Safety (DHS).
The CTI League paperwork supply the lacking hyperlink solutions to key questions not addressed within the Twitter Recordsdata and Fb Recordsdata. Mixed, they provide a complete image of the beginning of the “anti-disinformation” sector, or what we’ve got referred to as the Censorship Industrial Advanced.
The whistleblower’s paperwork describe the whole lot from the genesis of contemporary digital censorship packages to the function of the army and intelligence companies, partnerships with civil society organizations and business media, and the usage of sock puppet accounts and different offensive strategies.
“Lock your shit down,” explains one doc about creating “your spy disguise.”
One other explains that whereas such actions abroad are “typically” executed by “the CIA and NSA and the Department of Defense,” censorship efforts “against Americans” need to be executed utilizing personal companions as a result of the federal government doesn’t have the “legal authority.”
The whistleblower alleges {that a} chief of CTI League, a “former” British intelligence analyst, was “in the room” on the Obama White Home in 2017 when she acquired the directions to create a counter-disinformation venture to cease a “repeat of 2016.”
Over the past 12 months, Public, Racket, congressional investigators, and others have documented the rise of the Censorship Industrial Advanced, a community of over 100 authorities companies and nongovernmental organizations that work collectively to induce censorship by social media platforms and unfold propaganda about disfavored people, matters, and complete narratives.
The US Division of Homeland Safety’s Cybersecurity and Info Safety Company (CISA) has been the middle of gravity for a lot of the censorship, with the Nationwide Science Basis financing the event of censorship and disinformation instruments and different federal authorities companies enjoying a supportive function.
Emails from CISA’s NGO and social media companions present that CISA created the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) in 2020, which concerned the Stanford Web Observatory (SIO) and different US authorities contractors. EIP and its successor, the Virality Venture (VP), urged Twitter, Fb and different platforms to censor social media posts by odd residents and elected officers alike.
Regardless of the overwhelming proof of government-sponsored censorship, it had but to be decided the place the thought for such mass censorship got here from. In 2018, an SIO official and former CIA fellow, Renee DiResta, generated nationwide headlines earlier than and after testifying to the US Senate about Russian authorities interference within the 2016 election.
However what occurred between 2018 and Spring 2020? The 12 months 2019 has been a black gap within the analysis of the Censorship Industrial Advanced so far. When considered one of us, Michael, testified to the U.S. Home of Representatives in regards to the Censorship Industrial Advanced in March of this 12 months, your entire 12 months was lacking from his timeline.
An Earlier Begin Date for the Censorship Industrial Advanced
Now, a big trove of latest paperwork, together with technique paperwork, coaching movies, displays, and inside messages, reveal that, in 2019, US and UK army and intelligence contractors led by a former UK protection researcher, Sara-Jayne “SJ” Terp, developed the sweeping censorship framework. These contractors co-led CTIL, which partnered with CISA within the spring of 2020.
In reality, the constructing of the Censorship Industrial Advanced started even earlier — in 2018.
Inside CTIL Slack messages present Terp, her colleagues, and officers from DHS and Fb all working carefully collectively within the censorship course of.
The CTIL framework and the public-private mannequin are the seeds of what each the US and UK would put into place in 2020 and 2021, together with masking censorship inside cybersecurity establishments and counter-disinformation agendas; a heavy concentrate on stopping disfavored narratives, not simply unsuitable information; and pressuring social media platforms to take down info or take different actions to forestall content material from going viral.
Within the spring of 2020, CTIL started monitoring and reporting disfavored content material on social media, akin to anti-lockdown narratives like “all jobs are essential,” “we won’t stay home,” and “open America now.” CTIL created a legislation enforcement channel for reporting content material as a part of these efforts. The group additionally did analysis on people posting anti-lockdown hashtags like #freeCA and stored a spreadsheet with particulars from their Twitter bios. The group additionally mentioned requesting “takedowns” and reporting web site domains to registrars.
CTIL’s method to “disinformation” went far past censorship. The paperwork present that the group engaged in offensive operations to affect public opinion, discussing methods to advertise “counter-messaging,” co-opt hashtags, dilute disfavored messaging, create sock puppet accounts, and infiltrate personal invite-only teams.
In a single prompt listing of survey questions, CTIL proposed asking members or potential members, “Have you worked with influence operations (e.g. disinformation, hate speech, other digital harms etc) previously?” The survey then requested whether or not these affect operations included “active measures” and “psyops.”
These paperwork got here to us by way of a extremely credible whistleblower. We had been capable of independently confirm their legitimacy by way of intensive cross-checking of data to publicly accessible sources. The whistleblower stated they had been recruited to take part in CTIL by way of month-to-month cybersecurity conferences hosted by DHS.
The FBI declined to remark. CISA didn’t reply to our request for remark. And Terp and the opposite key CTIL leaders additionally didn’t reply to our requests for remark.
However one individual concerned, Bonnie Smalley, replied over Linked in, saying, “all i can comment on is that i joined cti league which is unaffiliated with any govt orgs because i wanted to combat the inject bleach nonsense online during covid…. i can assure you that we had nothing to do with the govt though.”
Learn the rest here.
But the paperwork recommend that authorities staff had been engaged members of CTIL. One particular person who labored for DHS, Justin Frappier, was extraordinarily lively in CTIL, collaborating in common conferences and main trainings.
