The RPI Challenge

Obama’s “Assad must go” Syria policy lives on, even three plus years into the Trump Administration. Yesterday, US troops illegally occupying Syrian territory shot at a Syrian army checkpoint and a US helicopter followed up by destroying the outpost. At least one Syrian soldier was killed in the incident. Earlier this month a politically-connected US firm signed a contract with the US government to “modernize” US-controlled oilfields in Syria – to “starve Assad.” Also today: insanity in Australia and New Zealand. Today on the Liberty Report:

President Trump has been consistent on Iran and, unfortunately, consistently wrong. His Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been foaming at the mouth for war with Iran for years, along with the various neocons like Eliot Abrams who serve as cogs in the war machine. As the US moves closer to war with Iran, the utter failure of Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy is laid bare. Unless this Administration wakes up to this failure and changes course, the future is dire for the US and the Middle East. Also today: Winners and losers and more coronavirus updates. Don’t miss today’s Liberty Report:

Nephew of President John F. Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy, and tireless crusader against the tyranny of the mainstream medical establishment, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. joins today’s Liberty Report to discuss his startling discoveries about who really killed his father and uncle…and why. Plus, Mr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, has been among the most vocal and most successful opponents of the mainstream medical establishment, driven by big Pharma to inoculate and medicate everything that moves. He tells the Liberty Report how he very reluctantly decided to dedicate his career to fighting the mandatory vaccines that have resulted in so many documented injuries to the recipients. Don’t miss this very special edition of the Liberty Report:

A California mega-church has refused to buckle under the tyrannical governor’s orders to limit attendance to 100 people. On Sunday, between 6-7,000 worshipers showed up and attended services. Also today: Florida sheriff says ‘no masks!” A post-apocalyptic UK conference. Epidemic versus ‘case-demic.’ And a new MIT article suggests community immunity is preventing coronavirus spread in US. Watch today’s Liberty Report:

Twitter has demonstrated a clear, consistent bias in favor of the US government and its geopolitical interests. The social media giant has also repeatedly lied about its policies on state-backed media outlets.

Twitter unveiled a new feature on August 6 that labels government-affiliated media on the platform. Users immediately pointed out the social network’s double standards: Chinese and Russian state-backed media have been designated, but not state-backed media outlets funded by Western governments.

So according to Twitter, China and Russia have “state-affiliated media” but the UK and Canada don’t.

As on YouTube and Facebook, this labeling double standard is intentional. Social media giants are doing the bidding of the US state to discredit unapproved “enemy” perspectives. pic.twitter.com/q9dFSdSKEe

— Ajit Singh (@ajitxsingh) August 6, 2020

Twitter Support claimed it decided to start labeling government-affiliated accounts from the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council: the US, UK, France, Russia, and China. Oddly, state-funded media outlets from the first three NATO countries have not been labeled.

When it comes to conversations with government and state-affiliated media accounts on Twitter, we’re helping to make the experience more transparent.

We’ll now use two distinct profile labels for these types of accounts, so you can easily identify them and their Tweets. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/JW67o422MO

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) August 6, 2020

The lies flow from there. When it announced this new policy, Twitter Support claimed, “For clarity: we don’t let state-affiliated media accounts advertise on Twitter.”

This is categorically false.

When it comes to conversations with government and state-affiliated media accounts on Twitter, we’re helping to make the experience more transparent.

We’ll now use two distinct profile labels for these types of accounts, so you can easily identify them and their Tweets. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/JW67o422MO

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) August 6, 2020

Twitter hosts a web page called the “Ads Transparency Center,” where it publicly discloses all of the paid advertisements, known as “sponsored tweets,” that the website puts into users’ feeds.

A search in the Ads Transparency Center for the official, verified Twitter account of the US government’s Voice of America, and specifically its Persian-language arm VOA Farsi, shows that the state-affiliated media outlet had paid Twitter to publish dozens of ads just in the first week of August.

That means that a US state-affiliated media outlet published more than 60 individual ads on Twitter in a mere seven days – the same week when Twitter reaffirmed its ban on ads from state-affiliated media outlets.

Many of these ads quoted speeches from President Donald Trump and Secretary of State and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo. Others spread fears about coronavirus in Iran, and called for removing the Iranian government.

Voice of America (VOA) is a US government propaganda outlet. This is indisputable. Even the History Channel, in an article on the launching of Voice of America in 1947, acknowledged that the “VOA effort was an important part of America’s propaganda campaign against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.”

And of the state propaganda organs funded by the US government, VOA Persian is the most extreme. It is a weapon of information warfare aimed directly at the Iranian government.

The former senior managing editor of VOA Persian described the outlet as “a mouthpiece of Trump — only Trump and nothing but Trump.” The former executive editor added that the US government-funded network just publishes “blatant propaganda,” with “no objectivity or factuality.”

Twitter, however, apparently sees no problem with allowing this Washington propaganda organ to spit out constant disinformation – and the company profits handsomely from its anti-Iran ads.

US Agency for Global Media and CIA’s global propaganda network

Western government-backed information warriors reacted to Twitter’s double standard on the labeling of state-affiliated media outlets with glee, insisting that Voice of America was somehow “independent” of the US government which oversees and bankrolls it.

In reality, Voice of America falls under the jurisdiction of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM). This is a rebranding of the US government’s Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).

USAGM states very clearly on its website that its first goal is to “Be consistent with the broad foreign policy objectives of the United States.” In other words, USAGM is a soft-power arm of the US government, along with all of its constituent platforms, including Voice of America, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, and Radio Free Asia.

USAGM adds that some of its top broadcasting principles are, “Clear and effective presentation of the policies, including editorials, broadcast by the Voice of America, which present the views of the United States Government and responsible discussion and opinion on those policies,” as well as, “The capability to provide a surge capacity to support United States foreign policy objectives during crises abroad.”

Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia were created as CIA fronts to spread disinformation targeting the Soviet Union and communist China, in hopes of destabilizing and ultimately overthrowing their governments.

The New York Times acknowledged this in a 1977 report, referring to them as instruments in a “Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the CIA.”

Journalist Yasha Levine has documented the CIA’s role in setting up these US government propaganda organs, noting that Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty had originally even been named Radio Liberation from Bolshevism.

Twitter’s work with Western governments

The Grayzone has extensively documented Twitter’s censorship of accounts in countries Washington has targeted for regime change.

Thousands of people, including journalists, activists, and civilians who are unaffiliated with their governments, in Venezuela, Iran, Syria, Russia, China, and beyond have had their profiles suspended or restricted by the social media giant.

This is part of a larger context of Big Tech corporations silencing voices, and even entire media outlets, that are critical of US foreign policy, under pressure by the US government.

When Twitter first announced, in August 2019, that it would ban advertising from state-affiliated media outlets, The Grayzone noted that the social media corporation was working with hawkish organizations funded by the US government and its European allies.

Among the so-called NGOs that Twitter chose to rely on to define “state-controlled media” was ironically Freedom House, a right-wing lobby group that is itself bankrolled by US government grants, and which produces reports whitewashing Washington-backed dictatorships while demonizing foreign adversaries.

Twitter’s links to Western governments go even deeper. In 2019, Middle East Eye revealed that the top Twitter executive who edits Middle East-related content on the platform also works for the UK military’s psychological warfare unit.

This senior Twitter executive, Gordon MacMillan, serves in the British army’s 77th Brigade, which uses social media networks and the internet to wage what its officials openly call “information warfare.”

By allowing US government propaganda organs to publish constant paid ads while hiring British psy-ops soldiers, Twitter has been effectively transformed into an arm of Western state media – but without the warning label.

Reprinted with permission from The Grayzone.
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Will presidential hopeful Joe Biden choice of a pro-war authoritarian as his running mate give him the edge over Trump? Is there any issue Kamala Harris is not terrible on from a libertarian point of view? But there is good news out of Washington: President Trump has chosen a new coronavirus advisor who opposes lockdowns and believes the virus is actually under control. Will Fauci start packing his bags? Watch today’s Liberty Report:

Across the United States authoritarians are clamoring for a return to lockdown over what they claim is a resurgence of coronavirus infections. Despite the data not supporting that conclusion, they want to shut the economy down and further destroy life in the US. They point to Europe’s success with lockdowns – even as there appears to be a resurgence of cases in Europe. What is most shocking and striking is that no one in authority in the US is calling for us to emulate the one country that appears to have beat the virus thus far: Sweden. Why can’t they even utter the word “Sweden”? Watch today’s Liberty Report:

A Nashville, TN councilwoman has proposed charging anyone not wearing a mask with either murder or attempted murder. Is it any wonder violence, anger, and fear is spreading even as coronavirus deaths continue to decline? Why are they doing this? Also today, dentists report a surge in cavities and gum disease among people wearing masks. Kansas health official busted faking charts to falsely inflate effectiveness of mask-wearing. Big motorcycle rally in South Dakota – no masks! Watch today’s Liberty Report:

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is desperately begging rich people to return to the state and to New York City. He’s killed off the old people by sending Covid patients into nursing homes and he’s killed off the economy by shutting down, but he’s offered to cook a meal for any rich person who returns to the burned out shell of the former great city. Any takers? Plus in today’s Report: LA Mayor: “Want to party? Try it without any electricity or water!” Houston begs people to get Covid tested after new “cases” continue to fall. And Sweden has advice on how to open schools. Should we listen to success? Watch today’s Liberty Report:

The authoritarians who have locked this country down ostensibly to fight the outbreak of a coronavirus are not going to let up once a vaccine is ready. Already we are seeing additional qualifiers and contingencies being made that will only serve to prolong their rule-by-decree. A vaccine is not going to end it. Also today: More Americans are saying “no” to any vaccine; CDC Director admits a financial incentive to list deaths as “Covid”; Gov. Whitmer cracks down harder…but why? Watch today’s Liberty Report:

According to a recent Axio-Ipsos poll, Americans are increasingly skeptical of the official case and death reports being served up by politicians and the mainstream media. Are we getting closer to the awakening needed to put an end to Covid tyranny? Plus in today’s program: New York Times admits that lockdowns will kill more than Covid; What is happening to Australia; Houston Mayor threatens residents; and the real danger to Americans is not Covid according to this important map. Watch today’s Liberty Report:

They are rushing through a Covid vaccine at a blistering pace, while granting immunity to big Pharma for any damage it might do to the American people. They are lowering the minimum effectiveness level to 50 percent – like tossing a coin. The propaganda machine is in high gear. Should we line up for the shot? Also in today’s Liberty Report: Massive anti-lockdown protests in Europe! Today on the Liberty Report: