How the GOP muzzled the quiet coalition that fought foreign propaganda

Soooooo, when do we start calling this undermining our system of government and working for foreign entities?

Yeah, we haven't had enough time yet to really address this problem in a comprehensive and effective way, even if we had the political momentum to do so, which we haven't really.

So, all we have in place is a smattering of stopgap measures. We have to win these next couple elections the old fashioned way--overwhelming turnout of disenfranchised voters who actually want to see better days in the future.

Fortunately, we have a strong and experienced ground game, grassroots ground n pound is our thing. Let's just buckle down and get the job done, we know how to do this.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

A once-robust alliance of federal agencies, tech companies, election officials and researchers that worked together to thwart foreign propaganda and disinformation has fragmented after years of sustained Republican attacks.

The FBI told the House Judiciary Committee that, since the court rulings, the bureau had discovered foreign influence campaigns on social media platforms but in some cases did not inform the companies about them because they were hamstrung by the new legal oversight, according to a congressional official.

A common theme among those interviewed: The chilling effect that Republican attacks had on the sharing of information about possible interference, which could make it easier for foreign adversaries to manipulate U.S. public opinion and harder for 2024 voters to sort out what’s real from what’s fake.

Last year, the attorneys general offices of Missouri and Louisiana filed a joint lawsuit against the Biden administration, alleging that federal government outreach to tech companies about content on their platform — including law enforcement tips about election integrity and Covid-19 — constituted intimidation and a violation of First Amendment protections to free speech.

It subpoenaed Easterly earlier this year, then issued a report that claimed “CISA metastasized into the nerve center of the federal government’s domestic surveillance and censorship operations on social media.”

In a podcast interview on “On with Kara Swisher” in June, Easterly explained that CISA will also no longer help flag state and local election officials’ concerns to social media companies.

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