Information Wars

The head of the Joe Biden transition team for the US Agency for Global Media, Richard Stengel, has branded himself the “chief propagandist,” urged the government to use propaganda against its “own population,” and called to “rethink” the First Amendment. Richard Stengel, the top state media appointee for US President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team, has enthusiastically defended the use of propaganda against Americans. “My old job at the State Department was what people used to joke as the chief propagandist,” […]

Self-styled whistleblower Christopher Wylie and The Guardian reporter Carole Cadwalladr earned film deals and flashy awards by blaming Brexit and Trump on a sweeping conspiracy between data firm Cambridge Analytica and Russia. A British government investigation shatters their claims to fame. Two years after the stunning June 2016 passage of the Brexit referendum, affirming the British public’s desire to withdraw from the European Union, and the equally unexpected November 2016 election of Donald Trump to the White House, a scandal […]

Bellingcat claimed to have uncovered a letter that disproves OPCW inspectors and journalists who challenged the censorship of a Syria chemical weapons probe. But in one of many falsehoods, Bellingcat’s “letter” was in fact only a draft that was never sent — and only further exposes the cover-up. Bellingcat, the NATO member state-funded website that has participated in a propaganda effort to accuse Syria of a chemical weapons attack in April 2018 and justify the US-led bombing that followed, has […]

As political censorship escalates on social media, American spy agencies accuse Russia of running a fake left-wing news website called PeaceData. But there is no evidence for the FBI’s claims, and many questions remain unanswered. By Ben Norton US government intelligence agencies have initiated a series of smear campaigns relying on false innuendo to suggest that independent left-wing American media outlets are connected to Russia. The broad-based, longstanding operation to imply links between foreign governments and alternative news websites through […]

As political censorship escalates on social media, American spy agencies accuse Russia of running a fake left-wing news website called PeaceData. But there is no evidence for the FBI’s claims, and many questions remain unanswered. By Ben Norton US government intelligence agencies have initiated a series of smear campaigns relying on false innuendo to suggest that independent left-wing American media outlets are connected to Russia. The broad-based, longstanding operation to imply links between foreign governments and alternative news websites through […]

Western government-funded intelligence cutouts trained Syrian opposition leaders, planted stories in media outlets from BBC to Al Jazeera, and ran a cadre of journalists. A trove of leaked documents exposes the propaganda network. By Ben Norton Update (September 29, 2020): A few days after this article was published, the authenticity of these leaked materials was indirectly confirmed by the British government, which reported that hundreds of Foreign Office documents detailing its Syria propaganda operations were hacked in an alleged cyber […]

Western government-funded intelligence cutouts trained Syrian opposition leaders, planted stories in media outlets from BBC to Al Jazeera, and ran a cadre of journalists. A trove of leaked documents exposes the propaganda network. By Ben Norton Update (September 29, 2020): A few days after this article was published, the authenticity of these leaked materials was indirectly confirmed by the British government, which reported that hundreds of Foreign Office documents detailing its Syria propaganda operations were hacked in an alleged cyber […]

A Washington, DC-based PR firm linked to the US government and Democratic Party, CLS Strategies, ran a fake news network on Facebook and Instagram, spreading propaganda for Bolivia’s coup regime and the right-wing opposition in Venezuela and Mexico. By Ben Norton A major US PR firm located just a few blocks from the White House has been caught running an industrial grade propaganda operation on social media. The information warfare blitzkrieg relied on fake accounts and pages to spread disinformation […]

With backing from the US government’s regime-change arm, an Operation Mockingbird-style website called Coda Story is attacking American journalists who have punctured Washington’s sensationalist narratives against China. By Ben Norton A shadowy neoconservative website called Coda Story has launched a smear campaign against American journalists who challenge new cold war propaganda. But what this publication […]

Twitter says it bans ads from state-affiliated media outlets. However, US government propaganda organs like Voice of America’s VOA Persian pay the social media corporation huge sums of money to spread disinformation against Iran and other foreign adversaries. By Ben Norton Twitter has demonstrated a clear, consistent bias in favor of the US government and […]