The U.S.-based Global Engagement Center (GEC) wants to distinguish between “plain old opinions” and disinformation and will lead a coalition to “counter disinformation” with Canada and the U.K. You would think that after the 2023 Twitter Files exposed that the GEC propagates disinformation, those governments would not want to work with the GEC. Or is that exactly why those governments want to work with the GEC?
Last year, journalist Matt Taibbi showed in one round of Twitter files that the GEC made false claims about Russia, China and Iran being responsible for Covid misinformation claims. In another round, he showed that the GEC made lists of users that they asked Twitter to de-platform based on false accusations of state actors for Russia, China or Iran.
The GEC says that they want to respect free speech but….James Rubin, the special envoy for the GEC said this: ”We want to promote more fact-based information, but at the same time find ways to label those information operations that are generated by the Chinese government or the Kremlin but to which they don’t admit.”
Yet the GEC failed miserably at that over the last four years so why would we let them keep going?
Not surprisingly, when The Guardian covered this new coalition, it did not mention these past failings from the Twitter Files. Funny, right?
