June 9, 2020
The Gray Zone

FBI Launches Open Attack on 'Foreign' Alternative Media Outlets Challenging US Foreign Policy

Under FBI orders, Facebook and Google removed American Herald Tribune, an alternative site that publishes US and European writers critical of US foreign policy. The bureau's justification for the removal was dubious, and it sets a troubling precedent for other critical outlets.

by Gareth Porter

The FBI has publicly justified its suppression of dissenting online views about US foreign policy if a media outlet can be somehow linked to one of its adversaries. The Bureau's justification followed a series of instances in which Silicon Valley social media platforms banned accounts following consultations with the FBI.

In a particularly notable case in 2018, the FBI encouraged Facebook, Instagram and Google to remove or restrict ads on the American Herald Tribune (AHT), . . .

The FBI's first step toward intervening against dissenting views on social media took place in October 2017 with the creation of a Foreign Influence Task Force (FTIF) in the bureau's Counterintelligence Division. Next, the FBI defined any effort by states designated by the Department of Defense as major adversaries (Russia, China, Iran and North Korea) to influence American public opinion as a threat to US national security. . . .

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Enver Masud, "Demise of Fairness Doctrine and Failure of Mainstream News," The Wisdom Fund, July 25, 1997

"Free Press? Independent Press? Propaganda?," The Wisdom Fund, December 5, 2014