Thread by @Ansgar_3

Buckle up this will be a long thread but, based on the pattern of documented events, congressional hearings, and investigative reporting — what initially appeared as isolated “disinformation countermeasures” can now be seen as part of a broad and coordinated influence operation, involving both foreign and domestic actors, that extended far beyond “Russiagate” or General Flynn.

What I am pointing to isn’t just a soft coup against President Trump’s first administration, it reflects the systematic weaponization of disinformation infrastructure to suppress dissent, manipulate public perception, and interfere in electoral processes on U.S. soil, in ways that arguably:

🚨 Violated Civil Liberties, Subverted Elections, and Obstructed Political Accountability

Let’s lay out the investigative framework to back that claim — with timelines, actors, tactics, and outcomes.

PHASE 1: Psychological Operations & Perception Shaping (2016–2018)

Russiagate becomes the justification. NGOs become the vehicle.
•NGOs like Alliance for Securing Democracy (Hamilton 68), New Knowledge, and Atlantic Council seeded “bot” and “Russian disinfo” narratives, many of which targeted MAGA users, Trump allies, and dissenting media.
•These claims were echoed by legacy media (CNN, MSNBC, NYT), citing NGO reports as objective intelligence.
•Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Google began receiving input from these NGOs and U.S. intelligence agencies on what to suppress.

🧾 Proof: The Twitter Files revealed internal staff knew Hamilton 68 was falsely labeling Americans as Russian bots, but the lie persisted — because it supported a political narrative.

PHASE 2: COVID-19 & Suppression of Scientific and Political Dissent (2020)

The same censorship infrastructure was turned inward on Americans during the pandemic.
•Facebook and Twitter throttled doctors, scientists, and elected officials questioning lockdowns, masks, or vaccine mandates.
•Stanford’s Virality Project, working with NGOs and government partners, advised platforms to censor “true information” if it could cause vaccine hesitancy.
•The White House pressured Facebook and Twitter to ban or silence specific users, including Tucker Carlson and Alex Berenson.

🧾 Proof: Twitter Files #19 showed DHS, HHS, and NGOs participated in real-time censorship operations via “misinfo dashboards” and regular email chains.

⸻

PHASE 3: The 2020 Election Interference via the Hunter Biden Laptop Coverup

Same networks. Same tools. Explicit domestic suppression of critical election-impacting data.
•The New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story was suppressed by Twitter and Facebook days before the election.
•FBI’s Elvis Chan and others warned platforms of a potential “Russian disinfo dump” weeks in advance, despite already having the laptop since Dec 2019.
•The Atlantic Council and other NGOs, funded by Burisma and connected to Biden, were advising platforms during this period.
•51 former intel officials released a letter falsely labeling the laptop “Russian disinformation,” which was promoted by MSM — knowingly.

🧾 Proof:

•Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg told Joe Rogan the FBI warned them to suppress the story.
•The House Judiciary Committee’s Weaponization Subcommittee confirmed the FBI and DHS’s role in suppressing the story.

PHASE 4: 2024 Pre-Bunking & Behavioral Modification

Moving from censorship to preemptive psychological conditioning.
•NGOs like the Election Integrity Partnership, NewsGuard, and Global Disinformation Index (GDI) received federal funding to rank or blacklist conservative and populist outlets.
•CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) was revealed to have coordinated with Stanford and NGOs to monitor social media content and preemptively “debunk” narratives about mail-in voting, Dominion, or ballot harvesting.
•Misinformation research at Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford helped build AI and behavior-based models to influence what Americans believed before they even saw a story.

🧾 Proof:

•Twitter Files and Missouri v. Biden case filings showed that CISA was deeply involved in real-time flagging of “dangerous” narratives — even when true.
•NewsGuard’s Pentagon contract and GDI’s NED/U.S. State Department funding are public records.

Let’s break this down by timeline 😎

Forensic Timeline of Coordinated Influence Operations (2016–2024)

This timeline documents U.S. and U.K. influence campaigns targeting domestic political figures and narratives from 2016 through 2024. It is organized chronologically by year, with each entry labeled by operation type (e.g., Social Media Censorship, Psychological Operations, Legal Warfare, Financial Deplatforming). Key entities (NGOs, think tanks, agencies, and platforms) are highlighted, and relationships between funders, platforms, media, and officials are noted. The information is drawn from investigative reports, leaked documents, Twitter Files disclosures, Congressional inquiries, and other primary sources, with an emphasis on Russiagate, COVID-19 narrative control, and election interference in 2020 and 2024. Each entry includes citations for evidentiary support, suitable for judicial or legislative scrutiny.

2016
•July 2016 – Legal Warfare (Russiagate Investigation Begins): The FBI, under the code name “Crossfire Hurricane,” opens a counterintelligence probe into the Trump campaign’s Russia ties, heavily relying on unverified opposition research (the Steele dossier, compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele and funded by the Clinton campaign). A 2023 Special Counsel review found “neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community… possessed any actual evidence of collusion… at the commencement of the investigation,” and that the FBI showed a “significant reliance on leads provided or funded by Trump’s opponents” . cbsnews.com/news/john-durh…

This early reliance on politicized material to investigate a U.S. presidential candidate set the stage for the Russiagate narrative, blending law enforcement with political influence.
•November 2016 – Psychological Operation (PropOrNot Media Blacklist): In the wake of Trump’s victory, an anonymous group called PropOrNot published a report accusing more than 200 U.S. websites of spreading Russian propaganda . washingtonian.com/2016/12/07/was…

The Washington Post ran a headline on Nov. 24, 2016 amplifying PropOrNot’s claims (while granting the shadowy group anonymity). The list smeared a wide range of alternative and conservative outlets – even popular sites like Drudge Report – as “useful idiots” of the Kremlin . Amid public backlash and questions about PropOrNot’s “obviously reckless and unproven allegations” , the Post added an editor’s note distancing itself from PropOrNot’s charges, conceding it “does not itself vouch for the validity” of the group’s findings . This episode foreshadows later efforts to delegitimize dissenting U.S. voices by branding them as foreign disinformation, often via cutouts in academia or NGOs.

2017
•Fall 2017 – Federal Coordination (FBI Foreign Influence Task Force): Responding to 2016 election interference fears, FBI Director Christopher Wray established a Foreign Influence Task Force in late 2017 . fbi.gov/news/speeches-…

This task force became a vehicle for regular coordination between federal law enforcement and social media platforms on “disinformation.” Over time, it expanded its focus from countering foreign actors to flagging domestic speech. These early efforts laid the groundwork for the FBI’s later weekly meetings with Facebook, Twitter, and others ahead of the 2020 election, during which agents would relay purported threat alerts (e.g., warnings of a “hack-and-leak” in Oct 2020) that primed platforms to censor content like the Hunter Biden laptop story . grassley.senate.gov/news/remarks/t…

In short, by 2017 the FBI began outsourcing speech monitoring to the private sector – a theme that would intensify in coming years.

•August 2017 – Psychological Operations (Hamilton 68 Dashboard Launches): A new U.S.-UK backed NGO, the Alliance for Securing Democracy (housed at the German Marshall Fund), launched the “Hamilton 68” dashboard to track alleged Russian influence on social media . securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/fact-sheet-ham…
(GMF is heavily funded by the American, German, and Swedish governments. Aside from governmental funding, GMF has also accepted donations from several left-of-center grantmaking organizations, including the Democracy Fund, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and the Open Society Foundations.) influencewatch.org/non-profit/ger….

Hamilton 68, led by former FBI, CIA, and NSA officials, claimed to monitor a secret list of 600 Twitter accounts “linked to Russian influence activities” in near real-time . securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/fact-sheet-ham…

businessinsider.com/what-is-hamilt…

The tool quickly became a go-to source for media and politicians to attribute American political trends to Kremlin bots during 2017–2018. However, Twitter’s own internal analyses (later revealed in 2023) showed “Hamilton 68 simply collected a handful of mostly real, mostly American accounts, and described their organic conversations as Russian scheming.” In other words, it was “a scam” that falsely tarred legitimate conservative or populist dialogue as foreign propaganda . foxnews.com/media/washingt…
Twitter executives knew these Hamilton 68 claims were baseless – “falsely accusing a bunch of legitimate… accounts of being Russian bots,” as Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth observed – but they struggled with whether to publicly refute the narrative. The Hamilton 68 saga exemplifies how ostensibly independent think tanks drove the Russiagate narrative via questionable data, in coordination with legacy media and political allies.
•December 2017 – Social Media Censorship (Twitter “Russia Task Force”): Under pressure from Congress and the media to find Russian influence in Trump’s election, Twitter formed an internal “Russia Task Force.” This team, working with signals from Hamilton 68 and government leads, combed Twitter data for evidence of Russian bot campaigns. By early 2018, Twitter would report internally that they found “no significant evidence” of Russian involvement in certain viral political hashtags (like #ReleaseTheMemo) . aa.com.tr/en/world/leaks…
Yet, despite lack of evidence, the external narrative (bolstered by outfits like Hamilton 68 and PropOrNot) pushed Twitter and other platforms toward more aggressive moderation of content labeled “Russian disinfo.” Thus, even without formal government orders, tech companies were influenced by a nexus of government-aligned NGOs and media pressure to crack down on trending topics deemed harmful to the establishment narrative.

2018
•May 2018 – Social Media Censorship (Facebook–Atlantic Council Partnership): Facebook announced a new partnership with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) to bolster its election integrity efforts . about.fb.com/news/2018/05/a…
The Atlantic Council – a NATO-linked think tank funded by the U.S. State Department and defense contractors – would embed DFRLab analysts within Facebook’s security team. Their mandate: provide “real-time insights and updates on emerging threats and disinformation campaigns” during elections . Facebook also agreed to use the Atlantic Council’s “Digital Research Unit Monitoring Missions” to focus on particular geopolitical areas and flag content for removal . In practice, this meant that a U.S./NATO-funded entity gained direct influence over Facebook’s content moderation in “highly sensitive” political moments. This NGO > platform collaboration exemplified the growing public-private censorship model: Facebook outsourced some election oversight to an organization staffed by former government officials, blurring the line between private platform policy and government-directed influence. Notably, in 2020 the DFRLab would go on to join the Election Integrity Partnership to monitor U.S. election discourse (see 2020 entries), highlighting continuity of these alliances.
•July 2018 – Financial Deplatforming (NewsGuard Formed): A startup called NewsGuard launched in mid-2018 with $6 million in seed funding (led by the advertising giant Publicis Groupe) . smallbusiness.house.gov/uploadedfiles/…
Co-founded by Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, NewsGuard presented itself as an “Internet Trust Tool” – a for-profit service rating the credibility of news outlets and feeding those ratings to advertisers, browsers, and even the Pentagon. Backed by an advisory board including former DHS Secretary Tom Ridge and former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NewsGuard operated as a kind of private-sector Ministry of Truth. It scored outlets on a nutrition label-style scale and compiled “exclusion lists” of sites deemed untrustworthy . By steering advertisers away from “low-rated” outlets, NewsGuard’s ratings directly choked off revenue to disfavored media . Indeed, an internal House report later noted that NewsGuard (and its partner org the Global Disinformation Index) “apply subjective ‘risk’ or ‘reliability’ scores to media outlets, which can result in reduction in revenue” . newsmax.com/newsfront/news… In short, 2018 saw the birth of a financial deplatforming apparatus, one funded by private and government-tied investors, aiming to starve “fake news” sites (often conservative) of ad money in the name of fighting disinformation.

Late 2018 – Psychological Operations (Integrity Initiative Leaks): In November 2018, hackers (later attributed to the Anonymous collective) released internal documents from the Integrity Initiative, a secretive U.K. government-funded influence campaign . wikispooks.com/wiki/Integrity…
The leaked files exposed a covert network of journalists, academics, and military/intel officials organized into country-specific “clusters” aimed at shaping public opinion and media narratives against Russia and nationalist politicians. Funded by the British Foreign Office (and even receiving U.S. State Department grants) , wsws.org/en/articles/20… the Integrity Initiative operated as a quasi-intelligence psy-op. Its own documents boasted of “silencing pro-Kremlin voices” in foreign media and “mobilising the network” in rapid response to events like the Skripal affair . One leak showed Institute for Statecraft director Chris Donnelly proudly noting they had “prevented the promotion of an insufficiently Russophobic general in Spain” and orchestrated an “attack on Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn” by using cutouts in the UK media . Once exposed, the Integrity Initiative scandal (decried as “the biggest story of 2018” by some commentators) forced the group’s public website offline amidst parliamentary inquiries. The incident revealed UK/NATO-connected operations on Western soil: under the banner of fighting “disinformation,” taxpayer-funded units were running smear campaigns against domestic political figures and seeding propaganda via trusted media contacts – a literal “Ministry of Truth” operating in the shadows.
•December 2018 – Psychological Operations (Hamilton 68 Retooled): After a year of Hamilton 68 fueling countless media stories about “Russian bots” amplifying U.S. controversies, the project was quietly wound down. The Alliance for Securing Democracy announced it would discontinue the public Hamilton 68 dashboard in December 2018, transitioning to a new approach of monitoring overt state accounts (Hamilton 2.0) . securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/fact-sheet-ham…
This came as Twitter and researchers increasingly criticized Hamilton 68’s methodology. In effect, the ASD tacitly acknowledged that the tool’s data was “consistently misunderstood or misrepresented” by pundits . However, by then the damage was done: narratives of rampant Russian social media control had taken root. (Years later, in 2023, The Washington Post would correct multiple 2017–18 articles that cited Hamilton 68, clarifying that the tracked accounts were not verified Russian agents .) foxnews.com/media/washingt…
The Hamilton 68 saga underscored how influence networks spanning D.C. think tanks and Silicon Valley could disseminate a flawed narrative, have it echoed by mainstream media and officials, and only belatedly correct the record after the intended political impact (in this case, bolstering Russiagate) had been achieved.

2019
•2019 – Financial Deplatforming (GDI Founded with Government Backing): The Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a British-American nonprofit, was established in late 2018 and ramped up operations in 2019 . smallbusiness.house.gov/uploadedfiles/…
GDI’s mission was to “disrupt, defund and down-rank disinformation sites” by working with advertisers and ad tech companies . In practice, GDI created a secret blacklist (the “Dynamic Exclusion List”) of news websites it deemed “high risk” for disinfo, and then fed this list to ad networks to block ads from those sites . Internal communications later revealed GDI considered cutting off ad revenue as the first step to deplatform “fringe sites” – including those that challenged “the current scientific or medical consensus” . Notably, GDI expanded the definition of “disinformation” beyond demonstrably false content to include “adversarial narratives” that are “counter to our institutions” or simply “divisive” . This meant mainstream conservative positions (e.g. skepticism on COVID lockdowns or using terms like “illegal immigrant”) were flagged as de facto disinformation . The GDI was ostensibly an NGO, but it enjoyed significant U.S. government support: in 2019–20, the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) and the National Endowment for Democracy funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to GDI and its affiliates . Thus, by 2019, a government-funded mechanism to financially blacklist domestic media was in motion – an opaque partnership between state entities and ostensibly private “disinformation labs.”
•March 2019 – Legal Warfare (Mueller Report & Aftermath): Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation concluded in March 2019, finding no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. Despite this, many of the NGOs and actors who had championed the Russiagate narrative (often with funding or amplification from intelligence veterans) pivoted to new fronts: election security and countering “domestic extremism.” For instance, Renee DiResta – an influence operative who worked on the Senate’s Russian interference report – turned to combating “misinformation” in anti-vaccine and domestic political movements. Organizations like New Knowledge (rebranded as Yonder), caught in late 2018 fabricating Russian bot activity in an Alabama election , foxnews.com/media/washingt…
shifted to advising tech platforms on “inauthentic behavior.” The collapse of Mueller’s core collusion theory did little to discredit the burgeoning censorship industry; instead, 2019 saw it entrench and seek new justifications (white supremacy, health misinformation, etc.) to continue practices developed under Russiagate. (This entry is noted for context; specific citations on NGO pivots in 2019 can be found in later reports on the “censorship-industrial complex.”)

October 2019 – Social Media Censorship (Trusted News Initiative Launch): The Trusted News Initiative (TNI), a consortium led by the BBC, was officially launched in 2019 to “flag disinformation” during elections . influencewatch.org/organization/t…
Founding partners included major media and tech companies: BBC, Associated Press, Reuters, Facebook/Meta, Google/YouTube, Twitter, Microsoft, and others . In Sept. 2019, these organizations agreed to an early warning system – if one partner identified “misinformation that could undermine democracy,” they would all act in concert to throttle it . Initially focused on elections (with an eye toward the UK 2019 election and 2020 U.S. race), the TNI by design enabled real-time, multi-platform censorship through collaboration outside of public view. This was a preemptive syndicate of legacy media and Big Tech to enforce unified narrative control. By early 2020, the TNI’s focus would broaden to cover the emerging COVID-19 “infodemic” as well (see 2020 entry on COVID).

2020
•February 2020 – Social Media Censorship (COVID-19 “Infodemic” Crackdown Begins): As COVID-19 spread globally, U.S. and U.K. authorities moved quickly to suppress dissenting scientific views online. In early 2020, the World Health Organization warned of an “infodemic,” and Western governments treated certain COVID-origin or policy debates as potential disinformation threats. In the UK, a specialized military info-war unit (77th Brigade) was tasked with monitoring social media for COVID misinformation – ostensibly focusing on foreign actors but in reality collecting posts from British citizens skeptical of lockdowns . telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/2…
In the U.S., the White House and Surgeon General’s office began weekly calls with tech companies on COVID “misinfo” by spring 2020, while platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Google ramped up AI-driven content moderation to remove posts contradicting health authorities. This laid the groundwork for what would later become the “Virality Project” and aggressive censorship of topics like the lab-leak theory and vaccine side-effects (see 2021). Trusted News Initiative partners also activated their agreement: by March 2020, BBC and major outlets coordinated coverage and alerts to quash “false” COVID claims. This atmosphere of crisis allowed government-aligned actors to fast-track new speech controls that would have been untenable in normal times.
•July 2020 – Social Media Censorship (Election Integrity Partnership Created): With the U.S. presidential election looming, a coalition of four organizations formed the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) on July 26, 2020 . cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/electi…
The EIP brought together Stanford’s Internet Observatory, the Atlantic Council’s DFRLab, social analytics firm Graphika, and UW’s Center for Informed Public – all with existing ties to federal agencies. Notably, internal communications later revealed the EIP was created “at the request of” DHS’s cybersecurity agency (CISA) judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subs… as a means for government to “launder” censorship of domestic speech through private partners. During the 100 days before the election, the EIP served as a real-time ticketing system: it received misinformation “tips” from partners (including the DHS, State Department’s GEC, and common NGO collaborators), analyzed them, and forwarded structured reports to platforms urging content removal . By EIP’s own report, it ultimately flagged 859 discrete narratives and 22 million tweets for potential restriction, with 72% of its focus on “delegitimization” – largely posts from the American right questioning election processes . eipartnership.net/report#:~:text… Targets ranged from “repeat spreaders” on Twitter and Facebook to small news sites. This public-private censorship consortium operated in the shadows: FBI and CISA officials passed EIP misinformation leads (sometimes through a HHS-funded “Switchboard” portal) , judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subs… EIP analysts compiled strike lists, and tech companies complied by throttling or banning users – all without users’ knowledge. The EIP model, born in 2020, became a blueprint for future “whole-of-society” control over election narratives.

•August 2020 – Financial & Platform Warfare (NewsGuard Wins Pentagon Contract): In mid-2020, as COVID misinformation spiked, NewsGuard (the news-rating tool launched in 2018) participated in a Pentagon and State Department-sponsored contest to improve misinformation tracking. On August 18, 2020, NewsGuard was declared a winner for its proposal to create a “Misinformation Fingerprints” catalog of false COVID narratives . smallbusiness.house.gov/uploadedfiles/…
This led to the Department of Defense awarding NewsGuard a $749,387 contract (start date Sept. 7, 2021) to deploy its misinformation monitoring system for the U.S. military . newsmax.com/newsfront/news…
Under this contract – quietly listed on USASpending.gov – NewsGuard provided the DoD with access to its data on misinformation “fingerprints” and site risk ratings. Effectively, a U.S. federal agency was now paying a private media tracker to curate lists of ‘unreliable’ domestic news sources . This raised serious concerns, highlighted in the Twitter Files, about government-funded scoring of American media . Indeed, NewsGuard’s biases were well-documented: it consistently rated conservative-leaning outlets as “high risk” while giving higher scores to establishment outlets (and even Chinese state media) . The NewsGuard-DoD deal exemplifies financial enmeshment of state power and private censors – a trend that would draw Congressional scrutiny by 2023.
October 2020 (Pre-Election) – Psychological Operations (Hunter Biden Laptop as “Disinfo”): On October 14, 2020, the New York Post broke a story on Hunter Biden’s recovered laptop implicating Joe Biden in foreign business dealings . A convergence of influence efforts immediately moved to suppress and discredit this news ahead of Election Day. Social media platforms acted within hours: Twitter blocked users from sharing the URL (and locked the Post’s account), and Facebook algorithmically throttled mentions of the story pending “fact-check.” Internal records show Twitter did this despite “no evidence of violations” – executives debated using a “hacked materials” pretext, even though FBI agents had already confirmed the laptop’s authenticity . We now know why: the FBI, through its Foreign Influence Task Force, had primed tech companies for a “hack-and-leak” operation in October. During weekly meetings in the fall, FBI officials warned Twitter to expect a Russian dump of hacked material potentially involving Hunter Biden . This was highly misleading, given the FBI had Hunter’s actual laptop in its possession since Dec 2019. Concurrently, on October 19, 2020, 51 former intelligence officials (including 5 ex-CIA directors) published an open letter insinuating the Hunter laptop was “Russian information operation” with “classic earmarks” of Kremlin interference . We now know this letter was prompted and coordinated by the Biden campaign: Biden adviser (now Secretary of State) Antony Blinken phoned former CIA Deputy Mike Morell, who orchestrated the letter specifically to give candidate Biden a talking point to “discount the allegations” in his final debate . Emails revealed in 2024 show CIA leadership (even Director Gina Haspel) was aware of and tacitly approved the fast-tracking of this letter, despite several signatories being current CIA contractors . The result of this multi-front operation was a near-total suppression of the Hunter Biden story in mainstream discourse: media outlets cited the intel officials’ “Russian disinfo” claim to downplay the news, and Big Tech censorship prevented the story from circulating when it mattered most . In Congressional testimony, former Twitter executives admitted the ban was a “mistake” , and in 2023 the House Judiciary Committee revealed that Facebook had also been warned by FBI agents, causing Mark Zuckerberg to limit the story’s reach . The Hunter laptop affair stands as a prime case of election interference via coordinated censorship, with NGO, media, intelligence, and tech actors.

•Oct–Nov 2020 (Election) – Social Media Censorship (“Stop the Steal” Takedowns): Following Election Day 2020, as claims of voter fraud and “Stop the Steal” protests emerged, the same censorship network swung into action against domestic political speech. The Election Integrity Partnership and its many partners (including CISA’s Countering Foreign Influence Task Force and the DNC’s tech teams) began flagging large volumes of “delegitimization” content – tweets and Facebook posts from American citizens expressing doubts about the vote – for removal . eipartnership.net/report#:~:text…
Internally, Twitter and Facebook rapidly expanded “misleading election info” policies and banned high-profile influencers. Most dramatically, on January 8, 2021, Twitter permanently banned President Trump, citing risk of incitement. Facebook and YouTube soon followed with their own bans or suspensions of Trump and thousands of accounts/groups related to election fraud claims. Leaked EIP data showed that of the URLs and narratives they flagged as misinfo, a huge majority originated from the political right (many were ordinary Americans sharing anecdotal concerns). This raises First Amendment red flags, since EIP was essentially a proxy for government agencies: as noted in a House investigation, “what the federal government could not do directly, it outsourced to the censorship-industrial complex” . judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subs…
In sum, the immediate post-election period saw open psychological warfare against the MAGA movement’s narrative – a coordinated campaign of social media purges, narrative “de-amplification” by news media, and even financial deplatforming of figures (e.g., Stripe and banks cutting ties with Trump-related entities after Jan. 6). While preventing violence is important, the indiscriminate labeling of core political speech as “misinformation” revealed the politicized double standard in play.

2021
•January 2021 – Social Media Censorship (Deplatforming a Sitting President): After the Capitol riot on Jan 6, major platforms executed an unprecedented silencing of a world leader: President Trump’s accounts were banned on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and more. This collective action – cheered on by many in government – demonstrated the consolidated power of Big Tech and aligned elites to cut off a political figure from the digital public square. Concurrently, tens of thousands of conservative accounts were purged under expanded “extremism” rules (e.g., anyone who had used certain hashtags or followed certain groups). Leaked chats in Twitter’s Slack (disclosed via Twitter Files) revealed employees believed federal officials would be pleased by Trump’s removal, and indeed lawmakers like Michelle Obama and Adam Schiff had publicly pressured for the ban . wjla.com/news/nation-wo…
The Trump deplatforming set a benchmark: it normalized overt political censorship at scale – a portent of what could happen in future high-stakes domestic conflicts. It also drove large user migrations to “alt-tech” platforms (Parler, Gab), which themselves then faced app store bans and hosting disruptions, again indicating a wide-ranging industry coordination to police discourse.
•February 2021 – Social Media Censorship (Stanford’s “Virality Project” for COVID): Building on the EIP model, the Stanford Internet Observatory in Feb 2021 rolled out the Virality Project – a coalition to monitor and censor COVID-19 vaccine “misinformation” across social media . Partners included many EIP alumni (Graphika, DFRLab) plus government agencies like the CDC and DHS. The Virality Project created a cross-platform alert system, much like EIP’s, but focused on flagging “anti-vax” content and coordinating rapid takedowns. Notably, the Virality Project promoted the concept of “malinformation” – true information that was nonetheless deemed harmful (for example, stories about vaccinated individuals contracting COVID were flagged even if factual, because they could fuel hesitancy). In March 2021, a Stanford-led report urged Twitter to censor tweets from medical experts like Dr. Martin Kulldorff of Harvard, who argued that children and the COVID-recovered did not need vaccines . That tweet was indeed censored . The Virality Project exemplified scientific narrative control: by funneling government and academic authority into tech content policy, it shut down legitimate debate on pandemic policy (e.g. efficacy of masks, lab-leak theory – the latter was deemed “disinformation” by GDI and others until mid-2021). smallbusiness.house.gov/uploadedfiles/…
The project’s weekly briefings to platforms resulted in many post removals and account strikes, later documented in Twitter Files #19 and #20. Overall, early 2021 saw the peak of authorized orthodoxy enforcement online, under the exigency of public health.

July 2021 – Social Media Censorship (White House Pressure on Big Tech): The Biden Administration moved from implicit to explicit collusion with social media companies on content moderation by mid-2021. On July 16, 2021, President Biden stated publicly that platforms like Facebook were “killing people” by not removing anti-vaccine posts. The same day, Twitter permanently suspended journalist Alex Berenson, a prominent critic of COVID lockdowns and mRNA vaccines . Internal Twitter communications, revealed through Berenson’s lawsuit discovery, showed that White House officials had directly pressured Twitter to ban Berenson – during an April 2021 meeting, they specifically asked “why Alex Berenson hasn’t been kicked off the platform” . Twitter complied months later. Separately, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki admitted they were “flagging problematic posts” to Facebook for removal. These revelations – confirmed in Twitter Files and the Missouri v. Biden case – prove a pattern of government-induced censorship. By leaning on private companies with veiled threats of regulation, the executive branch succeeded in silencing certain voices (e.g., Berenson later won reinstatement in a settlement, with Twitter acknowledging his ban was improper). This was a constitutional gray zone that in 2023 a federal judge would call “arguably the most massive attack on free speech in U.S. history” when enjoining such practices . supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf…
The summer 2021 episode made clear that the “censorship-industrial complex” was not just informal pressure – it involved direct legal warfare by officials to cow platforms (some emails even suggest Facebook felt it might be punished by regulation if it didn’t more aggressively police content at Biden’s behest).

September 2021 – Financial Deplatforming (Paypal and Bank Account Bans): Following the Jan. 6 fallout and ongoing COVID disputes, multiple financial services companies began deplatforming individuals and groups based on political views. In 2021, PayPal, Stripe, GoFundMe, and major banks froze or ended accounts associated with Trump supporters, election audit funds, or anti-mandate activists. For example, in February 2021, PayPal and Venmo banned GiveSendGo (a crowdfunding site used by some January 6 defendants). In August 2021, PayPal partnered with the ADL’s Center on Extremism to identify and cut off financial flows to “extremist” ideologies – a program civil libertarians warned could target mainstream conservatives under slippery definitions. These actions, often coordinated with watchlists from groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, represented financial choke-points being used as political cudgels. The targets were typically individuals never charged with crimes but guilty of wrongthink. The trend would accelerate in 2022 (e.g., PayPal’s short-lived plan to fine users $2,500 for “misinformation”). While not driven by one government directive, this voluntary but concerted corporate policy mirrored the state’s narrative – effectively performing financial lawfare by proxy to starve and isolate those deemed dissidents.

November 2021 – Psychological Operations (Merrick Garland’s “Tag” on Parents): The use of federal counterterror tools against domestic political opponents showed in late 2021 when Attorney General Garland issued a memo tasking the FBI to coordinate against “threats” at school board meetings (in response to heated protests by parents over COVID policies and curricula). An internal email revealed the counterterrorism division created a “threat tag” EDUOFFICIALS to track related incidents. While not a classic info op, this episode signaled the merging of narrative with law enforcement – framing concerned parents as potential extremists (a narrative encouraged by a National School Boards Association letter likening some parent behavior to “domestic terrorism”). The result was a chilling effect on grassroots speech and assembly. Concurrently, the newly passed Infrastructure Act (Nov 2021) officially authorized a DHS Misinformation, Disinformation and Malinformation (MDM) team within CISA, codifying DHS’s involvement in domestic influence control going forward

2022
•April 2022 – Federal Coordination (DHS “Disinformation Governance Board” Fiasco): The Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Mayorkas announced a new Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) in April 2022, with the stated aim to coordinate counter-misinformation targeting Hispanic communities and migration narratives, among other issues . crapo.senate.gov/news/in-the-ne…
The choice to lead this effort – Nina Jankowicz, a 33-year-old “disinformation expert” known for partisan takes (and for casting doubt on the Hunter Biden laptop in 2020) – immediately drew public ire. Critics dubbed it a “Ministry of Truth.” Within weeks, on May 18, 2022, DHS “paused” the board , and Jankowicz resigned, acknowledging the board had become a distraction. firstamendment.mtsu.edu/post/new-disin…
By August 2022 the DGB was officially terminated . dhs.gov/archive/news/2…
However, the shutdown was cosmetic: DHS did not cease its disinformation work. Instead, efforts reverted to back-channel operations like the CISA Misinfo Subcommittee and collaborations with outside entities (e.g., the Election Integrity Partnership for the 2022 midterms). In essence, the quick demise of the DGB showed that overt government leadership in speech control was still politically unpalatable – but the underlying activities simply continued under different guises, with DHS components quietly maintaining portals and partnerships to flag content to platforms (later exposed in Missouri v. Biden). The DGB episode provided valuable transparency (through Congress’ later inquiry) into the internal thinking of officials who genuinely saw a federal role in managing domestic “cognitive security.”

June 2022 – Financial Deplatforming (GoFundMe and Canada Trucker Convoy): While not a U.S. operation per se, the handling of the February 2022 Canadian “Freedom Convoy” (truckers protesting vaccine mandates) reverberated in the U.S. and foreshadowed 2022–23 domestic tactics. GoFundMe froze $10 million in donations to the convoy under pressure from Canadian authorities and big tech allies, eventually refunding donors rather than releasing funds to protesters. Paypal and banks also froze personal accounts of convoy organizers. American politicians and media with ties to the same censorship networks cheered these moves, effectively endorsing financial warfare on protest movements. Homeland Security even issued a February 2022 bulletin warning that “false or misleading narratives” about COVID measures were a top terrorism threat – a veiled reference to the convoy and similar U.S. protests. By mid-2022, U.S. financial and law enforcement entities had normalized tools for rapid debanking and defunding of groups deemed misinformation spreaders or extremists, in sync with allied governments. This cross-border coordination (e.g., DHS communicating with Canadian counterparts) illustrated the NATO-wide nature of the influence/censorship apparatus.
•November 2022 – Social Media Censorship (Musk’s Twitter Files Expose): The October 2022 takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk led directly to a watershed moment of transparency. In November–December 2022, the Twitter Files – internal communications shared with independent journalists – began to be published. These files confirmed and illuminated the shadow influence system that had controlled speech on Twitter and beyond:
•Twitter Files #1 (Dec 2, 2022) detailed how Twitter executives regularly met with FBI and DHS officials and honored requests to remove content, including postings from Americans, under the guise of “misinformation” or policy violations . grassley.senate.gov/news/remarks/t…
•TF #3 and #4 documented the decision-making around banning President Trump, showing staff and outside pressure (including from former First Lady Michelle Obama) were determinative, not just rule violations.
•TF #7 (Dec 19, 2022) by Michael Shellenberger revealed the FBI’s extensive involvement in priming Twitter to censor the Hunter Biden laptop, including a sworn declaration that “there was no evidence of Russian interference in the laptop” yet field office agents still pushed the hack narrative . grassley.senate.gov/news/remarks/t…
•TF #9 (Dec 26, 2022) by Lee Fang exposed that Twitter was embedded in a Pentagon influence operation to run fake accounts in Middle East war theaters – highlighting the tech company’s knowledge of (and acquiescence to) military psychological operations.
•TF #13 (Jan 2023) by Taibbi introduced the term “Censorship-Industrial Complex,” identifying NGOs like Stanford, Atlantic Council, and Graphika as “fully intertwined” with state agencies in content control . newsmax.com/newsfront/news…
•TF #14 (Jan 2023) revealed Twitter’s internal slack chats where FBI/DHS “industry meetings” were referenced, and staff admitted the “government partners” routinely flagged domestic accounts.
•TF #15 (Jan 27, 2023) blew open the Hamilton 68 story (see 2017 entry), with quotes like “It was a scam… mostly American accounts… falsely accused as Russian” , and noted Twitter execs deliberated calling it out publicly. foxnews.com/media/washingt…

TF #17 (late March 2023) by Matt Taibbi showed state-funded anti-disinformation groups (like GEC-backed GDI and DOD-backed NewsGuard) lobbying Twitter to censor certain outlets, effectively trying to enforce their blacklists on the platform . newsmax.com/newsfront/news…
The Twitter Files triggered Congressional hearings and confirmed the interlocking directorate of federal agencies, NGOs, and platforms in shaping online narratives. Importantly, it underscored that government actors were not neutral referees but often partisan participants – many examples involved silencing conservative or anti-establishment voices (e.g., even right-leaning satire site Babylon Bee was on a GEC watchlist). The exposure also catalyzed legal action (see 2023 Missouri v. Biden) and legislative efforts to defund certain entities.

2023
•March 2023 – Congressional Oversight (Weaponization Hearings & Reports): With Republicans taking the House in January 2023, investigative focus on the “censorship-industrial complex” kicked into high gear. On March 9, 2023, the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Federal Government held a blockbuster hearing with Twitter Files journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger. They testified that “a tangled web of government, academia, and private industry” has been directing censorship of Americans . foxnews.com/media/washingt…
Shellenberger likened it to an institutionalized bullying of public discourse by elites. In parallel, multiple House committees released interim reports:
•A House Judiciary report (Nov 2023) documented how the Election Integrity Partnership functioned as a government proxy to censor election speech, including internal emails where CISA officials asked EIP to flag certain tweets . judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subs… It concluded that this arrangement was an attempt to evade First Amendment limits by using a “whole-of-society” private partner censorship model.

•A House Intel and Judiciary joint report (June 2024) revealed new evidence on the Hunter Biden intel letter of 2020, including active CIA staff involvement and coordination with the Biden campaign to produce the “Russian disinfo” narrative . intelligence.house.gov/news/documents…

•The House Oversight Committee called former officials like Yoel Roth and Vijaya Gadde (Twitter) and Elvis Chan (FBI) for depositions, revealing details like the FBI’s “switchboarding” of content through fortified paths (e.g., Facebook’s content portal for government, known as “Facebook Content Request System”).

•The House Homeland Security Committee probed DHS’s still-active efforts, including an August 2023 report that FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) had been quietly shut down by the Administration, possibly to preempt further inquiry – a move Senator Grassley praised as a step to curb FBI overreach . grassley.senate.gov/news/remarks/g…

A House Small Business Committee report (Sept 2024) zeroed in on the economic warfare aspect: it detailed how State Department grants (via the GEC) funded entities like Park Advisors, which then gave subgrants to the Atlantic Council, NewsGuard, GDI, and others to develop censorship tools . It found that GDI received at least four U.S.-funded awards and that its blacklists had “a partisan lens”, disproportionately defunding conservative media while wrongly labeling factual content (like lab-leak discussions) as disinformation .

smallbusiness.house.gov/uploadedfiles/…

These oversight efforts have begun to map the entire network by name: for example, charts connecting NGOs (e.g., CCDH, DFRC, EIP) → their funders (DHS, NSF, private foundations) → platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Google) → supportive media outlets and even key government officials. One finding was that many of the same names rotated through these roles – a revolving door of “disinformation experts.” (E.g., Nina Jankowicz went from a UK Integrity Initiative affiliate to Wilson Center to briefly head the DHS board; Renee DiResta from New Knowledge to Stanford EIP advisor; Graham Brookie from Atlantic Council DFRLab to EIP lead, etc.) Congress is compiling a more complete timeline of how these entities coordinated over multiple election cycles.
•July 4, 2023 – Legal Warfare (Missouri v. Biden Injunction): In a landmark ruling for free speech, a federal judge in Louisiana issued a broad preliminary injunction barring the Biden administration (and specifically FBI, DHS, CDC, NIAID, and other officials) from contacting social media companies for the purpose of suppressing protected speech . brennancenter.org/our-work/court… The judge cited “substantial evidence” of a “far-reaching and widespread censorship campaign” in which government actors colluded with platforms to target disfavored viewpoints on COVID, elections, and other issues . supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf… This case – filed by the Attorneys General of Missouri and Louisiana – uncovered hundreds of communications showing White House and agency officials demanding takedowns of posts, deplatforming of specific users (from Tucker Carlson to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.), and changes to moderation policies to be more restrictive. The injunction (temporarily paused and modified pending Supreme Court review) was notable for recognizing that government “visibility filtering” via private companies can violate the First Amendment. The Fifth Circuit in Sept 2023 upheld much of the order, finding that the White House, FBI, CDC, and CISA likely coerced or significantly encouraged censorship by tech companies, thus transforming private decisions into state action. Missouri v. Biden marks the first major judicial check on the censorship apparatus, and its ongoing litigation has forced agencies to reveal internal documents. For example, discovery emails showed a CISA official in 2021 calling their work “inherently political” and musing that the government needed to offload the dirty work to the private sector (referring to it as “attacking infrastructure” in the cognitive domain) – essentially admitting to the censorship laundering scheme. This case may set crucial precedent as the 2024 election approaches, making agencies more cautious even as they seek new ways to influence content (e.g., through cutouts like the Election Integrity Partnership 2.0).

August 2023 – Financial Deplatforming (X Platform Policy Changes and ADL Clash): Under Elon Musk’s ownership, Twitter (rebranded X) reversed many prior censorship policies, restoring banned accounts and ending the wholesale deplatforming of COVID skeptics and election commentators. Musk also cut ties with the Election Integrity Partnership and government backchannels. In response, several NGOs and activists ramped up pressure campaigns on advertisers to boycott X. Notably, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) released reports claiming X was now flooded with “hate speech” and disinformation due to lax moderation. In August 2023, Musk accused these groups of trying to “kill Twitter” via advertiser blacklists and even filed a defamation lawsuit against CCDH. This represents the pushback phase: as one major platform attempts to break from the influence network, the network retaliated economically (attempting to strangle X’s ad revenue). Internal ADL documents (later leaked in 2024) showed coordination with other “trust and safety” NGOs to maximize reputational damage to non-compliant platforms. The situation with X and the advertiser boycotts underscores that the censorship industry has leverage via corporate advertisers and media scare stories. It also highlights a developing counter-movement against that industry, aligning free-speech advocates, some lawmakers, and now platform owners in an open battle.
•Late 2023 – Psychological Operations (Pre-2024 Narrative Seeding): As the 2024 U.S. election cycle heats up, familiar influence narratives have re-emerged. Intelligence officials and think tanks began briefing the press about “the heightened risk of Russian and Chinese interference,” priming the public for future revelations to be dismissed as foreign ops (similar to 2020’s laptop letter). For instance, in October 2023 a series of news pieces cited unnamed officials claiming Russia was again “amplifying divisive content” on U.S. social media – despite little evidence, these claims create an anticipatory narrative to discredit any leaks or October surprises in 2024. Concurrently, federal agencies quietly stood up new internal teams (under CISA’s MDM team and the FBI’s Foreign Influence unit, if reinstated) to liaise with platforms under the radar, mindful of the Missouri v. Biden injunction. NGOs like the International Republican Institute (IRI) and National Democratic Institute (NDI), traditionally focused on foreign democracy programs, started to frame domestic election skepticism as an area needing intervention, further eroding the norm against targeting Americans. In sum, by end of 2023 the architecture for 2024’s information battles was being refined: much of it same as 2020, but now operating more covertly and with some legal challenges. The Hunter Biden investigations in Congress (and any resulting disclosures) are likely to be flashpoints for this apparatus, as evidenced by preemptive claims that any damaging info on the Biden family is “Russian-fueled.” Awareness of these tactics is far higher now than in 2016 or 2020, suggesting the conflicts between the red-team censorship network and transparency advocates will be center stage during the 2024 election.

2024
•2024 – Ongoing and Future Operations: (Note: As of mid-2025, the full picture of 2024 influence operations is still coming into focus. The following summarizes known trends and anticipated developments.)
•Election “Mis/Disinformation” Policing: The Election Integrity Partnership was re-activated for the 2022 midterms and expected to be active through 2024 (often referring to itself as the Election Integrity Cohort under the Stanford-led Election Integrity Partnership 2.0). Early reports indicate the same stakeholders (Stanford, Graphika, DFRLab, etc.) collaborated with CISA’s MDM team to monitor 2024 primary-related chatter. However, after House scrutiny, some tech companies like Facebook reportedly scaled back their direct interface with such partnerships to avoid legal risk. Instead, much activity shifted to “independent” tip lines like the Election Integrity Alliance (a spinoff involving the University of Austin). Despite these changes in form, the cross-sector network remains engaged in shaping 2024 narratives, especially around mail-in voting, ballot harvesting, and any new Hunter Biden revelations.
•Hunter Biden Narrative Suppression (Redux): In 2023–24, House investigators released bank records and witness testimony alleging foreign payments to Biden family members. This has been met with a familiar influence response: legacy media downplaying or ignoring the story, Big Tech platforms (aside from X) throttling related discussions (e.g., YouTube has removed videos of Congressional hearings citing “misinformation” if they mention certain allegations), and a revival of the “Russian disinformation” chorus regarding any related leaks. In October 2024, if hackers or whistleblowers release new Biden-related files, one can expect the same toolkit to be deployed: former intel officials ready with statements, NGOs amplifying “adversary interference” claims, and news outlets echoing those lines. The fact that a 2020 letter by 51 officials – now discredited intelligence.house.gov/news/documents…– swayed the last election has not been lost on these actors.

•COVID and Censorship in Retrospect: By 2024, the pandemic emergency is over, and even the FBI and Energy Department acknowledge a lab leak as a likely COVID origin . smallbusiness.house.gov/uploadedfiles/…
Yet, the censorship of 2020–21 left a lasting legacy: trust in public health is eroded, and legal warfare looms (e.g., RFK Jr.’s lawsuit against legacy media for colluding via the Trusted News Initiative to censor COVID debates ). forbes.com/sites/carliepo…
In 2024, we anticipate more disclosures about how U.S. officials coordinated with the WHO and foreign governments to synchronize COVID messaging. For instance, the EU’s “Code of Practice on Disinformation” and the WHO’s proposed Pandemic Treaty obligations on countering false information show a globalization of the censorship regime that the next U.S. administration will have to navigate or resist. Meanwhile, voices silenced during COVID (like Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of the Great Barrington Declaration) have gained platforms in Congress to recount the “devastating takedown” ordered by Collins/Fauci . oversight.house.gov/release/wenstr…
The narrative tide is turning on some issues (e.g., lab leak being vindicated), but the institutional memory of censorship remains – meaning future health crises could see quicker moves to squash contrarian views, unless reforms are enacted.

Emerging Fronts – AI “Disinformation” and CISA’s New Roles: In 2024, the influence apparatus is also pointing toward new domains: the spread of deepfakes and AI-generated propaganda. CISA has quietly expanded collaboration with tech and academia to detect “AI-driven misinformation,” which could conveniently justify scanning user content and further algorithmic control. The Stanford Internet Observatory launched a project on “Trust and Safety of AI” to potentially serve as another quasi-regulator. Additionally, financial deplatforming has extended to payment processors and web infrastructure: 2024 saw more reports of conservatives losing access to services like PayPal, and even domain registrars de-boosting certain sites, often based on lists from groups like GDI or SPLC. On a positive note, states have begun pushing back: multiple state legislatures are considering bills to bar state government collusion with social media censorship (following the evidence from Missouri v. Biden), and some states are divesting pension funds from banks that “debank” customers for political or religious speech. These countermeasures, however, are nascent compared to the entrenched, federally funded ecosystem they challenge.
•Election Day 2024 and Transition: As Election Day approaches, expect an escalation of both information suppression and information ops. If polling indicates a candidate favorable to the censorship status quo might lose, we could see a repeat of 2020’s frantic efforts – perhaps new allegations against that candidate’s opponent framed as “foreign interference.” Conversely, if the anti-establishment side is seen leading, platforms may preemptively curtail narratives about election integrity to prevent “delegitimization” claims post-vote. CISA’s public posture is that they no longer monitor domestic speech (after the 2023 injunction), but whistleblowers suggest a lot of this work has been outsourced to nonprofits. The Integrity Initiative leaks in 2018 taught us that Western governments can conduct influence operations at home under layers of deniability – 2024 will likely validate that again, unless vigilance and oversight intervene in real time.

The evidence above details a deliberate and coordinated effort by government agencies, government-funded NGOs, and allied media/tech platforms to shape U.S. public discourse outside the bounds of normal democratic debate. What began as ostensibly foreign counter-influence work (combatting “Russian disinformation”) mutated into domestic censorship and political psy-ops against Americans – targeting a spectrum of narratives from the Russiagate controversy to pandemic policies to election integrity questions. The timeline shows a pattern: federal officials (FBI, DHS, State) leveraging third-party proxies (think tanks like Atlantic Council, non-profits like the EIP/GDI, private “fact-checkers” like NewsGuard) to do indirectly what they cannot do directly – curtail speech and smear dissent. These proxies, in turn, receive funding or intelligence tips and enjoy privileged access to platforms, allowing them to throttle viewpoints (often conservative or anti-establishment) under the cover of combating “disinformation.” The cross-referencing of entities reveals a tight web of relationships: e.g., the Atlantic Council’s DFRLab was funded by the State Department and partnered with Facebook; the Stanford/DFRLab/Graphika cohort worked with DHS’s CISA to police 2020 election speech ; the Global Disinformation Index took grants from both U.S. and UK sources while pressuring ad companies to bankrupt certain outlets . The weaponization of ostensibly benign organizations (public health orgs, election security task forces, journalism non-profits) for political ends is a key feature – e.g., the 2020 intel veterans’ letter was presented as a national security warning but was in fact a partisan device .

From a forensic oversight perspective, this timeline underscores the need to subpoena communications between government officials and outside actors (as done in Missouri v. Biden) to fully map the censorship enterprise. It also highlights how emergency narratives (foreign threats, pandemics, “extremism”) were used as justificatory cover to achieve strategic goals: discrediting the Hunter Biden laptop, suppressing debate on COVID mandates, and marginalizing the MAGA movement. Each operation left a trail – documents, emails, public statements – that tie back to key figures and funding streams. The challenge for lawmakers and courts will be drawing clear lines of accountability in this blur of public-private action. Already, steps like the federal injunction and Congressional funding cuts to entities like the GEC’s censorship grants show that sunlight is being applied. The end goal of such oversight is to restore a balance where genuine foreign threats are addressed without trampling domestic free expression, and where NGOs stick to transparency and fact-finding without becoming covert enforcers for a political agenda. intelligence.house.gov/news/documents…

Unraveling the Intelligence and Foreign Influence Inquiry – ASD, Hamilton 68, and the Shadows of Government Overreach
As an OSINT investigator committed to unearthing verifiable truths amid a web of geopolitical intrigue and domestic power plays, this inquiry into the “Intelligence and Foreign Influence Inquiry” demands meticulous scrutiny. The narrative surrounding the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) and its Hamilton 68 dashboard—initially framed as a bulwark against Russian meddling—has devolved into a cautionary tale of potential abuse. Alarmingly, what began as congressional probes into foreign threats in 2017-2018 has morphed into a sprawling apparatus where U.S. intelligence agencies, taxpayer-funded NGOs, and tech giants allegedly collaborate to surveil, label, and silence American voices under the guise of “securing democracy.” This isn’t mere speculation; cross-verified evidence from declassified documents, hearings, and whistleblower revelations paints a picture of systemic overreach that could erode First Amendment protections and enable unchecked narrative control.
If these patterns hold—and the data suggests they do—we’re confronting a “huge problem”: a fusion of intelligence operations with partisan agendas, foreign funding streams, and censorship tools that blur the line between national security and domestic suppression. Below, I dissect the key elements, drawing from congressional records, funding disclosures, and post-Twitter Files exposures. While the alarmist lens reveals chilling implications for free speech, the investigative rigor grounds us in facts, timelines, and unresolved questions.
1. Origins and Evolution of the Inquiry: From 2017-2018 Hearings to a Broader Censorship Framework
The “Intelligence and Foreign Influence Inquiry” traces its roots to bipartisan concerns over Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, as outlined in the Mueller Report and Senate Intelligence Committee findings. In 2017-2018, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) held multiple hearings to examine “Russian influence operations and disinformation,” setting the stage for ASD’s creation and Hamilton 68’s launch. These sessions, including SSCI’s June 6, 2018, open hearing on foreign influence, featured testimony from ASD affiliates like Laura Rosenberger, who discussed platform vulnerabilities without naming Hamilton 68 explicitly.

Alarmingly, these inquiries fostered “closer integration between NGOs and the intelligence community,” as noted in recent analyses. Yoel Roth (former Twitter Trust & Safety head) testified in related hearings on election interference, admitting “regular engagements with ODNI, DHS, and FBI,” underscoring tech-intel symbiosis. This integration birthed tools like Hamilton 68 (launched August 2017), which ASD claimed tracked “Russian influence activities” via 600+ Twitter accounts. Yet, internal Twitter reviews (exposed in Twitter Files #15) revealed it mislabeled legitimate U.S. accounts as “Russian bots,” inflating threats to justify censorship.
Post-2018, the inquiry expanded amid Obamagate declassifications (July 18, 2025), fueling suspicions that 2016 “Russia collusion” narratives were fabricated. ASD’s dashboards for French (2022), German (2021), and U.S. elections (2024) mirrored this, tracking “narratives” with alleged intel backing. Factually, while ASD positioned itself as “nonpartisan,” its advisory council (e.g., former CIA/NSA officials, Bill Kristol) and funding ties suggest bias.

Congressional and Senate Hearings: Key Probes and Revelations (2017-2025)
Deeper dives confirm a cascade of investigations, often partisan but yielding substantive findings on ASD/Hamilton 68’s flaws and intel overreach.
• 2017-2018 Senate/House Intelligence Committees Hearings: SSCI/HPSCI sessions on “Russian Active Measures” (e.g., March 2017 HPSCI open hearing) laid groundwork for ASD, with testimony on disinformation leading to Hamilton 68’s creation. No direct ASD naming, but Roth’s later admissions tie platforms to ODNI/DHS/FBI. Outcomes: Bipartisan reports (e.g., SSCI’s 2019 Volume on Election Interference) validated Russian efforts but overstated scale, per critics.
• March 9, 2023, House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on Weaponization Hearing: Pivotal post-Twitter Files session grilled Taibbi/Shellenberger on ASD/Hamilton 68. Taibbi exposed Hamilton as a “guilt-by-association scheme” fronted by ex-FBI Clint Watts, listing mostly Americans as “Russian-linked.” Shellenberger tied ASD to DoD/CIA/NSA via funding/board members, labeling it a “Censorship Industrial Complex” expanding from counter-terror to domestic “misinfo.” Jordan referenced FBI priming Twitter for “hack-and-leak” ops, echoing ASD’s role. Follow-ups: Subpoenas for ASD-related docs; interim reports on “weaponized” intel.
• 2024 House Homeland Security Subcommittee Testimony: ASD’s David Salvo/Nathan Kohlenberg testified on “transnational repression,” linking to foreign influence but drawing criticism for ASD’s intel ties.
• Durham Report (2023) and Follow-On Probes: Special Counsel Durham’s findings on politicized 2016 probes indirectly implicated ASD-like tools in “Russia hoax,” prompting SSCI reviews of intel misuse.
• GEC Shutdown (2023-2024): State Dept’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), funding ASD partners, was defunded amid First Amendment violations, per House Foreign Affairs Committee hearings.
• 2025 Updates: Post-Obamagate (July 2025), SSCI held closed sessions on NED/GMF funding, probing ASD’s role in 2024 election dashboards. No law enforcement indictments, but FBI OIG launched reviews of Hamilton 68’s misuse.

Funding and Intelligence Ties: A Web of Government and Left-Leaning Influence
GMF, ASD’s host, receives ~60% of funding from governments (U.S. State Dept: $5-10M annually 2020-2025; German/Swedish grants: $15M+). Left-leaning orgs: Open Society Foundations ($2M+ 2020-2024), Charles Stewart Mott Foundation ($1M grants), Democracy Fund ($500K+). ASD’s board includes ex-CIA/NSA/DHS officials, fueling “deep state” allegations. X posts decry ASD as a “foreign-funded spy front” for U.S. interference.
4. Censorship Controversies and Post-Twitter Files Fallout
Twitter Files (2023) eviscerated Hamilton 68 as a “scam,” with Roth admitting no evidence for “Russian bot” claims. ASD’s 2023 fact sheet defended it as tracking “influence,” but X discourse labeled it “Stasi-like.” By 2025, ASD relaunched Hamilton 2.0, focusing on “overt state media,” amid backlash. Press releases show ASD’s compendium with Canada/Microsoft (2021) on interference, but no direct Twitter Files response.
5. Unresolved Questions and Recommendations
This inquiry exposes a potential “intelligence laundering” scheme: foreign-funded NGOs like ASD, backed by U.S. intel, amplify threats to justify censorship. Factually, no indictments, but probes like Weaponization Subcommittee’s subpoenas and GEC’s dismantling signal accountability. Recommend: FOIA GMF/ASD grants; subpoena Roth/Salvo; expand SSCI reviews post-Obamagate. If unchecked, this “problem” risks permanent erosion of democratic discourse. influencewatch.org/non-profit/ger…

Escalating Shadows – The Weaponization of Disinformation Tools Through Congressional Lenses (2018-2025)
As an OSINT investigator navigating the treacherous intersection of national security, free speech, and partisan agendas, this deeper probe into the cited hearings and reports uncovers a disturbing escalation. What began as ostensibly noble efforts to combat foreign disinformation has ballooned into a taxpayer-funded machinery of suppression, where NGOs like NewsGuard, GDI, ASD (via Hamilton 68), and state-backed initiatives like the Integrity Initiative and Iran’s Disinfo Project allegedly overstep boundaries—targeting domestic critics, conservative outlets, and political figures under the guise of “protecting democracy.” Alarmingly, this “censorship industrial complex,” as dubbed in testimonies, mirrors authoritarian tactics: blacklists draining advertiser revenue, simulated threats justifying surveillance, and leaks exposing mandate abuses that erode public trust. Yet, factual scrutiny tempers the hysteria—many revelations stem from partisan probes, with no criminal indictments, and reversals (e.g., policy changes, funding cuts) indicate self-correction amid oversight. Drawing from verified transcripts, reports, and post-2023 developments up to July 20, 2025, this report dissects each case, highlighting patterns of overreach while grounding in evidence from congressional records.
1. “Weaponization” of Disinformation Tools: House Judiciary Select Subcommittee Hearing (March 9, 2023)
This pivotal hearing, titled “Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government,” exposed NGOs as cogs in a federally fueled censorship machine, with witnesses decrying NewsGuard and GDI for blacklisting conservative outlets—potentially starving them of revenue while amplifying favored narratives. Alarmingly, this suggests a deliberate “pay-to-censor” scheme, where U.S. tax dollars subsidize tools that silence dissent, evoking McCarthy-era blacklists but digitized for the modern age.
Factually, witnesses Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi testified that NewsGuard and GDI—both receiving federal funds via the State Department’s GEC—pressure advertisers to boycott “disfavored” publications, often right-leaning ones like The Federalist or Daily Wire, under labels of “disinformation risk.” Shellenberger detailed how these entities, tied to DOD/CIA/NSA alumni, evolved from counter-terrorism AI to domestic “misinfo” policing, urging Congress to defund them. Taibbi linked ASD’s Hamilton 68 to this ecosystem, calling it a “guilt-by-association scam” that mislabeled Americans as Russian bots, fueling media echo chambers and platform deamplifications. Committee Chair Jim Jordan referenced FBI/ODNI priming Twitter for “hack-and-leak” ops, implying broader intel-NGO collusion. Follow-ups: The subcommittee issued subpoenas for ASD/GDI documents, leading to interim reports on “weaponized intel.” By 2025, post-Obamagate declassifications amplified calls for defunding, with Senate Judiciary echoing critiques in March 2025 hearings on the “Censorship Industrial Complex.” No indictments, but GEC’s December 2024 shutdown stemmed partly from these revelations. govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CH…

Twitter & Political Suppression: House Oversight Committee Hearing (February 8, 2023)
Titled “Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias,” this hearing grilled former Twitter execs on suppressing the NY Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story—a move critics blast as election interference orchestrated via intel hints and NGO pressure. Alarmingly, Roth’s admissions paint a picture of Twitter as a pawn in a pre-election psyop, with FBI “priming” for Russian hacks—echoing ASD’s Hamilton 68 tactics—to bury stories damaging to Biden.
Factually, Roth conceded the suppression was a “mistake,” reversed in 24 hours, but the Post’s account stayed locked for two weeks. He revealed weekly FBI/DHS/ODNI meetings since 2018 on election security, including October 13, 2020, docs from Agent Elvis Chan on foreign interference (not Hunter-specific). Roth denied Biden campaign/DOJ pressure, but admitted “national security experts” (e.g., Aspen Institute exercise on Hunter hypotheticals) influenced decisions. Committee Republicans (e.g., Jordan) criticized “visibility filtering” on conservatives like Boebert, while Democrats (Raskin) called it overblown.
Follow-ups: Oversaw subpoenas for Roth’s docs; by 2025, Senate Judiciary referenced in March hearings on tech bias, tying to Obamagate. oversight.house.gov/hearing/protec…

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UK Parliamentary Oversight of Integrity Initiative: House of Commons DCMS Report (July 2018)
The DCMS Committee’s “Disinformation and ‘Fake News’” report spotlighted the Integrity Initiative’s leaks, revealing Foreign Office funding for anti-Russian ops that veered into domestic meddling—targeting Corbyn as a “useful idiot” for Moscow. Alarmingly, this exposes a state-sponsored smear network, using £2M+ in taxpayer funds to politicize counter-disinfo, risking democratic erosion akin to U.S. parallels.
Factually, leaks (hacked docs, amplified by Russian media) showed Initiative “clusters” of journalists/academics promoting anti-Corbyn tweets, blurring foreign/domestic lines. Committee recommended independent audits, transparency in strategic comms, and Electoral Commission powers against foreign influence. Funding paused post-2018 uproar; by 2025, echoes in EU Parliament queries on similar ops.
5. State Department “Iran Disinfo” Code of Conduct: GEC Suspension and Congressional Ripples
GEC’s Iran Disinfo Project ($1.5M contract) trolled U.S. critics of Trump’s Iran policy—e.g., HRW researchers, BBC journalists—as “mouthpieces” for Tehran, sparking backlash for domestic harassment. Alarmingly, this weaponizes disinfo ops against Americans, exporting “regime change” tactics homeward in a blatant First Amendment breach.
Factually, suspended May 31, 2019, after Guardian reports; State Dept terminated funding June 2019 for “falling outside scope.” Senate Finance/HSGAC Joint Report (Sept. 2020) tied to Hunter probes but critiqued disinfo exploitation broadly. No dedicated hearing, but House Foreign Affairs (2023) and OIG inspection (2022) flagged GEC mission creep, leading to full shutdown Dec. 2024/April 2025. 2021-2025.state.gov/about-us-globa…

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