
President Signs Portman-Murphy Counter-Propaganda Bill into Law - perseusprime11
http://www.portman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=F973E46B-AA8C-4F3E-91B4-8EC0FC7F2F3E
======
whack
One man's propoganda is another man's counter-propoganda. If the bill aimed to
empower independent sources, such as BBC/Reuters etc, I'd be all for it. But a
group that's beholden solely to the US federal government? I wouldn't expect
anything less than a biased mouthpiece for the President's interests.

~~~
SixSigma
One man's independent media is another woman's income stream.

Clinton Foundation donors 2015

[http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/clinton-
foundati...](http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/clinton-foundation-
donors-include-dozens-of-media-organizations-individuals-207228)

$1,000,000-$5,000,000

Carlos Slim - Chairman & CEO of Telmex, largest New York Times shareholder

James Murdoch - Chief Operating Officer of 21st Century Fox

Newsmax Media - Florida-based conservative media network

Thomson Reuters - Owner of the Reuters news service

$500,000-$1,000,000

Google

News Corporation Foundation - Philanthropic arm of former Fox News parent
company

~~~
untog
Here's the thing I don't get about that, maybe you can help me out. How did
the Clintons profit from the Clinton Foundation? I'm looking on Politifact,
which says:

"The Clintons don’t take a salary from this work, and they don’t receive any
other direct monetary benefit."

"The Clinton Foundation is a public charity that, as we have reported,
allocates about 80-90 percent of its expenditures to charitable programs,
while the rest goes to fundraising and overhead."

So, I'm trying to work how this matches up with what basically became a mass
meme, that the foundation was utterly corrupt. It certainly doesn't sound like
a particularly valuable "income stream", as you call it. What am I missing? I
can see it being an example of the Clintons being too close to the rich donor
class, but then, Trump met Carlos Slim the other day (describing him as a
great guy) so it's hardly as if there was only one candidate guilty of that.

([http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2016/sep/01/...](http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2016/sep/01/hilary-
rosen/democrat-pundit-clintons-get-no-personal-benefit-f/))

~~~
toomuchtodo
I admit not knowing in depth, but supposedly (from a Wikileaks released
email), Chelsea Clinton paid for her wedding out of foundation funds:

[https://wikileaks.org/podesta-
emails/emailid/52046](https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/52046)

Aren't these non-profit P&L/expense reports on file with the IRS and public
record?

~~~
dogma1138
>Aren't these non-profit P&L/expense reports on file with the IRS and public
record?

They don't have to disclose full (itemised) expenditures or income IIRC and
even if they did someone needs to take a very deep look at it, the clinton
foundation issues 1000's of invoices on a monthly basis if not more it's not
like they would mark "-150,000$ - Chelsea's wedding" in the books.

------
danharaj
Who decides what is propaganda? Here is my favorite piece of "counter-
propaganda": [http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2014/mar/...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2014/mar/31/facebook-posts/viral-meme-says-united-states-has-
invaded-22-count/)

Why is this my favorite? Because it defines a word which has an obvious
meaning, "invasion" in this case in such a way that it excludes situations
that any reasonable person would identify as a referent of that word. For
example, according to this article, the United States didn't invade
Afghanistan. It also does not count use of air power to enforce a no-fly zone
as an invasion. This definition is very in tune with the legal and linguistic
shenanigans the US goes through in order to justify their military
intervention all over the world.

Fact checking can be propaganda too. The idea that the United States'
propaganda is justified and others' is not is pure doublethink. This bill
claims that it'll preserve democracy by giving the US government the power and
resources to create its own propaganda networks (which, by the way, it has
been running clandestinely for decades anyway). The people who will enshrine
totalitarianism in the law will do it while honestly believing they are saving
something they call freedom.

------
rememberlenny
Important points:

New counter-propaganda law was put in place

\- provides grant funding for NGOs working to reduce disinformation from
propaganda

\- institutionalize the support of a free-press overseas, particularly around
Russia/China

------
czep
Anyone else just slightly concerned that the phrasing of the bill essentially
identifies both Russia and China as enemies?

This just doesn't seem to make much diplomatic sense.

~~~
tptacek
_See edit below_

If it's the same as the House bill, the citations to Russia and China occur
only in the "Sense of Congress" section (which isn't legally binding) and
include only:

 _(1) foreign governments, including the Governments of the Russian Federation
and the People’s Republic of China, use disinformation and other propaganda
tools to undermine the national security objectives of the United States and
key allies and partners;_

 _(2) the Russian Federation, in particular, has conducted sophisticated and
large-scale disinformation campaigns that have sought to have a destabilizing
effect on United States allies and interests;_

 _(3) in the last decade disinformation has increasingly become a key feature
of the Government of the Russian Federation’s pursuit of political, economic,
and military objectives in Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, the Balkans, and
throughout Central and Eastern Europe;_

I would dispute that this constitutes an identification of Russia as an
"enemy".

 _Edit_

Further: my understanding now is that this was an amendment on the 2017 NDAA.
I read the text of the 2017 NDAA (or, at least, searched it for all clauses
pertaining to "Russia" and "propaganda") and it's _not_ the same bill, nor
does it call out Russia or China.

------
mark_l_watson
I enjoy reading news sources from around the world, including China Daily and
Russian Times. All news media carries some bias, and my strategy for
understanding the world is to read news from many countries. The news in my
country (USA) is also heavily biased. I expect to see less freedom in the
Internet in the future, but I hope I am wrong about that!

------
btrask
Great, we needed something to counter the domestic propaganda that was
legalized in 2013:
[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130715/11210223804/anti-...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130715/11210223804/anti-
propaganda-ban-repealed-freeing-state-dept-to-direct-its-broadcasting-arm-
american-citizens.shtml)

Oh, it's about foreign propaganda? Never mind...

~~~
tptacek
This (2016) bill is extremely silly. But so was that Techdirt story. Can you
identify the government "propaganda" we've been subjected to since 2014 that
we weren't subjected to in (say) 2007?

~~~
btrask
No, independently these moves are inconsequential. But the trajectory is
clear, and reason to worry.

~~~
RodericDay
this is a good reply. people often get stuck because they get goaded into
trying to describe a single "smoking gun" that doesn't exist in such a blatant
form. propaganda is much more subtle, a well-timed unsubstantiated allegation
that is later claimed to be a good faith error, when the damage is already
done.

it's good to refuse to play that game altogether, and focus instead of facts
such as the the fact that WMDs were not found, the CIA torture report was not
discussed by talking heads, drone bombings aren't personal interest stories,
and that bird's eye view kind of stuff.

~~~
tptacek
Every one of those things you just cited preceded the bill Techdirt was
freaking out about.

~~~
btrask
Turning it around: if the bill changed nothing, why did it need to be
repealed?

~~~
tptacek
It didn't need to be.

------
sbarre
Anyone else see a risk of the sitting government funding orgs that are only
tackling disinformation that said sitting government disapproves of?

------
hubert123
The whole 'fakenews' narrative is just a ploy to get censorship passed, I hope
you guys all realize this. Any foreign media can be classified as propaganda
and be called a national security risk - and be banned at will.

~~~
vonmoltke
Where is the authority to ban anything being granted?

~~~
hubert123
What do you think "proactively advance fact-based narratives that support U.S.
allies and interests" means? It means that US "facts" will get priority in the
media over foreign "non-facts". Somebody will decide what is and isnt a fact
and those somebodies will sit in the state departement. Nobody is ever going
to make a bill saying "we will censor russian and foreign media", you do
realize that right? The wording will always seem a lot less threatening.

~~~
tptacek
It's always tricky to tell if commenters here are from Europe, the US, or
elsewhere, but on the off chance that you're not from the US: the US federal
government has virtually no control over the US media industry, and can't
prioritize any particular kind of content in it.

~~~
hubert123
This is demonstrably untrue, I have read many articles showing collaboration
between major news outlets and the US government. I think wikileaks mentioned
it too. Specifically John Podesta saying something along the lines of "lets
ask one of our friendlies at AP to plant a story". Even if all the wikileaks
and other reports were untrue, this isnt a conspiracy theory, the US media
_needs_ collaboration from the US government if it wants to get invited to
white house press conferences, be called upon in them etc. Revoking media
access to the US government is very much in the power of the US government.
You are being very naive to think that the US government has zero control over
the media. The US government regularly talks with silicon valley companies,
I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg had a few meetings discussing how to combat fake news
aka suppress articles from rt.com and breitbart. Not just that, it is public
knowledge that facebook and google are part of the prism program that gives
direct access to their data to the US government. So in light of all that,
your tone is quite inappropiate because it is in fact you who speaks out of
ignorance.

~~~
tptacek
Your theory here being that the US government will use its friendly
relationship with the AP to censor stories favorable to Russia, and that it's
_a newly passed law_ that's going to enable them to do that? This isn't
coherent.

Either the government is constantly acting _sub rosa_ to manipulate media
narratives, in which case this bill doesn't matter because they're already
doing it, or they aren't, in which case this bill doesn't matter because the
US government has no formal control over the media.

It is surprising how many HN discussions about newly proposed (or, here,
signed) legislation take this form.

~~~
bendbro
I believe the fallacy you've created here is called a false dichotomy. There
are obvious shades of gray here.

In the category of the government already doing it, there is a difference in
outcomes between doing it with x funds and n*x funds.

~~~
tptacek
It's not a dichotomy at all. It's an argument that doesn't hold together. As
in virtually every HN argument about legislation, someone has supposed that
the government needs a new law to do something the arguer claims the
government routinely accomplishes lawlessly.

------
ilaksh
This is an excuse for censorship. Censorship is a big problem on the internet.
Including sites like Hacker News. Make a somewhat political statement that is
popular, it will be upvoted. Make a somewhat political statement that is very
critical of the United States or contradicts a mainstream liberal media myth
or bias, you will be flagged (censored). This is the same as what happens in
China when you criticise the government.

~~~
cooper12
This is a ridiculous statement. You are not entitled to free speech on a
private website. Downvoting is not censorship; not every comment is privileged
to be at the top or completely visible. I agree that flagging is abused at
times, but it means that the community has found that some part of your post
violates its guidelines, and it's their right to do that. When site staff ban
you, they are moderating their community and it is not censorship. Sorry, but
"censorship" is not a shield you can use to deflect any criticism or
repercussions of your actions. You might find this comic enlightening:
[https://xkcd.com/1357/](https://xkcd.com/1357/). Lastly no, this is not at
all what happens in China. In China the government will kidnap and arrest you,
not hide your comment on an internet forum.

~~~
ilaksh
I didn't say downvoting, I said flagging. I have seen it or other moderation
used many times to remove contributions that contradict belief systems or
site-accepted political worldviews but do not violate terms of use. And
HN/reddit/etc. are very large groups that allow public participation.

