Biden funds Bolivian anti-disinformation campaign.

Biden Administration Funds Foreign Anti-‘Disinformation’ Campaign in Bolivia

The Biden administration is allocating over $37,000 to a Bolivian nonprofit group to launch a “campaign against disinformation” training program for journalists in the South American country. The State Department is granting taxpayer dollars until April 2024 to Fundacion para el Periodismo, which will create a “network of 150 journalists and mass communicators specialized in combating disinformation.” This grant is part of the State Department’s broader “public diplomacy program” that aims to “enhance national security by informing and influencing foreign publics.”

Thwarting Alleged “Disinformation”

Thwarting alleged “disinformation” has remained a top priority of the Biden administration, which has come under fire from Republicans for bankrolling left-leaning entities taking aim at conservative websites over their advertising revenue. The State Department is currently fielding applications for an award that will see one U.S. group take home $1.9 million to craft a sweeping media education program that will train people in at least 16 European and Central Asian countries on how to counter “disinformation.”

Republican Criticism

GOP lawmakers and conservative watchdog groups have held little regard for the State Department’s decisions in connection to disinformation programs. The agency and its leader, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have been sharply criticized following multiple reports earlier this year on how it gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Global Disinformation Index, a British group that alleged this outlet and others, such as the New York Post, the Federalist, and RealClearPolitics, have peddled falsehoods about COVID-19 and other topics.

Boondoggle of a Junket

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), who sits on the House Budget Committee, called the Bolivian grant “a boondoggle of a junket that taxpayers are having to pay for.” He questioned why Bolivia was chosen when there is enough disinformation in the United States that the administration has done nothing about.

Foundation for Journalism

Fundacion para el Periodismo, which translates to Foundation for Journalism, hosts postgraduate courses and journalism workshops, including a January 2023 program dubbed, “HATE speech strategies and tools to counter it.” Alongside an Argentinian group, the International Fact-Checking Network of the Poynter Institute, and a project under Fundacion para el Periodismo called Bolivia Verifica, it launched a February 2023 project “that seeks to counter disinformation and hate speech.”

Verification Project

The foundation’s verification project also promoted a study in February in Health Feedback titled “Misinformation superspreaders are thriving on Musk-owned Twitter.” The study blasted Twitter CEO Elon Musk for his “personal track record of making unsupported statements” and discussed the idea of the European Union regulating the social media company. Moreover, the study identified the top “superspreader” accounts as those managed by actor Kevin Sorbo, conservative commentator Liz Wheeler, author Dinesh D’Souza, and 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Censorship Laundering

“The problem here is that the State Department engaged in ‘censorship laundering,'” said Mike Benz, ex-Trump State Department deputy assistant secretary of international communications and information technology. “Programs designed to target disinformation abroad end up beefing up programs and partnerships targeting U.S. citizen discourse at home,” added Benz, now head of Foundation for Freedom Online, a free speech watchdog.

• The State Department is allocating over $37,000 to a Bolivian nonprofit group to launch a “campaign against disinformation” training program for journalists in the South American country.
• The grant is part of the State Department’s broader “public diplomacy program” that aims to “enhance national security by informing and influencing foreign publics.”
• Thwarting alleged “disinformation” has remained a top priority of the Biden administration.
• GOP lawmakers and conservative watchdog groups have held little regard for the State Department’s decisions in connection to disinformation programs.
• Fundacion para el Periodismo, which translates to Foundation for Journalism, hosts postgraduate courses and journalism workshops.

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