Taibbi: Head Of Infamous "Information Disorder" Commission Promoted At NPR
Taibbi: Head Of Infamous "Information Disorder" Commission Promoted At NPR
https://www.racket.news/p/head-of-infamous-information-disorder?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1042&post_id=154822272&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=gz4m7&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
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Amid a busy news day Monday, a familiar figure was named Chief Operating Officer of National Public Radio. Ryan Merkley, who https://www.aspeninstitute.org/people/ryan-merkley/
Katherine Maher.
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âThroughout his career Ryan has demonstrated a commitment to the public trust, leading organizations that prioritize universal access to the common good,â Maher said. Maher, perhaps best-known for https://x.com/PhilHollowayEsq/status/1780616422579925145
â that makes it âtrickyâ to remove content.
Merkleyâs name figured in several high-profile efforts to control âdisinformationâ through aggressive content moderation. In 2021, the Aspen Institute created a Commission on Information Disorder, whose big-name participants included Katie Couric, âPrince Harry, the Duke of Sussex,â and DHS official Chris Krebs. Merkley was the Commissionâs Director.
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The groupâs never-published draft report, found in the Twitter Files and appended below, contained a series of hair-raising proposals, including:
creation of content âholding areas,â into which âinfluencers with repeat bad behaviorâ would be placed for âmanual moderation and scrutinyâ;
use of âdemonetizationâ to âremove access to product features for violative behaviorâ;
establishment of an organization dedicated to âmisinformation countermeasuresâ to be funded âby general taxes, voluntary investment from tech companies, taxes on social media ads, the allocation of FTC fines, or other appropriate means.â
The aim was to emphasize increased âaccountabilityâ for platforms that didnât crack down on misinformation from âuninformed and disconnected centers of power.â It recommended use of public and private authority to correct current and historical misinformation, like âmisrepresentation of Indigenous genocideâ and âgender injustice of all kinds.â Its ideas were far-out enough that former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov resigned from the Commission, saying some of the recommendations recalled an approach that was âcommon practice in the USSR.â Kasparovâs https://www.racket.news/p/foia-files-garry-kasparov-resigns
was addressed to Merkley:
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Merkley in the fall of 2020 was Chief of Staff at Wikimedia, under then-CEO Maher. It was Merkleyâs name, not Maherâs, that appeared in Twitter Files emails about the setup of a regular âIndustry Meetingâ on election content that involved the FBI and DHS as well as Facebook, Google, Twitter, Microsoft, Wikimedia and other firms. Emails showed Merkley asking Twitterâs Yoel Roth for an FBI contact number, and volunteering for a Signal group for industry reps and feds.
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There are also exchanges showing Merkley in a group of industry reps who became signatories to a joint statement on misinformation. When Facebook was later investigated by Jim Jordanâs Weaponization of Government Committee, emails were produced showing Wikimedia was one of a handful of companies warned in advance by federal authorities about a âhack-and-leakâ story due to come out that would âundermine the election conversationâ:
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Notable also: Aspen Digital, where Merkley was the Senior Technology Fellow, held a âhack and leak roundtableâ to prepare for the Burisma story as far back as June of 2020, months before the story came out https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/email-reveals-how-hunter-biden-introduced-ukrainian-biz-man-to-dad/
. Merkley was not listed among the exercise participants, however.
Merkley has yet to respond to a request for comment.
Digital censorship years ago expanded beyond removing content, as key actors saw opportunities to promote political objectives like correcting historical injustices or advancing diversity goals by expanding the definition of âmisinformation.â NPR has long been an outlet in alignment with Aspen ideas, which became clear when former business editor Uri Berliner last April penned a whistleblowing https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust
: âWe donât want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories.â
It may be that these moves become moot shortly, but theyâre worth pointing out nonetheless. The Commissionâs draft report can be found https://www.racket.news/api/v1/file/5fa95166-077c-4b71-ad94-20e03698c6c2.pdf?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyODUxMjc5OSwicG9zdF9pZCI6MTU0ODIyMjcyLCJpYXQiOjE3MzY4NzM0MjAsImV4cCI6MTczOTQ2NTQyMCwiaXNzIjoicHViLTEwNDIiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.ogQsiSeLbsIM0-DLms8T_GlLIbo3Nq213NQDzz47nzE
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Wed, 01/15/2025 - 09:40
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/taibbi-head-infamous-information-disorder-commission-promoted-npr