ROGUE?: Pompeo’s State Dept Uses Taxpayer Dollars, Facebook Fact Checkers to Fight ‘Misinformation and Propaganda’
Facebook’s top fact checker spoke at one of the group’s events.
by TOM PAPPERT
NationalFile.com
January 7, 2020
President Donald Trump’s Department of State, under Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, continues operating an Obama-era program, known as TechCamp, designed to fight “misinformation and propaganda” as well as “fake news” across the globe.
Since TechCamp was founded under President Barack Obama’s State Department during the tenure of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the opaque group has led dozens of events across the planet, and since the election of President Trump a disproportionate number of the events focus on fighting “fake news.”
While TechCamp’s purpose was vague at its inception, it was allegedly first used to foment dissent and eventually civil war in Ukraine in 2013.
It should be noted that prior to this, the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act legalized the use of propaganda on American citizens, according to Foreign Policy.
Following this allegation, the organization seemed to keep a relatively low profile until 2017.
However, in 2015 TechCamp taught Latvian journalists how to “counter misinformation and propaganda” at one of its events.
Under Secretary @Stengel at #TechCampRiga: new tools also help journalists counter misinformation and propaganda. pic.twitter.com/S8CCVUvojy
— US Embassy Riga (@USEmbassyRiga) May 19, 2015
TechCamp seemed to increase its activity after President Obama infamously signed the National Defense Authorization Act on December 24, 2016, which included the Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act of 2016.
According to ZeroHedge, this allowed President Obama’s federal government to potentially form its own “Ministry of Truth.”
The CDPA offered a massive $160 million for the purpose of fighting what would later become known as” fake news” in the United States and globally.
While it is unclear where this funding was dispersed, the timeline appears to coincide with TechCamp beginning its fight against “fake news” globally.
In short, as former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson took the reigns of the State Department, the group was allowed to flourish.
During February of 2017, only a month after President Trump’s inauguration and after the media had already blamed “fake news” and Russia for the 2016 election results, the group began holding events in Europe with “fake news” as a major focus.
In its February, 2017 event in Warsaw, Poland, TechCamp featured a representative from StopFake, an organization that claims to “struggle against fake information about events in Ukraine.”
At this event, the Obama-appointed Ambassador Bruce Wharton, Acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, delivered remarks.
Later in September of 2017, TechCamp would hold another event in Warsaw, Poland, this time featuring the co-founder of Facebook fact checker Lead Stories, Maarten Schenk, as a “trainer” for the event.
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