A Scottsdale mother was victorious in a lawsuit filed against her by the father of the former Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) Governing Board president.
Judge Joan Sinclair issued an anti-SLAPP ruling — Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation — in the case Greenburg v. Wray earlier this week.
The plaintiff, Mark Greenburg, and his son, SUSD’s former and ousted board president, Jann-Michael Greenburg, were involved in a secret dossier on perceived political opponents consisting of parents and community members, including Wray.
“[T]his lawsuit was substantially motivated by a desire to deter, retaliate against or prevent [Wray’s] lawful exercise of her constitutional rights,” stated Sinclair.
The outcome we have been praying for! So proud and grateful for my incredible legal team that believed in me and fought for our community’s 1A rights to advocate for our children. Justice prevailed today! Thank you to everyone who has supported us along the way! @pnjaban… https://t.co/O4ho4KfK4B
Greenburg alleged that Wray committed defamation, false light, intrusion upon seclusion, and public disclosure of private facts.
Greenburg alleged that Wray’s claims that he “intimidated,” “challenged,” and “harassed” her were defamatory, as well as claims including how a source told Wray that Greenburg threatened another individual with a weapon, stalked her, created the dossier to harass and intimidate her, and cyber stalked her. Sinclair determined that none of Wray’s speech qualified as defamatory. Sinclair also noted that accepting any of Greenburg’s defamation claims would chill free speech.
“All of these comments are opinion or hyperbole made in the context of a heated political debate,” said Sinclair. “A reasonable listener would interpret the aforementioned comments to be [Wray’s] perception that she is a victim of political attack, not that she is actually stating that [Greenburg] committed criminal offenses.”
Sinclair also ruled against Greenburg’s claim of false light, invasion of privacy, and intrusion upon seclusion, writing that Greenburg qualified as a limited public figure by participating in a public and “heated” political environment on the reopening of public schools.
Finally, as to Greenburg’s claim of the public disclosure of private facts, Sinclair observed that Greenburg’s dossier only contained information about Wray and his other political adversaries and not himself. Sinclair also noted that it was Greenburg’s son, Jann-Michael, that inadvertently disclosed the Google Drive link to Wray and others. Accordingly, Sinclair ruled that Greenburg’s claim wasn’t viable.
At the opening of her ruling, Sinclair quoted from evidence detailing Greenburg’s advice to his son about running for the Maricopa County Community College District Board. Greenburg said that they needed to launch a litigious campaign against Wray to stop her.
“Amanda Wray is just fixated on you and if you think for one minute that when you run for MCCC that she is going to leave you alone, I think you are wrong,” said Greenburg. “It is a mistake not to surgically punish her with litigation.”
Wray filed the anti-SLAPP motion last April after Greenburg sued her for publicizing his dossier to social media and various media outlets. Scottsdale Police dropped their investigation in December after determining it fell outside their jurisdiction since the dossier consisted of open source and public documents; they referred the case to former Attorney General Mark Brnovich, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, and the FBI. No updates have been issued on the case from the agencies since then.
Wray’s lawyer and top GOP official, Harmeet Dhillon, noted that this ruling was the first in Arizona law after an evidentiary hearing.
Grasshopper here is too modest by far. This case was filed by the father of a school board member to punish a mom for standing up for her parental rights. This is the first anti-SLAPP ruling under AZ law after an evidentiary hearing, and it’s a total victory for @AmandaWray! https://t.co/etdJuV9gHl
Arizona State University (ASU) President Michael Crow called for a globalist revolution to counter climate change in a recently published book.
In the book published last week, “Democracy in a Hotter Time: Climate Change and Democratic Transformation,” Crow declared that the principles of the Founding are no longer sufficient.
“Although the philosophical underpinnings of our democratic experiment were pragmatically balanced by the founders, the pivotal formulations of the U.S. Constitution failed to protect nature,” wrote Crow.
Crow’s remarks echoed the sentiments made by the principal author of the book, ASU Professor David Orr, who wrote in his foreword that the time is ripe for a bold experiment in a new kind of democracy worldwide.
“Against all odds, [our Founders] imagined and launched the first modern democracy. Imperfect though it was, the fledgling nation had the capacity for self-repair evolving toward ‘a more perfect union,’” wrote Orr. “Our challenge, similarly, requires us to begin the world anew, conceiving and building a fair, decent, and effective democracy, this time better fitted to a planet with an ecosphere.”
Unlike the Founding Fathers — who founded this country on self-evident truths of equality and God-endowed inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — the globalist revolutionaries in this latest book declared that a new form of governance must serve the environment alongside mankind.
The ASU president also lamented that the current system of representative democracy has allowed for “scientific[ally] or technological[ly] illitera[te]” elected officials who oppose progressive climate initiatives.
“It is, after all, the deficiencies of the democratic process that have allowed the election of unscrupulous politicians who deny climate change or obstruct efforts to combat environmental degradation,” stated Crow. “Scientific or technological illiteracy among policy-makers and elected officials is matched by a growing affluent class that valorizes individualism over civic engagement and is insulated from complex sociotechnical issues.”
Crow also criticized individualism and Enlightenment philosophies as a threat to natural resources, indicating the need for limitations on personal freedoms in a climate change revolution.
“[T]he principles of capitalism as articulated by Adam Smith in ‘The Wealth of Nations’ imposed no limits on economic individualism or the inclination of societies to exploit natural resources capriciously,” said Crow. “Approaches that ameliorate the interrelated conundrums that now plague the Earth’s systems will require systems-level thinking that challenges the reductionist assumptions of the Enlightenment.”
As part of the new democracy, Crow proposed that contemporary research universities such as ASU be the entities responsible for the social, economic, cultural, political, scientific, and technological well-being of local communities. In order to fulfill this responsibility, universities’ institutional design would be reworked to facilitate transdisciplinary research rather than individual attainment.
“Approaches that ameliorate the interrelated conundrums that now plague the Earth’s systems will require systems-level thinking that challenges the reductionist assumptions of the Enlightenment,” said Crow. “[T]he preservation of our democracy amid the emerging global crisis of rapid climate change requires that we recalibrate our academic culture.”
Orr clarified in the introduction of the book that Crow intends to reform higher education so that students are indoctrinated in climate change activism.
“The five-alarm nature of climate chaos requires revising curriculum, research, and innovation throughout higher education and changing requirements for graduation so that every student in every field knows what planet they’re on, how it works, and why such things are important for our public life and for their own lives and careers,” wrote Orr.
This envisioned role of higher education corresponds with the Democracy Initiative of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, whose express goals within its inaugural Democracy and Climate Change Conference last year inspired the headline of Crow’s chapter and the book.
One conference panel questioned the Constitution as a hindrance to climate change solutions.
The conference’s keynote speaker was Al Gore, former President Bill Clinton’s vice president, failed 2000 Democratic presidential nominee, and longtime environmental activist. Gore said that government response to COVID-19 provided a model for response to climate change.
“[I]t’s up to us to muster the political will to implement those solutions and restore the integrity of our democracy,” said Gore.
Gore’s 2006 award-winning movie warning about the dire consequences of climate change made many predictions that failed to come true, such as higher sea levels, increased temperatures due to rising CO2 levels, more tornadoes, extinction of the polar bears, the complete melt of the Arctic, total drought of the Sahel, and the polluting effects of CO2.
In March, Capital Research Center documented how Gore has consistently failed to issue accurate advice or predictions on climate change over the last 30 years. Yet, Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in 2007.
Also present at the conference was Obama’s maternal half-sister and Obama Foundation consultant, Maya Soetoro-Ng.
Crow co-authored his chapter with William B. Dabars: a research professor for the ASU School for the Future of Innovation in Society, senior global futures scholar for the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory (GFL), and senior director of research for the New American University.
The GFL engages in Crow’s proposed transdisciplinary research core to the envisioned new democracy. The laboratory serves as a global hub of scientists and scholars working to “establish a new equilibrium between humankind and the dynamic Earth system.” The GFL work covers the depletion of natural resources, degradation of the environment, water scarcity, food security, energy systems, environmental and public health, and governance and policy.
GFL’s transdisciplinary design comes from its coordination with the Global Institute of Sustainability; Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes; Rob and Melani Walton Center for Planetary Health; and the Innovation and the College of Global Futures along with its three Schools of Sustainability, Future of Innovation in Society, and Complex Adaptive Systems, respectively.
The New American University is Crow’s novel model of higher education designed to serve the public interest and societal well-being.
The Fifth Wave refers to the idea that American higher education progressed in waves. The Greek academies constituted the First Wave, state colleges constituted the Second Wave, land-grant colleges constituted the Third Wave, research universities constituted the Fourth Wave, and national service universities constituted the Fifth Wave. In addition to itself, ASU classified Penn State University, the University of Maryland system, and Purdue University as Fifth Wave institutions.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
The weather outside may be cooling in Arizona, but the political heat between the state’s governor and Superintendent of Public Instruction continues to rise.
Last week, Republican Superintendent Tom Horne fired back a response to Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs over his administration’s handling of Emergency Assistance to Non-Public Schools (EANS) funds. Horne’s communication followed a letter from Hobbs from the week before.
In the initial letter to Horne, Hobbs accused the state’s schools chief of refusing “to follow federal law and transfer unobligated EANS funds from the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act or cooperate with the Hobbs administration to assist in the disbursement.” The Governor’s Office alleged that “if funds are not obligated by September 30, 2023, Arizona schools will lose nearly $6 million that will be forfeited to the federal government alongside an additional $22 million in September 2024.”
Hobbs said, “For months, Superintendent Horne has played political games while my administration has fought to deliver millions of dollars of funding to Arizona schools. This must end. Horne needs to put his partisan politics aside and do what’s right for the education of Arizona’s children. By not following federal law, Horne is sending a clear message that he believes his politics are more important than giving every Arizona student the education they need to thrive. It’s a gross dereliction of duty and it needs to come to an end, immediately.”
The superintendent didn’t see the situation through the same lenses employed by the governor, informing Hobbs that “Section B-5 of the United States Department of Education’s official guidance for the EANS funds states: ‘By accepting an EANS award from the Department, a Governor automatically designates the SEA (State Education Agency, in this case the Arizona Department of Education) to administer the EANS program. The SEA will be the payee or fiscal agent in G5 for purposes of accessing Federal funds on the date of award.”
Horne revealed that his office had been in contact with the Governor’s team since April 2023 “to collaborate on the best way to ensure these monies are spent in accordance with the law and to avoid reversion of funds to the federal government.” The Republican shared that his June 12th proposal was rejected by Hobbs because of her assertion that “it was in violation of federal law.” Horne argued that his office was “following the guidance” from the U.S. Department of Education in delivering a proposal that made the Arizona Department of Education the designated fiscal agent, and that under his proposal, the governor “would have had decision-making power for the $22 million of undisbursed money.”
Superintendent Horne challenged Hobbs to prove that her stipulation was legal, adding, “If you produce something in writing from the federal government that says that your proposal will be acceptable to them, we will gladly agree to it. In that case, it will be your responsibility to administer the program, and we can wash our hands of it. Alternatively, you can still accept our proposal to make the transaction legal and you will still have decision-making power over the $22 million.”
According to the governor, though, her Office has already received some sort of an endorsement of her proposal from the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE), claiming that “USDOE agreed with our interpretation of federal law and, accordingly, has reverted all EANS funds to our control in the federal grant management system.” Hobbs pointed to a suggestion by USDOE as the path forward to resolving this conflict, which would be “a simple written agreement between our Offices that will enable OSPB to disburse funds to ADE for disbursement to its non-public school grantees.”
Horne ended his letter to Hobbs by expressing dismay over how this situation has deteriorated between the two offices, stating, “There is no reason that a meeting between our staffs could not have worked this out. There is no earthly reason for you to have publicized a personal attack on me over this technical issue that could have been resolved by a meeting of our staffs.”
Last week’s communication from Horne was his second over EANS funds in the past two weeks. After receiving the governor’s letter, Horne issued a lengthy statement to quickly set the record straight. In that statement, Horne said, “Due to her own actions, the governor now needs to take care of this problem, and not pass the buck to the Department of Education inasmuch as she arranged for the federal government to change the fiscal agent from the Department of Education to the governor. The governor arranged with the federal government to be the fiscal agent for this program for private schools. The Arizona Department of Education has no ability to pay anyone for work done, or to authorize further work, because the governor has now become the fiscal agent.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
The controversial Drag Story Hour Arizona is led by an Arizona State University (ASU) professor David Boyles.
Boyles established Drag Story Hour Arizona in 2019, a chapter of the national Drag Story Hour organization established in 2015, the same year that the Supreme Court struck down state laws banning gay marriage.
For his drag queen story hour work, Boyles has been featured in several “The Art of Drag” events alongside one of his drag queen storytellers, hosted by various local libraries and Arizona Humanities, a nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) United We Stand initiative.
The most recent event occurred on Wednesday. In his presentation, Boyles said that the notion that drag shows are harmful to children was a “myth.” He also said that drag queens have been long considered the leaders of LGBTQ+ communities.
In a predictor of what’s to come, Boyles said that the growing acceptance of LGBTQ+ ideologies would allow for more expansive public displays of drag. Boyles cited “Divine” as an example, a drag queen who starred in films purposefully designed to scare “straight society” — in one of his most infamous films, he ate dog poop (not a prop, real dog poop). Boyles hailed Divine as a paradigm.
“[His work was] intended to freak out the straight society in all meanings of that word, of the straights, both the heterosexuals but the squares,” said Boyles. “As queer identity and queer culture becomes more mainstream, kind of comes out of the shadows again, it opens up space for drag to take a lot of different shapes in a lot of different forms.”
Boyles then promoted the practice of drag in minors, referencing 13-year-old Canadian boy Bracken Hanke, who starred for several years in the Disney series “Gabby Duran & The Unsittables.” Boyles said that Hanke should be seen as an authority on valid perspectives of femininity, claiming Hanke is a girl.
“Who better to make fun of all the ideas of femininity than a teenage girl, you know, who has to deal with all these social pressures,” said Boyles.
At one point, Boyles’ counterpart for the event, Patrick Jervis-Stone as his drag queen persona, Felicia Minor, mentioned that Drag Queen Story Hour Arizona did a virtual story hour for Disney during the pandemic. However, Jervis-Stone stopped short of offering further details after Boyles whispered to Jervis-Stone that they “weren’t supposed to mention that.”
According to social media posts, Jervis-Stone conducted a Halloween-themed Drag Queen Story Hour Arizona virtual storytelling event for Disney+ and Hulu in October 2021.
Boyles also dismissed the idea that educators were attempting to recruit students into homosexuality. Boyles describes himself as the “head of recruitment” for “The Queer Agenda” on his Instagram.
It was with his book, “Life is a Banquet,” that Chandler Unified School District board member and Boyles’ friend, Patti Serrano, took her oath of office, rather than the Bible. Boyles’ book focuses on a 17-year-old boy being “indoctrinated” and “radicalized” into progressive beliefs by ASU students out of the values he’d learned from his conservative, Christian parents.
In book drafts posted online, Boyles writes at length about the sexual experiences and fantasies of the boy and his peers.
In another blog post, Boyles said Serrano’s act reminded him of when God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac in the Bible. Boyles said that Christian parents resembled Abraham: their obedience to God by refusing to affirm LGBTQ+ behaviors in their children jeopardizes their children’s lives, not unlike how Abraham’s obedience to God jeopardized Isaac’s life. Boyles also accused Christians of viewing their children as “property” through their faith, and declared that every transgender suicide constitutes murder.
“[I]n this story of the original patriarch, we get an almost too on-the-nose description of the toxic patriarchal ideas that infect so much of modern right-wing religion, and white evangelical Christianity in particular,” said Boyles. “If your god is telling you that honoring him is worth slitting kids’ throats, do what Abraham should have done and tell him to f**k off and find a new god.”
Elsewhere on his blog, Boyles encouraged people to advocate for LGBTQ+-inclusive, pleasure-centered sex education for minors.
“[A]busive, patriarchal fundamentalists […] fear the liberatory power of queer sexuality,” wrote Boyles.
Boyles also encouraged people to plant pornographic LGBTQ+ banned books in local libraries, such as “Gender Queer” and “All Boys Aren’t Blue.”
*Warning: the following clip contains explicit sexual language*
John Kennedy reads a passage from p*rnographic novel "All Boys Aren't Blue" which is available in public school libraries. pic.twitter.com/vnCzAnPjRb
Boyles noted in a post that “zines” — noncommercial, self-published, and often unconventional magazines produced at home or online, usually reproduced via copy machines — are an essential component of promulgating LGBTQ+ ideologies.
Several of Boyles’ students were promoted in his Substack for their zines. He recommended a zine on sex toys by one of his former students, Paige Daniel, an “abortion doula” for Planned Parenthood Arizona (PPAZ); Daniel’s other zines discuss sex education and self-managed abortions.
Boyles promoted a popular zine distributor (distro) among Phoenician progressives, Wasted Ink Zine Distro (WIZD), host of the annual Phoenix Zine Fest. The distro specializes in promoting “historically marginalized creators,” specifically the non-white, LGBTQ+, disabled, chronically ill, or neurodivergent. WIZD receives funding from the city of Phoenix’s Office of Arts and Culture, as well as the Arizona Commission on the Arts through the state and National Endowment for the Arts.
Haley Orion — known online as Arizona Right Wing Watch, an account that posts research on “far-right losers and hate politics” — formerly worked for and published her own zines through WIZD.
Orion recently took issue with the fallout prompted by a post issued by her equal opposite, Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok, about the University of Arizona nursing students course engaging with children as young as three about gender identity.
So this article just rehashed that the video was going viral, confirmed the College of Nursing was getting threats and then embedded the LOTT video. You know, the one causing those threats. Fuck you. pic.twitter.com/NfOOHlHThy
— Arizona Right Watch (@azrww.bsky.social) (@az_rww) September 8, 2023
Like Orion, Boyles advocates for other progressive causes in addition to LGBTQ+ issues, such as abortion, gun control, climate change activism, police defunding, and Black Lives Matter (BLM). He formerly served as a board member for NARAL Arizona and the Abortion Fund of Arizona, as well as a research coordinator for White Hat Research & Policy Group.
On his public Instagram page, Boyles posts LGBTQ+ content consisting of gay erotica art, his cross-dressing, drag queens, paganism, witchcraft, advocacy for gender transitions for minors, sex toys, drugs, criticisms of Republicans, and arguments against Christianity.
In a February opinion piece, Boyles declared that LGBTQ+ storytelling to minors was important to “counter the erasure of queer stories.” Boyles also advocated for minors to attend drag shows.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
A required biennial training program for Arizona State University (ASU) employees and faculty violates state law, per a complaint letter submitted by the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute.
In a letter to the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) on Tuesday, the organization alleged that the ASU Inclusive Communities, a required biennial training program for all employees and faculty, violates a new law passed last year, A.R.S. § 41-1494.
The law prohibits public funding for training that promulgates “blame or judgment on the basis of race, ethnicity or sex.” The department of administration is required to submit an annual report listing all state agencies complying with the law to the governor, the state senate president, the house speaker, and the secretary of state.
Per the law, “blame or judgment” qualifies as declaring that race, ethnic group, or sex determines inherent moral superiority, racism, sexism, oppression over another race, ethnic group, or sex. It also qualifies as concepts declaring an individual’s race, ethnic group, or sex as definitive of their moral character, endowing responsibility for the actions of others within their shared biological traits, insisting on negative, self-conscious feelings such as guilt or anguish with regard to their biological traits, and meriting discrimination or adverse treatment against them.
“Blame or judgment” also includes the concept that meritocracy or traits such as hard work are racist, sexist, or created by members of a particular race, ethnic group, or sex to oppress members of another race, ethnic group, or sex.
In their complaint letter, the Goldwater Institute noted that the ASU training does impart blame or judgment based on race, ethnicity, or sex.
“The statute makes clear that while the state may, of course, teach that such ideas exist, it may not promulgate these messages of blame or judgment in any official sense, or mandate the participation of employees at any session where these ideas are promulgated,” said the organization. “The ‘ASU Inclusive Communities’ training, however, is premised on the ‘blame or judgment’ referred to in this statute.”
The organization included the following quotes from obtained training materials reportedly promulgating the concepts that white people are inherently privileged, racist, and supremacist, regardless of intent or consciousness, and that heterosexuals are inherently privileged and maintaining power over other “sexual identities”:
“[A]cknowledging the history of white supremacy and the social conditions for it to exist as a structural phenomenon”
“How is white supremacy normalized in society”
“[G]iven the socio-historial [sic] legacy of racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of structural inequality, perceptions of authority and control are not always granted to minoritized [sic] faculty.”
“White Fragility”
“What is White Privilege, Really”
“Explaining White privilege to a broke white person […]”
“7 Ways White People Can Combat Their Privilege”
“Racism […] can take the form of […] and include seemly innocuous questions or comments, such as asking people of color where they are from […]”
“Sexual identities are linked to power, and heterosexuality, the dominant sexual identity in American culture, is privileged by going on largely unquestioned.”
“[I]t scares people to talk about white supremacy or to be called a white supremacist. But if we start thinking about it in terms of whiteness as something that is culturally neutral and we’re moving it from that neutral space into a critical space.”
“[W]e have to open the space to critique whiteness.”
“[W]hite supremacy […] referring to here is the period between the 1500’s and the 1800’s that encompasses both Spanish colonization and Euro-American colonization. And what colonization did, was it really created this system of binary thinking. There were folks that were inherently good and folks that were inherently bad, and that led to the systems of superiority that were then written into the foundational documents of our Nation.”
The Goldwater Institute requested ABOR to direct ASU to cease spending any public monies on its Inclusive Communities training, or make the training optional rather than mandatory.
Additionally, the organization suggested that ABOR audit ASU’s other courses and the activities and courses of the University of Arizona (UArizona) and Northern Arizona University (NAU) to ensure compliance. As examples of potential anti-discriminatory violations, the organization linked to the UArizona Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion trainings, the UArizona Eller College of Management Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training, and the NAU employee and faculty training.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Arizona State University (ASU) and the State Department have teamed up to train students to become disinformation specialists.
The new program, announced on the 22nd anniversary of 9/11 on Monday, is part of a globalist effort to unify government response to disinformation.
ASU will partner with the State Department’s European Digital Diplomacy Exchange (EDDE) program to produce a new class coming in the spring, “Democratic Resilience in the Digital Age.” ASU students will collaborate with both State Department leaders and representatives from 21 different European governments to develop content for press briefings and government social media accounts.
.@GPA_AS Bill Russo traveled to Arizona to launch a new partnership between @EDDEplomacy and @ASU to create new coursework and internship opportunities for ASU students to promote democratic resilience across Europe.
We appreciate @MZEZ_RS's ongoing support for EDDE.…
EDDE was created by the Slovenian government’s Centre for European Perspective (CEP) and the State Department in October 2017. The State Department funds EDDE, while CEP executes it. One of EDDE’s co-founders and directors, Matthew (Matt) Jacobs, is an ASU alumni who has worked in the State Department since 2013. Assistant Secretary of State for Global Public Affairs Bill Russo credited Jacobs for making the initiative possible.
Russo told State Press that ASU was “fertile ground” for foreign affairs and creating “a pipeline of talent” for State Department hires. Russo dismissed concerns that the partnership would be influenced by government interests.
“What we [the federal government] are offering here is independent and rigorous research that is not influenced by the U.S. government,” said Russo.
Good morning from Arizona!
I’ll be out west for the next few days, meeting with students, academics, elected officials, and other community leaders to discuss why foreign policy matters here at home and how the @StateDept delivers for the American people every day. pic.twitter.com/nG2Mt8o6v6
In EDDE’s most recent guide published last summer, the program outlined a four-step approach for how governments should handle disinformation: compiling a database documenting disinformation by identifying its sources and collecting occurrences of it; creating media campaigns and a call-to-action network among government officials to uniformly counter disinformation; investigating those who repeatedly disseminate disinformation and enacting policies against them, such having social media platforms label them as disinformation spreaders; and punishing those who spread disinformation with hate speech bans, sanctions, and country bans.
EDDE also suggested certain tactics for gaining government trust online, such as issuing informal or trendy content. EDDE also suggested amplifying citizens’ content to create positive feedback loops between the government and citizens.
“Occasional, intentional ‘off-brand’ messages should be strategically deployed to maintain interest of, amuse, delight, or even surprise audiences and make them take action,” stated the guide. “By differing somewhat from government messaging, this type of content is more likely to be perceived as independent and credible by those who are suspicious of the government and may move them closer to the government than they were before encountering a partially-aligned message from a non-government communicator.”
Be A Digital Diplomat Compendium is now FREELY AVAILABLE!
— European Digital Diplomacy Exchange – EDDE (@EDDEplomacy) June 20, 2022
EDDE has trained and advised over 200 high-level government representatives across 19 different countries since its founding, furthering the establishment of a globalist network on information warfare. EDDE announced its recent approval for a three-year renewal earlier this month.
“Participants consistently recognize EDDE as a platform for fostering productive regional cooperation, transcending borders to achieve common goals,” stated EDDE. “EDDE achieves these goals by developing and enhancing national-level digital strategic communication strategies and counter-disinformation policies, not only bolstering public trust in government communications but also combatting the influence of disinformation.”
As part of their renewal, EDDE received another $500,000 last month from the State Department to produce “shared, substantive global outcomes” through September 2025. To date, EDDE has received over $1.2 million in federal funding since 2018.
From March through November of last year, $21,500 of that federal funding went toward establishing a joint counter-disinformation campaign concerning the Russia-Ukraine war.
In 2020, the U.S. Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Office of Public Diplomacy (EUR/PPD) used EDDE to develop COVID-19 safety information and contract-tracing apps for governments provided by tech sector leaders including Google and Apple.
In its 2023 annual performance plan, the State Department declared a performance goal, “Demand for Democracy,” to establish a five percent increase in citizen ability to counter disinformation and propaganda by Sept. 30, 2026. “Disinformation” wasn’t mentioned in the department’s prior annual plans.
The goal was expanded in the department’s 2024 annual performance plan. As part of this expanded goal, the State Department expressed its intent to host the 2027 World Expo in the U.S. and establish a three-country study on Media Literacy training programs.
The State Department is currently undertaking an evaluation activity, “Measures to Limit the Spread of Disinformation and Shape the Information Environment Cases Outcomes Meta-Assessment” through December. The evaluation by the Global Engagement Center (GEC) — an entity established by former President Barack Obama and refined by Arizona’s late Senator John McCain — pertains to the department goal of confronting the rise in “global disinformation” and its negative effects on domestic security and prosperity.
Approaches within this assessment include “digital and media literacy training; fact-checking, labeling, and nudges; factual and positive messaging, information campaigns, and pre-bunking; training and capacity building; independent media support; open-internet access tools; and detection and monitoring efforts.”
The State Department conducted two evaluations similar to the ongoing evaluation from September 2020 to February 2022 and March 2021 to December 2022, respectively, called the “Media Literacy Program (Eastern Europe and Eurasia) Evaluation” and the “Media Literacy Training Evaluation.”
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
