US Gov’t Interferes To Get Foreign Sponsors To Drop Conference Because A Panel Asks If The US Engages In Foreign Information Interference
One of the most bizarre things over the last few years is how two guys, Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi, bumbling around cosplaying as free speech" experts, have done tremendous damage to free speech. After Elon Musk brought them in to report on the so-called Twitter Files," the two of them spun up nonsense tales of conspiracy theories that didn't exist, either because they were too clueless to understand what they were looking at, or because they knew there was a grift in screaming censorship" where it didn't actually exist. The whole premise of this made up theory of a censorship industrial complex" is the idea that anyone who does any kind of research on disinformation" is secretly a government censor. These two bumbling doofuses can't comprehend that there could possibly be any reason ever to study disinformation" and propaganda, except to censor. And, because of them running around screaming censorship" at thoughtful research on how propaganda spreads, they've been able to lean on their government connections... to create actual censorship, silencing researchers across the globe.
Shellenberger was at it again this week. There's a conference happening right now in Vilnius, Lithuania, called #Disinfo2026, hosted by the EU Disinfo Lab, which (as the name implies) does a ton of work studying disinformation, including how it's created, how to respond to it, how it spreads, and its potential impact on democracy. Unlike Shellenberger, I've spent plenty of time with actual disinformation researchers and recognize that there is a wide variety of (often conflicting) beliefs about how to deal with disinformation, the most common of which is figuring out how to use counter speech to respond to disinformation campaigns. While there absolutely are exceptions - people who believe that suppression is the right approach - it is far from the most common view within the disinformation ecosystem. If anything, a lot of disinformation research is explicitly about finding alternatives to censorship, because most disinfo experts know that actual censorship tends to backfire (hold that thought).
But, because Shellenberger - who has a job at Bari Weiss's flailing fake university as the Chair of Politics, Censorship, and Free Speech" - thinks that the only purpose of disinformation research is censorship, he spent the last few days on a campaign to demonize the entire conference as yet another gathering in the Censorship Industrial Complex" focused on how to censor speech. That, of course, is not what the conference is about at all. But Shellenberger, posing as a journalist," sent a bunch of participants emails in the last few days asking fairly silly questions about the conference.
For example, he sent an email with a bunch of questions to someone who runs an independent spam labeling service on Bluesky (because, you know, on Bluesky anyone can build their own moderation tools). A bunch of other researchers reported receiving similar emails. Indeed, in every email Shellenberger seemed especially focused on one particular issue: how the attendees of the conference felt about whether or not the US government is a source of foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) in Europe."
Then, the day of the conference, attendees noticed that signs at the conference appeared to have had the logos of sponsoring countries and orgs - namely Canada, Lithuania (where the event was being held!), and the European External Action Service, the EU's diplomatic arm - hastily covered up as they apparently pulled out of having their sponsorship listed either the day before or the morning of the conference.
A running theme of #Disinfo2026h this year is about the US as FIMI actor.In a completely unrelated turn of events, a few sponsors pulled out at the last moment, including the @eudiplomacy.bsky.social (yet another case of our institutions making me ashamed to be European).
A few hours later, The Guardian found out that the US State Department was actually responsible, leaning on the governments sponsoring the conference until they pulled their support - and then thanking them for it.
Three persons familiar with the matter, including European officials, confirmed that the US state department had been in touch with multiple governments over their support for the conference.
Internal state department documents seen by the Guardian also show US officials thanking Lithuania for taking US concerns seriously".
The main issue? One panel, out of many at the conference, asked whether the United States itself should be viewed as a foreign information manipulation and interference" (FIMI) threat... the very same issue that Shellenberger seemed so focused on.
The document says Washington was grateful" Lithuania supposedly found a panel framing the US as a foreign information threat reprehensible and surprising" and welcomed its decision to limit involvement in the conference.
That panel - called USA as a FIMI threat: adapt, acknowledge, push back", with the acronym FIMI referring to foreign information manipulation and interference" - took place Wednesday. It explored how Europe's disinformation community could rebuild resilience without Washington, and is the first time the conference appears to have entertained the idea that the US could be a disinformation actor in Europe. Sources and the internal document indicate the state department was explicitly focused on this panel...
Indeed, soon after the sponsorships were pulled and before anyone had publicly reported it, Shellenberger emailed at least some attendees yet again, pointing out that the sponsorships had been pulled, and asking them more questions about their participation in light of the dropped sponsors.
Yeah, let me repeat that so we're abundantly clear: we had a guy who cosplays as a free speech" supporter trying to drum up propaganda attacking a disinformation conference because one panel of many asks the question of whether or not the US engages in foreign information manipulation. Around the same time, the State Department reaches out to sponsors of the event to literally engage in foreign information manipulation and interference because the US government is upset that anyone wants to discuss how the United States might engage in foreign information manipulation and interference.
It's a hypocrite turducken.
After this started getting some attention, the State Department tried to defend its censorial lobbying" efforts:
The U.S. State Department criticized the conference for proposing that the United States is a source of foreign interference and manipulated information.
The organizers appear to put the United States in the same bucket as foreign adversaries," the department said in an e-mailed statement. This false equivalence is antithetical to the goals these individuals claim to promote and obscures the scale and nature of adversarial interference."
Knowing how these conferences work, it's not the organizers" who did this, but whoever proposed this panel. And, more to the point, by threatening sponsors of this event for their participation in a foreign conference about speech, the US is kind of confirming that it absolutely is a foreign adversary" when it comes to interference and manipulating information.
Not surprisingly, at least some of the communications appear to have come from the office of the State Department's top censor, Sarah Rogers, who literally a few days ago (I was there) spoke at the Future of Free Speech Summit" about how important free speech was to her, as an American. Apparently, that support for free speech does not extend to anyone talking about the US's propaganda efforts.
According to one person familiar with the deliberations, other communications appeared to originate from the office of Sarah B Rogers, the US undersecretary of state for public diplomacy.
Also, this is absolute bullshit:
In statements, Lithuania, Canada and the EU said the program of the conference did not align with their official views on the US role in disinformation - although that program had been in place for months before they withdrew their support, since June.
Lithuania has cancelled its participation in Disinfo 2026' as several parts of the conference programme differ from the official position of the Government," Lithuania's foreign ministry wrote in a statement.
Global Affairs Canada carefully assesses participation in, and sponsorship of, external events on a case-by-case basis," GAC spokesperson Samantha Lafleur said. Following changes to the framing of several panel discussions, GAC decided to revise its participation in those sessions at the EU DisinfoLab 2026 conference."
....
An EU spokesperson confirmed that the European External Action Service had decided to withdraw its support from the conference because the organisers chose to frame some of the discussions in a way which does not align with the official positions held by the EU."
Canada, at least, tries to defend its position by saying the framing changed," but the Guardian points out that the program has been public since June. The other statements are just weird. Do they mean that other conferences sponsored by Canada, the EU, or Lithuania only take place after those three have carefully vetted and approved all speakers and topics? Because that would seem like more of a free speech problem than... having a single panel discussing how the US engages in foreign propaganda campaigns.
The only supporter of this conference who comes out of this with any principles is, surprisingly, France:
A diplomatic source at France's foreign ministry said there's absolutely no reason for us to change our commitments" when it came to supporting the conference.
We stick to supporting civil society. It's not just principled, it's operational," she said, adding that the conference was a laboratory" that helped Europe develop key policy around disinformation.
There's no way to get around this: this is the same US State Department that has exiled critics in the name of free speech, with a censorial guy who pretends to be a supporter of free speech as their warm-up act, making sure that there can be no discussion about how the US itself engages in foreign propaganda campaigns.
Except, of course, as both Rogers and Shellenberger should know by now, the Streisand Effect remains undefeated. And now tons of people who had never heard of a conference panel on America as a foreign propaganda threat know all about it.
The main takeaway from this year's #Disinfo2026 conference will be about Streisand effect.
- Nicolas Henin (@nicolashenin.net) 2026-10-07T08:46:45.464Z
Hopefully, next year's disinfo conference includes a panel on The Streisand Effect.