#US directs #American embassies to wage campaign against foreign ‘hostility’ – with #Musk’s help
#Embassies are told to recruit local influencers, academics and community leaders abroad to carry counter-#propaganda messaging, an approach designed to make American-funded narratives feel locally organic rather than centrally directed.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/30/embassies-campaign-marco-rubio-elon-musk
In #FantasticFour c1967: "toss in the sponge". Throwing in the "towel" is instead much much more frequent in #American #English literature today, but these were pretty evenly used up until about the 1970s (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=throw+in+the+towel%2Cthrow+in+the+sponge&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-US-2019&smoothing=3). As a huge #boxing fan who has watched very many fights between the 1920s and 1970s, this is surprising as I can't recall ever hearing a reference to a sponge.
#linguistics #languagevariation #languagechange #lexicology #Marvel #comics #Fantastic4 #sports
>> The #UnitedStates has directed every #American #embassy and #consulate across the world to launch coordinated campaigns against foreign #propaganda and endorses #ElonMusk’s X as an “innovative” tool to help do it.
We had a #VoiceOfAmerica #VOA that just needed a social media presence, but there was no money to be made for #Trump from that enterprise.
Repubblica.it: Trump tra aperture e minacce: “Progressi, ma pronto ad agire”
Il presidente americano: “Il regime change c’è già stato, però l’Iran riapra Hormuz o distruggerò i loro impianti”. Teheran: “Richieste Usa irrealistiche
Trump between openings and threats: “Progress but ready to act”
The American president: “Regime change has already happened, but if Iran reopens the Strait of Hormuz or destroys their facilities, I will destroy theirs.”
Tehran: “U.S. demands are unrealistic.”
RaiNews: Zelensky ripropone una tregua energetica con la Russia e il cessate il fuoco in Donbas
E parla di negoziati con due paesi per alternative ai sistemi di difesa aerea americani Patriot. Tajani domani a Kiev per un Consiglio Ue esteri. Mosca: "Non è all'ordine del giorno una nuova mobilitazione"
Zelensky proposes a renewed energy truce with Russia and a ceasefire in Donbas.
He speaks of negotiations with two countries for alternatives to American Patriot defense systems. Tajani will be in Kyiv tomorrow for a Foreign Affairs Council of the EU. Moscow: “A new mobilization is not on the agenda.”
The #UnitedStates has directed every #American #embassy and #consulate across the world to launch coordinated campaigns against foreign #propaganda and endorses #ElonMusk’s X as an “innovative” tool to help do it.
The cable, signed by the secretary of state, #MarcoRubio, on Monday and obtained by the Guardian, also suggests embassies and consulates work alongside the US military’s #psychological #operations unit to address the problem of rampant disinformation. It lays out a sweeping set of instructions for how embassy staff should push back against what it describes as coordinated foreign efforts to undermine #American #interests abroad.
It comes as the United States is at war with #Iran, whose government has for decades operated one of the world’s most sophisticated and prolific state #disinformation apparatuses, and as #Russian and #Chinese influence operations continue to target American allies across #Europe, #Asia and #LatinAmerica.
[ sorry, me here, @ElectricTrike - the major nation targeting Europe, Asia and Latin America with disinformation is #uspol ]
The cable instructs those embassies and consulates to pursue five broad goals: countering hostile messaging, expanding access to information, exposing adversary behavior, elevating local voices who support American interests, and promoting what it calls “telling America’s story”.
🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨
Embassies are told to #recruit #localInfluencers, #academics and #communityleaders abroad to carry counter-propaganda messaging, an approach designed to make #American-funded #narratives feel #locally organic rather than centrally directed.
🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨
“These campaigns seek to shift blame to the United States, sow division among allies, promote alternative worldviews antithetical to America’s interests, and even undermine American economic interests and political freedoms,” the cable says. “Using digital platforms, state-controlled media, and influence operations, they pose a direct threat to US national security and fuel hostility toward American interests.”
Notably, the cable tells diplomatic offices to coordinate their work with “the Department of War’s Psychological Operations” – the military unit more commonly known as Miso, or Military Information Support Operations, formerly Psyop, which is part of the Pentagon.
The state department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It is not common for the state department to openly combine public diplomacy with military psychological operations. But attempts to counter foreign disinformation are not new, although previous administrations funded it through the Global Engagement Center, which lost its funding just before Donald Trump returned to office.
Last year, the FBI had its foreign influence taskforce dissolved and the state department shuttered the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference hub.
The cable also endorses Elon Musk’s platform X by name – specifically its Community Notes feature – as an “innovative” and “crowdsourced” instrument to cull disinformation in “countering anti-American propaganda operations without compromising free speech or privacy”.
That endorsement comes as the European Union has already fined X €120m ($137.5m) under its Digital Services Act for deceptive practices – the first such fine under the law – and has opened further investigations into the platform’s AI tools and recommendation algorithms.
Musk, who owns X, had an influential special advisory role in the Trump administration through the so-called department of government efficiency (Doge).
The cable instructs embassy staff to ensure that US foreign assistance is visibly branded, directing consular posts to use “prominent, flag-forward branding” so that foreign audiences know when aid or programming is coming from the American government.
Offices and embassies globally are also told to increase the availability of international news and independent analysis translated into local languages, in effect tasking embassies with becoming distribution hubs for foreign-language media in countries where, the cable notes, “anti-American propaganda is pervasive or where information is restricted”.
More than 700 “American spaces” – the cultural centers, libraries and exchange hubs the US government funds in countries around the world – are to be repositioned under the guidance as platforms for uncensored information and promoted explicitly as free speech “zones.”
#auspol this has “Hey, let’s fund Australia’s #OneNation” vibes all over it.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/30/embassies-campaign-marco-rubio-elon-musk
Repubblica.it: Sánchez chiude i cieli spagnoli all’aviazione americana: “È una guerra illegale”
Madrid aveva già vietato di usare le basi americane sul suo territorio. Ora l’Europa teme ritorsioni contro la Nato
Sánchez closes the Spanish skies to American aviation: “It’s an illegal war.”
Madrid had already banned the use of American bases on its territory. Now Europe fears retaliation against NATO.
#Podcast -
https://kensbookinfo.blogspot.com/p/media.html#7
The #Iran War Has Escaped Its Authors -
https://kensbookinfo.blogspot.com/p/politics.html#21
#Taguig-Paranaque trip expected to be faster with
https://kensbookinfo.blogspot.com/p/youtube.html#55
Why #Ghana must invest in cleaning and facilities management -
https://kensbookinfo.blogspot.com/p/etc.html#Ghana
Anthony Chen’s ‘We Are All Strangers’ Lands North #American -
https://kensbookinfo.blogspot.com/p/world-capitals.html#Singapore
View all the Continents news https://kensbookinfo.blogspot.com/2026/03/latest-news-from-continents.html
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