Mastodawn

The CIA has deleted the CIA World Factbook (a popular almanac about the countries of the world) from the web. Fuck this. All these assholes do is pillage & destroy. https://apnews.com/article/cia-world-factbook-ratcliffe-trump-fbec61ce16c4b3db59db9cefce0da043

The CIA World Factbook is no more

The CIA is ending the publication of its popular World Factbook reference manual. The agency announced the decision Wednesday but gave no reason for it. It comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has promised to return the agency's focus to its core missions. First launched more than 60 years ago as a classified reference manual for CIA officers, the Factbook went on to be a reference manual cited by journalists, trivia experts and college essayists alike. A message seeking comment from the CIA about the decision to end publication of the Factbook was not immediately returned.

AP News

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Kelson Feb 5

@kottke ugh....I remember using the print edition at the school library back in the day, and the online version later on. It always seemed weird to be using a CIA resource, but it seemed to be dry enough and factual enough that I sort of looked at it as one of the rare legit things to come out of the agency.

But (a) this regime doesn't want dry and factual that might contradict it's sensationalized propaganda, (b) they can't stand the idea of government doing something useful for someone who isn't "one of them" and (c) they hate the idea of putting something out there that people aren't paying for.

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BeeCycling

@kelson @kottke Quite. It's hard to portray European countries as crime-ridden hell holes, with no indoor plumbing, ruled by Sharia law, when there's an official book of facts from your own intelligence organisation saying the opposite.