(LibertySociety.com) – The spread of disinformation and misinformation has been a hot topic over the last few years. Before the 2020 election, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that bad actors were trying to interfere in the election. One way they did so was by sharing fake news. Iran was among the countries trying to meddle in the election, and the US government has been cracking down on websites that spread lies.
According to a June 22 Newsmax report, an unnamed official said the US has seized roughly three dozen Iranian websites. The sites were reportedly being used to publish disinformation, or they were linked to violent groups. Al Masirah satellite news channel, a Yemen-based Houthi-run media outlet, and Iran state television’s English-language organization Press TV were both taken down. A message on the sites said the FBI and US Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) Export Enforcement (EE) seized the sites “as part of law enforcement action.”
US Justice Department seizes a number of Iran's state-linked news websites amid the wider heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran pic.twitter.com/dH6oNzvoHr
— TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow) June 23, 2021
Most of the sites seized by the government are reportedly back up with different domain names. The ability of the Iranian groups to get the sites up and running so quickly shows how hard it is to stop the flow of disinformation from bad actors.
Last year, President Donald Trump’s DOJ seized nearly 100 sites, and less than a year later, the Biden administration is now dealing with the same problem. Will it ever end?
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