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Facebook, Google stocked with ex-CIA-agents, Twitter heavy on ex-FBI, report shows

December 23, 2022 | | Print Article

Silicon Valley tech giants like Facebook and Google are reportedly stockpiled with former FBI, CIA, and DoD employees, many of them in roles centered around the silencing and censoring of so-called “misinformation.”

Take the case of Facebook product policy manager Aaron Berman, whose job is to “write the rules for Facebook if something violates our standards for safety and security.”

“Aaron is CIA. Or at least he was until July 2019, when he left his job as a senior analytic manager at the agency to become senior product policy manager for misinformation at Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp,” according to a bombshell report published by MintPress over the summer.

Berman reportedly spent 15 years at the CIA, where he at one point “prepared and edited the president of the United States’ daily brief,” as noted by MintPress.

Next is Deborah Berman (no reported relation), a former 10+ year CIA data and intelligence analyst who now works as Facebook’s trust and safety manager.

This Berman is no fan of billionaire Elon Musk, who’s reviled by the left for purchasing Twitter and transforming it into a free-speech zone. Indeed, she recently published a LinkedIn post praising Facebook’s censorship versus Twitter’s lack of censorship.

“I am fortunate to have been spared by Meta layoffs today. Unlike Elon Musk, our leadership clearly values Trust and Safety,” she wrote.

(Source: LinkedIn)

Next up is Bryan Weisbard, who worked as a CIA intelligence officer from 2006 and 2010.

At the CIA, he led “global teams to conduct counter-terrorism and digital cyber investigations” and “identif[ied] online social media misinformation propaganda and covert influence campaigns,” according to his LinkedIn.

“Directly after that, he became a diplomat (underlining how close the line is between those two professions), and is currently a director of trust and safety, security and data privacy for Meta,” according to MintPress.

Then there’s Meta trust and safety project manager Cameron Harris, who previously served as a CIA analyst up until 2019.

But as noted earlier, they’re not just coming from the CIA.

“Emily Vacher was an FBI employee between 2001 and 2011, rising to the rank of supervisory special agent. From there she was headhunted by Facebook/Meta, and is now a director of trust and safety,” MintPress notes.

“Between 2010 and 2020, Mike Bradow worked for USAID, eventually becoming deputy director of policy for the organization. USAID is a U.S. government-funded influence organization which has bankrolled or stage managed multiple regime change operations abroad, including in Venezuela in 2002, Cuba in 2021, and ongoing attempts in Nicaragua. Since 2020, Meta has employed Bradow as a misinformation policy manager,” according to the left-wing news site.

Next are Sherif Kamal and Joey Chan, both of whom work as Meta trust and safety program managers. Kamal reportedly came to Meta from the Pentagon, while Chan came from the U.S. Army.

Next is former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer Neil Potts, who now serves as the vice president of trust and safety at Facebook.

MintPress’ report continues by noting that Facebook “has also hired a plethora of ex-national security state officers to run its intelligence and online security operations. ”

Take Scott Stern. Prior to 2013, he’d been a CIA targeting officer.

“In this role, he helped select the targets for U.S. drone strikes across South and West Asia. Today, however, as a senior manager of risk intelligence for Meta, ‘misinformation’ and ‘malicious actors’ are his targets,” MintPress notes.

“Other former CIA men at Facebook include Mike Torrey, who left his job as a senior analyst at the agency to become Meta’s technical lead of detection, investigations and disruptions of complex information operations threats, and former CIA contractor Hagan Barnett, who is now head of harmful content operations at the Silicon Valley giant,” MintPress’ reporting continues.

The list goes on and on and on, and this is just for Facebook. Not included are all the “spooks” who now work at Google and used to work at Twitter.

As noted by Mint Press, so many “spooks” are now working at these social media platforms that it’s gotten “to the point where some might feel it becomes difficult to see where the U.S. national security state ends and” the specific social media platform begins.

Exactly …

Vivek Saxena
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