CLAIM: Former President Barack Obama signed a law in 2012 allowing government propaganda in the U.S., and making it “perfectly legal for the media to purposely lie to the American people.”
https://apnews.com/article/archive-fact-checking-7064410002
CLAIM: Former President Barack Obama signed a law in 2012 allowing the government
propaganda in the U.S., making it “perfectly legal for the media to purposely lie to the American people.”
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. (Do you Trust the AP?)
Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, also known as the Smith-Mundt Act.
The amendment made it possible for some materials created by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the nation’s foreign broadcasting agency, to be disseminated in the U.S.
THE FACTS: A post circulating on Facebook with a photo of Obama falsely states he repealed
a ban on government propaganda in the U.S. when he signed the National Defense
Authorization Act in 2013. The amendment did not repeal the Smith-Mundt Act
but lifted some restrictions on the domestic dissemination of government-funded media.
The change essentially eased restrictions for Americans who want to access government-funded media content, allowing media produced by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, such as the
Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, to be made available to Americans
“upon request.” That was not possible before the law was changed. “Even upon request, if I wanted to get it through FOIA, for instance, they couldn’t do it. The amendment changed that,” said Gabe Rottman, director of the Reporters Committee’s Technology and Press Freedom
Project. Under the previous law, the agency’s content, including radio broadcasts from
Voice of America was banned from dissemination in the U.S. However, Americans were still
able to access much of the content online. “There was essentially a de facto ban on the domestic dissemination of materials originating from the State Department,” said Weston Sager, an
attorney who published a paper on the change in the law. Under the new law, it is still against
the law for government-funded media to create programming and market their content to U.S. audiences. Versions of the claim accusing Obama of legalizing propaganda have circulated on Twitter and Facebook since around the time the law was passed. The meme attempts to link Obama to the spread of misinformation. During consideration of the bill, critics voiced concern
that lifting the restrictions could result in information designed to influence foreign audiences
being used against American citizens. Proponents countered that the ban made it difficult for
Americans to access and evaluate this content.
