The timing and staffing changes within tech giants like Google and Meta after the 2016 election raise important questions. It’s hard to believe it’s just a coincidence that several CIA officers were put in charge of content moderation departments in these companies. Given the increase in aggressive censorship, it seems unlikely these appointments were random.
The number of former Intelligence Community staff hired by Google and Meta since 2018 is significant. Before then, there were only a few, but now the numbers are much higher: CIA – 36, FBI – 68, NSA – 44, DHS/CISA – 68, State Department – 86, DOD – 121.
Take Aaron Berman, for example. After spending 18 years at the CIA, he joined Meta in 2019. He played a key role in setting up Meta’s “Misinformation Department” and now heads Misinformation and Elections Content Policy. We wrote about Berman and other significant hires made by Meta in our last article: