What is Civic Listening, and Why Fear Something That Sounds So Nice?

As Foundation for Freedom Online Executive Director Mike Benz tells Natalie Winters, civil society institutions got laundered government money. The government, for instance, provided $5.7 million to a group to create a sprawling database of claims that supposedly contained misinformation related to elections or public health. "Part of this is motivated by the fact that the political actors who control the censorship industry are terrified that Hispanic and Latino communities are tilting toward Trump," Benz said. "They are fretting that they do not have the infrastructure to control the Spanish language that they set up successfully to censor the English language in the 2020 election and the 2022 midterms."