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The CIA Built Hundreds of Covert Websites. Here’s What They Were Hiding
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of ScheerPost
Posted: August 23rd, 2025
https://scheerpost.com/2025/08/02/the-cia-built-hundreds-of-...
Beginning in 2004, the CIA established a vast network of at least 885 websites, ranging from Johnny Carson and Star Wars fan pages to online message boards about Rastafari. Spanning 29 languages and targeting at least 36 countries directly, these websites were aimed not only at adversaries such as China, Venezuela, and Russia, but also at allied nations ... showing that the United States treats its friends much like its foes. These websites served as cover for informants, offering some level of plausible deniability if casually examined. Few of these pages provided any unique content and simply rehosted news and blogs from elsewhere. Informants in enemy nations, such as Venezuela, used sites like Noticias-Caracas and El Correo De Noticias to communicate with Langley, while Russian moles used My Online Game Source and TodaysNewsAndWeather-Ru.com, and other similar platforms. In 2010, USAID—a CIA front organization—secretly created the Cuban social media app, Zunzuneo. While the 885 fake websites were not established to influence public opinion, today, the U.S. government sponsors thousands of journalists worldwide for precisely this purpose. The Trump administration’s decision to pause funding to USAID inadvertently exposed a network of more than 6,200 reporters working at nearly 1,000 news outlets or journalism organizations who were all quietly paid to promote pro-U.S. messaging in their countries. Facebook has hired dozens of former CIA officials to run its most sensitive operations. As the platform’s senior misinformation manager, [Aaron Berman] ultimately has the final say over what content is promoted and what is demoted or deleted from Facebook. Until 2019, Berman was a high-ranking CIA officer, responsible for writing the president’s daily security brief.
Note: Dozens of former CIA agents hold top jobs at Google. Learn more about the CIA’s longstanding propaganda network in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on intelligence agency corruption and media manipulation.
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