RISE UP

The George Washington Initiative Fights To Protect Lgbt Community

he George Washington Initiative recently had the pleasure of attending Rise Up, the 2023 Winter Conference of the Florida LGBTQ+ Democratic Caucus. We were inspired by the dedication and activism of LGBT activists and elected officials in strategizing and planning for the issues facing the community. We were inspired by the level of attention and understanding given to the problem of disinformation and misinformation (DisMis). However, we were not shocked by this.

The LGBT community is frequently the first to be targeted, causing fear, anger, and distrust, which can lead to violence. This is evident across Florida and the Country, where we hear stories of people apart of the LGBT community being afraid to be true to themselves for fear of being rejected by the ones they love or being estranged from their family after they come out to them. With the dismis-fueled attacks against the LGBT community, it’s easy to see why 45% of LGBTQ+ youth seriously considered suicide in the past year, according to The Trevor

At GWI, we are dedicated to combating disinformation and misinformation (DisMis) campaigns, combining technology with disruption tactics developed by the information warfare community. Our patentpending system, Revere, ingests information from an industry leading 29 different platforms, amalgamates the data, processes it for analysis, and produces visualizations of network pathways. With Revere, we can view activity in the breeding grounds of DisMis, track its pathway across the social networks’ ecosystem, and target weak points in the network to disrupt the flow of DisMis. We couple this with a groundbreaking approach to go on offense with everyday Americans to disrupt the flow of DisMis on mainstream social media platforms. The volunteers undergo extensive training led by retired intelligence and information warfare officers to learn the technical and social skills required to combat DisMis. This approach empowers individuals and organizes them to take action against DisMis that affects themselves and their communities. In short, GWI is building America’s first information civil defense force.

Florida is ground zero for DisMis, and the LGBT community is one of the most vulnerable communities affected by weaponized false information. DisMis can damage personal health, relationships, and entire families. However, by recognizing the dangers of false information and fighting back against DisMis, we can create a society where everyone feels safe being true to themselves and accepted by their friends and neighbors.