USAID’s Secret War: Censorship, Digital IDs, and the Battle for Total Control

Elon Musk, the world’s most powerful shitposter, has a new target: the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). And in true Muskian fashion, he’s not mincing words. USAID, he declared on X, is a “criminal organization”—a statement that, given the agency’s history, almost sounds like a compliment.

If that wasn’t enough, President Donald Trump, never one to be outdone in the hyperbole department, upped the ante by calling USAID a den of “radical lunatics.” This puts the agency in the uniquely unenviable position of being simultaneously accused of socialist global meddling by the right and corporate imperialism by the left – but what’s most important to focus on here is its massive influence over online censorship and its dangerous advocacy for digital IDs.