Is it true that the US government paid millions of dollars for “large -scale social deception” to Reuters?

In February 2025, Russian-speaking media and Telegram channels, citing billionaire Ilon, reported: supposedly one of the most authoritative world news agencies received $ 9 million from the US budget, and a “large-scale social deception” was indicated. We decided to check if this is true.

Mask accusations against Reuters reported "Russian newspaper" Russia Today, Lenta.ru, "Komsomolskaya Truth","Arguments and facts","News","Gazeta.ru"And other Russian media. The resonance news was widely covered in Telegram, where the channels shared it "The ax live"(792,000 views at the time of writing this analysis),"Nevzorov"(568 000),"Ivan Utenkov | Kursk"(134,000),"Sheikh Tamir"(106 000),"Politics of the country"(103,000) and others. Financing Reuters from the American budget was also discussed by social networks ("VKontakte" X) And Platform blog.

February 13, 2025, American director Ron Howard published a link to his blog on social networks note Reuters agencies, under the heading "Reducing government departments conducted by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is still more based on political ideology, and not on real savings." "What do you think about it?" - asked the subscribers Howard. An hour later this tweet Commented Mask, the head of Doge and the owner of X: “I wonder how much Reuters gets from the government? Let's find out! "

Soon the answer was replaced by the entrepreneur and podcaster Mario Navfal, who Added: Allegedly, DOGE investigations revealed “The mysterious payments of the Ministry of Defense Agency Reuters for the project“ Large -scale social deception ”from 2018 to 2022”. Mask reposted This message with the comment: “The US government paid millions of dollars for“ large -scale social deception ”to Reuters. This is literally what is written in the purchase order! This is a complete deception. Just wow. " The screenshot of this particular tweet, who gained almost 42 million views, published a majority of media and Internet users who discussed the news.

A screenshot from the USASPENING.GOV website was attached to the Navfal post, where they publish information about American public procurement. Judging by this screenshot, the US Department of Defense in 2018 concluded a four -year -old contract with Thomson Reuters Special Services LLC. The appointment of the payment indicates: “Active Social Engineering Defense (ASED) LARGE SCALE SOCIAL DECPTION (LSD)”, which can be translated as “active protection against social engineering. Large -scale social deception. " On usaspending.gov there really is this contract, on his page it is indicated that over the four years, the contractor transferred a little more than $ 9 million in four years. So the screenshot is real, but comments are misleading to him.

Mentioned in the appointment of payment Ased - This is the program of the agency of promising research projects of the US Department of Defense, dedicated to protection from cyber attacks using social engineering methods. In such attacks, technological methods of hacking are not used, instead, attackers deceive the sacrifice to perform certain actions, for example, provide access to secret information or report passwords for entering accounts. In the same way, scammers act, who on the phone convince people to call them the data of their bank cards. Only if employees of the Ministry of Defense are subjected to such an attack, the consequences can be much more dangerous, so the department’s desire to protect against this looks logical. The ultimate goal of the ASED program was to develop a technology that will automatically identify, interrupt and investigate attacks using social engineering. 

But how can a media help in this? The fact is that Thomson Reuters Special Services LLC (TRSS), indicated as the recipient of payment, is not a legal entity of the Reuters news agency at all, but an information and analytical company, including cybersecurity issues. She does not hide her cooperation with the Ministry of Defense, on the contrary, a separate page On the website of TRSS - it says that the company's specialists identify vulnerabilities in teams, programs and missions of the Pentagon. Although TRSS is part of a group of companies Thomson ReutersAs well as the Reuters news agency, as well as several more companies working in different sectors (from jurisprudence to trade), there is no reason to believe that the funds listed by the Pentagon were fully or partially aimed at financing the media. 

Tabata Thompson, representative of the Agency for promising research projects of the US Department of Defense, which paid for the contract, She said: "TRSS was chosen on a competitive basis as an appraiser for testing the effectiveness of protection tools." The company's general director Steve Rups explained: “For decades, TRSS provided software and information services to government agencies for all administrations, helping to identify and prevent fraud, maintain public safety and promote justice.” 

As for the second part of the purpose of the payment, which was so interested in the mask, the “large -scale social deception” (or LSD), judging by Commentary The representative of the US Ministry of Defense Chelsea Ditlin is the name of the “red team” of TRSS specialists. Red team (or Red Team-usually this IT-termin, like many others, does not translate) call information security specialists who imitate the attacks of attackers to identify vulnerability in defense and evaluate the possible consequences of real hacking. The blue team, or Blue Team, opposes it during testing. 

Although Musk and his like -minded people hint or even directly claim that Reuters news agency received money from the US government to deceive and promoted the left agenda, the contract itself was concluded during the first presidential term of Donald Trump (2017–2021). The politician himself did not leave the news unattended - however, he was more accurate in the wording. On his page on the social network Truth Social he declared: “It seems that the Ministry of Defense paid the radical left agency Reuters $ 9 million for the study of" large -scale social deception. " Return the money immediately! "

Thus, the US Ministry of Defense transferred more than $ 9 million not by Reuters, but an information and analytical company, which is part of the same holding. The agency paid not at all for a large -scale social deception of the audience, but for an audit of the Pentagon security systems in order to prevent cyber attacks using social engineering methods. This contract was concluded at the height of the first presidential term of Trump.

Photo on the cover: The Original Uploader Was Eternalsleeper at English Wikipedia., CC by-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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What do our verdicts mean?

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2. Coursera. Red Team vs. Blue Team in Cybersecurity
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