Refunded by Trump, a project in Sri Lanka faces issues that are trying to solve

On February 5, Elon Musk criticized the US International Development Agency on X. The Trump administration has suspended funding for 90% of the agency’s projects worldwide. But Musk continued to devalue the agency’s “left-wing political PSY OP” to his 221 million followers within weeks after President Trump suspended most of his operations. On this day, he forwarded a list of “ridiculous projects” tagged by White House affiliate account Rapid Response 47. “7.9 million [went] The postal declares that it is necessary to teach Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid “binary gender language”. His followers responded with conspiracy theory and called on U.S. Agency employees to accept jail time.

In Sri Lanka, the media’s staff who empowered the Sri Lankan media were shocked by the attention as a program that allegedly funded pronoun training. They didn’t spend any money on the work Musk described. The $7.9 million Mend received it by providing educational resources to students, teachers, civil servants and journalists to offset false information in Sri Lanka. It hosts training courses that teach individuals to discover misinformation, develop their reporting skills, and engage in mobile news.

None of Mend’s former employees expected their small plans to be the target of fake news they actively worked to fight against. “This special event is a classic example of a false propaganda campaign,” former employee Ishara

MEND is one of more than 5,000 projects worldwide amid the Trump administration’s shutdown of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). After the project was closed, its former staff worried that its end might produce more than hostile X comments. In Sri Lanka, the social sector that stimulated the country’s 26-year civil war is imminent online and in the media.

Over the past decade, Sri Lanka has become a hotbed of online hate speech and disinformation. The country has more mobile devices than people, and more than one-third of its citizens actively use social media. Its high connectivity comes at a price. Disinformation is a common problem on increasingly popular social media sites such as Facebook and X. Digital hate speech and false information on the island surged during the country’s 2024 election. False digital claims catalyze violent attacks on island countries and religious minorities. In 2018, a Facebook post about a Sinhala Buddhist man’s death during a traffic dispute quickly escalated into riots, and crowds burned one person to death. Experts reflect the work of groups like MEND, helping to build digital literacy skills that can counter this sector.

“This is a need for Sri Lanka,” said Sanjana Hattotuwa, a former director of the New Zealand-based disinformation project, a researcher studying Sri Lanka’s digital landscape. “[Disinformation] It has a direct impact on life and livelihoods, on the economic conditions adopted by the government, and on the policies that have…it has a direct impact on the Muslims and other ethnic minorities in this country. ”

No group has emerged in Mend’s absence and the lack of alternatives has led to fears that digital violence will worsen in the coming years. “If you don’t have the population vaccinated by social media in the way they manipulate their emotions, reactions and behaviors, you’re going to have problems,” Hattotuwa said. “It’s a very, very clear advancement towards an unstable and violent society.”

Months later, employees still wonder why they are targeting and are worried that the attention of social media Firestorm Musk has caught people, which only highlights the need for work they can’t do right now. “[The trainings] Awareness of the media, how media works, media ethics, and how a person should be aware of as a consumer [to] Avoid error messages…[and] How people become easy to use hate speech and how to influence people,” said Shaifur Rahman Sadhaka, a former trainer who once had Mend. “People should have a critical eye for protecting them. ”

The project works closely with various media organizations. It has been praised by Ambassador Julie, the U.S. Ambassador Julie, for its contribution to promoting independent, accurate journalism. With its support, local media expanded its capabilities. Its resources are particularly meaningful for improving gender equality in this field. “In countries like Sri Lanka, we lack comprehensive relationship education and there is no effective sustainable system to address topics such as gender, gender-based violence or sexual health in schools – this responsibility often falls in the media,” Ishara said. Only 15% of government-registered Sri Lankan journalists are women, and the staff of the project sees gender inequality as a necessary element to strengthen local reporting. During the training sessions, staff found that many young participants also wanted information on how to report gender identity. Some people have heard of the LGBTQ+ community in Sri Lanka but feel they lack the knowledge to effectively cover it. MEND provides basic technical information that may make this report possible. “That’s why the work we do through revising the program, especially from a gender perspective, is so important,” Ishara said.

In conversations with former employees, some people have never heard of the “binary gender language” project that Musk mentioned. Others can only think of one potential instance.