This week, the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government issued a new report on the Biden Administration’s massive censorship system. The ongoing investigation has exposed the coordination in a system of blacklisting, throttling, and suspensions of targeted citizens and groups. Now, it appears that the Biden White House also pushed for Amazon to target dissenting books to suppress sales by blocking promotions. After all, why burn books when you can bury them?
The apparently successful effort by the White House was little surprise given what a federal court called Biden’s “Orwellian” and unprecedented censorship efforts. As I discuss in my new book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in the Age of Rage,” Biden is now unquestionably the most anti-free speech president since John Adams.
What is new is the details on how academic institutions are critical to this censorship system and the coordination with the government to deal with the backlash from the public. The disclosed emails show how government officials orchestrated media campaigns to shield the system, and their academic partners, from attacks over free speech. The report includes discussions in response to my own past writing denouncing this system.
Some of us have been raising the alarm over the role of universities in this censorship system. While faculty and students once opposed any academic research supporting the military industrial complex, there has been no such opposition to researchers supporting a censorship system targeting dissenting views and supplying blacklists to government and corporate partners.
There has long been a narrative in the media that portrayed academics working in this system as victims hounded by critics. For example, one article featured the work of Kate Starbird, director and co-founder of the UW Center for an Informed Public. The University of Washington is one of the most important partners in the academic-corporate-government triad. Other key institutions include Stanford University, University of Michigan, and the University of Wisconsin. The article discussed how “her attempt to promote factual information and strengthen democracy has gotten her sued, blasted by congressional inquiries and subjected to a death threat.”
The internal messages revealed by the House show how such media campaigns were coordinated to frame the coverage. While these researchers actively work to target others, they often object to criticism of their work as bullying and the work of disinformers.
Notably, in her communications disclosed by the House, Starbird cautions against giving examples of disinformation to keep them from being used by critics, adding “since everything is politicized and disinformation inherently political, every example is bait.”
She and others reached out to grant managers in dealing with the public spin. Wisconsin Journalism Professor Michael Wagner flagged one of my columns to Michael Pozmantier, a program manager at the National Science Foundation, an independent government agency. What is striking that the two suggest that the column was wrong but do not state a single mistaken fact. Indeed, the report confirms the extensive effort to coordinate the identification of those spreading what the researchers deemed disinformation. In another email, Pozmantier explained that “Track F is the NSF ‘Accelerator track focused on combating mis/disinformation.'”
Pozmantier also shows the sweeping agenda behind these grants, noting “Projects in Track F will pursue a convergence research agenda and leverage multi-sector partnerships to address issues of trust and authenticity in communication systems, including predicting, preventing, detecting, correcting, and mitigating the spread of inaccurate information that harms people and society.”
Other academic institutions in the report are shown marketing their own eagerness to become part of this censorship system. University of Michigan’s James Park is shown pitching that school’s WiseDex First Pitch program, promising that “our misinformation service helps policy makers at platforms who want to . . . push responsibility for difficult judgments to someone outside the company . . . by externalizing the difficult responsibility of censorship.”
These emails show the fluidity of what is deemed unacceptable viewpoints for these academics and their partners. The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), during prior court testimony. CISA’s director, Jen Easterly, previously declared the administration’s intent to extend its role over maintaining critical infrastructure to include “our cognitive infrastructure” and combating not just mis- and disinformation but also “malinformation,” which CISA describes as “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”
For academic institutions, the central role played in this censorship infrastructure is alarming. Some of these programs have now pledged that they will no longer target content on the Internet. However, for years, the Biden Administration funded blacklisting systems as well as programs to target the advertisers of conservative sites.
For example, the federal government helped to fund the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), to discourage advertisers from supporting certain sites. All of the top 10 most risky sites are popular with conservatives, libertarians and independents. GDI warned advertisers against “financially supporting disinformation online.” Those top disinformation sites included Reason, a libertarian-oriented source of news and commentary about the government. However, HuffPost, a far left media outlet, was included among the 10 sites at lowest risk of spreading disinformation.
Universities should be places where false claims and conspiracy theories are debated and exposed. However, there is a dangerous line that is crossed when universities partner with the government or corporations in a system targeting individuals and groups for censorship.
Here is the report: NSF-Staff-Report_Appendix
Here’s an idea: Instead of the government spending taxpayer dollars on finding ways to censor its citizens, how about they devote that money to initiatives that teach people to think critically about topics, teach them how to research information, freely debate and then form conclusions.
Wouldn’t a nation with citizens of that quality be better prepared to elect the leadership necessary for our constitutional republic to survive?On second thought, that’s precisely why it will never happen.Never happen, indeed, Olly. First rule of government: “Power is Power, Keep it for Yourself.” 2nd Rule, “Knowledge is Power (see rule number one.)”
Prof Turley, we should recognize that half truths (“Half a truth is often a great lie”, Benjamin Franklin) are a key issue along with out right untruths. That is, missing information can be beguilingly misleading if the reader is not cognizant of the matter being described. And for most news articles, readers generally do not have better information than the author’s. If anyone cares for a half truth challenge, there is a delightfully well written book length treatise filled with half truths: “Caste” by Isabel Wilkerson. Every page or so is missing key facts or key contexts with the result that the author skillfully guides the unwary reader into a narrative that is supported by facts but not all of the relevant facts. The best defense against half truths is to be well and widely read which, unfortunately, many of us cannot do for the many subjects that come before us. Thus we come to trust, at our peril, single sources of information.
So you are perhaps (I’m just putting this out for consideration) missing the issue when you complain that, “Wisconsin Journalism Professor Michael Wagner flagged one of my columns to Michael Pozmantier, a program manager at the National Science Foundation, an independent government agency. What is striking that the two suggest that the column was wrong but do not state a single mistaken fact.” He may have been identifying not wrong statements but missing information.
I thoroughly enjoy your perspectives as written in your blog.
I have been thinking about becoming a member of the NAZI Party in the United States. But I don’t want to be one of those bad Nazis, who kill people in concentration camps, and invade Poland and stuff. Or you know, like go around in black boots, and beating people up. No, I want to be a nice Nazi, who believes in free medical care and free child care, affordable cars, full employment. etc. As such, I would devote my time and money to the Party, and just sort of distance myself from all the not-nice Nazis, of which I must admit, there are plenty of them.
Should people still hold me accountable for all the bad stuff the bad Nazis do? If your answer is “Yes! Certainly!”, then would not the same be true for anybody still voting for Democrats, who promote the kind of censorship above, not to mention the child mutilation stuff?
Femi-NAZIS have women voting and killing babies merely for voting and killing babies’ sake. Women absolutely do not need to vote. America grew and prospered for 313 years before women were allowed to vote. Women should not be killing Americans. Women should be making Americans. Nature abhors a vacuum. The vacuum created by women having abortions and not having babies is being filled by the illegal alien invaders that are pouring in.
Yes, abortion has killed the country. Young men and young women no longer have to face reality and grow up. They can live in a hedonistic la la land until they are past the age of female fertility. Like in the Bible verse below, “Refusing to know God, they soon didn’t know how to be human either—women didn’t know how to be women, men didn’t know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men—all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it—emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches.”
:
Poor George wishes that women were broodmares. God forbid that women have the right to vote.
Turley Mentioned In Seattle Times Link
The researchers from Stanford, the UW and two other groups logged suspect social media posts and shared their findings through their own posts and media briefings. They also alerted social media platforms and concerned parties like local election officials.
The researchers identified some false narratives on the left.
But critics, like Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor, have called the collaboration a partisan effort, noting it called out far more posts from the right than the left.
Starbird said that just reflects reality: “A lot more content that was false or misleading was spreading among supporters of Donald Trump — in part because he was repeatedly saying the election was going to be rigged. And so a lot of his supporters were going to the polls and misinterpreting what they were seeing.”
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/attacked-by-conservatives-uw-misinformation-researcher-gears-up-for-2024/
……………………………………………
The truth is these researchers have found themselves vilified by conservatives simply because they found rampant misinformation coming from Trump supporters.
In fact, Turley has banned liberals from this blog for many of the same reasons.
The election was rigged – get over it.
We can debate the evidence of ballot fraud.
But there is ZERO debate that US government agencies illegally and unconstitutionally engaged in election censorshiop.
That is election rigging.
That is election fraud.
All you have done with your argument is discredited yourself.
Further – those who would conduct elections lawlessly,
who would use the power of government to censor political opponents and their supporters,
Who would pull the collusion delusion hoax, or the russian disinformation hoax.
You expect us to believe those people would not also commit ballot fraud ?
Befolre you get to claim that other people are spreadying lies – it would be a good idea to take responsibility for your own lies, and fraud and hoaxes. Otherwise no one should beleive you.
Dennis Quackumakemetired:
Who would vote for DJT? You’re about to find out, and after the Dems every attempt at weaponization of the DOJ and FBI, changing norms 150 years practiced, it will be a reckoning that will right our Nation to a much better place, goose to gander!
Is there any time in history where government-sanctioned censorship lead to a greater security of rights and freedom?
For government, Olly, yes, every time it’s tried. For the citizens, not so much. Not. Ever.
Brilliant JAFO!
Who would have thought that a cockroach would try to tamper with the light switch?
“Starbird cautions against giving examples of disinformation to keep them from being used by critics, adding “since everything is politicized and disinformation inherently political, every example is bait.”
Well, if EVERY example is bait, then maybe it is debatable if the example is disinformation or not.
This 1984 schiff is annoying.
Starbird could make its evaluations using the correct words – LIES.
We keep getting new terms – disinformation, malinformation, misinformation – if Starbird is tracking actual proveable lies – then they could say exactly that.
If Starbird is making evaluations based on politics, prefered opinions, true statements that they deem might mislead,
then Starbird is the “misinformation” they are reporting.
It is apparent to many of us that Republicans in the US House suffer from either analysis paralysis or underwent transgender surgery and had their cojones snipped.
Nancy Pelosi had no problem being a mullah in leading Democrat terrorists topple Donald Trump. She led such a deceitful US House as Speaker, that we are still as a nation handicapped from her underhanded tenure, one that will likely live in infamy. Meanwhile Republicans have yet to defund any of the Big State agencies that are intent on destroying the United States, impeach, censure, hold in contempt, demand DOJ press charges and/or imprison in the US House “jail”
The only thing the GOP knows how to do is to engage in saber-rattling, as the clock keeps ticking on what little time they have left as a majority. They have had a wealth of time to put Biden in check vis a vis “checks and balances”, knowing Americans are exasperated with Obama/Biden’s Deep State. And yet they expect Americans to salivate over their investigative reports even if Americans with 2 functioning neurons had already reached similar conclusions years ago. They had one shot, one opportunity and they have squandered it.
GOP: Gutless Old Pansies
🎶 Look… if you had… one shot… or one opportunity… to seize everything you ever wanted… in one moment… would you capture it… or just let it slip? 🎶
– Eminem
What you said here, is the money quote – “And yet they expect Americans to salivate over their investigative reports even if Americans with 2 functioning neurons had already reached similar conclusions years ago.”
Maybe we need to start demonizing the Left, as they have been demonizing the Right. At least, if we demonize them, we are on solid ground, because they are truly evil, and what they do hurts people, in a big way. The German people did not think that they were evil either, until Patton and Ike made them go clean up the dead bodies at the concentration camps. Here is something from Romans I, that I think is relevant, from the Message Bible:
26-27 Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn’t know how to be human either—women didn’t know how to be women, men didn’t know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men—all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it—emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches.
28-32 Since they didn’t bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way. Stupid, slimy, cruel, cold-blooded. And it’s not as if they don’t know better. They know perfectly well they’re spitting in God’s face. And they don’t care—worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!
Me thinks Team Red has too many members who don’t want their political skeletons exposed. Team Blue doesn’t care about being exposed – they take pride living in Doublestandardstan.
Team Blue doesn’t care about being exposed …
(checks roll call: Adam Schiff, Jerold Nadler, Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson Lee….)
😱
JAFO, I don’t believe any politician gets support from either party without having a fake or legitimate dossier that can be used as leverage. The Steele dossier (insurance policy) was a case in point. Once that failed, the Regime was forced to come out of hiding and show everyone how the system actually works. Team Blue works for the Regime, so they are safe as long as they aren’t a problem. RFK Jr. found that out.
Speaking of the Regime, where else does a candidate get 93% of the vote other than some 3rd world banana republic? Yet that rotting bag of oatmeal did in Colorado.
Oh, and PS – if you aren’t just a wet noodle that cares about status: STOP sending your kids to these universities. Especially the Ivy Leagues. You are cranking out doctors that I literally walk out on, they ain’t getting paid. I am not alone. I would not hire your idiot kid lawyer to represent me if my life depended on it. Get over it, already. Stop being enamored of what are essentially brand names asking for a payout.
There is no magic wand in academia, a degree is basically a transactional receipt these days just like the fake flowers you bought at Wal-Mart had a receipt; and they would be better off doing almost anything that actually contributes to society. No, endless time to make Etsy crafts on a tax payer’s dime does not count. neither does growing pot. Let go of the status/online illusions and actually start doing the right thing, because sh** is getting real.
Sometimes parents send their kids to elite universities in hopes they will find an intelligent spouse there. And that strategy sometimes works. I’m not judging that, or saying it’s a good thing, just pointing out that it happens.
@oldman
You aren’t wrong, unfortunately. I’ve seen that too. These are spouses that people now walk out on, though. That’s something, too.
‘Massive censorship system’
This isn’t a Biden admin thing, it is a globalist thing. And we may very well end up being the last country in the West, thanks to our Constitution and division of powers, to fight it (I don’t give a rat’s patootie about Brits or Australians or Canadians saying they do have free speech – no, you don’t, and it’s likely too late in your countries. You sure as sh** don’t have the right to defend yourselves). This is SO much more important than anyone cares to realize. The 1st and 2nd amendments are 1st and 2nd for a reason. Those of us that know better have got to do what we can to turn the tide, because the day will come when those asleep wake up to find themselves in a nightmare, wondering what the hell happened. This is another very brave post, thank you, Professor and team. It is absolutely crazy to me personally to even have to type that in this country, but here we are.
Jonathan: I’ll get to your column. But first let’s discuss how the MEGADONIANS in the House are trying to actually “weaponize” the federal government to serve the interests of DJT.
No sooner than the DC Court of Appeals ruled this week that DJT is an “insurrectionist” and is not immune from criminal prosecution, the House MAGA crowd decided to pull another stunt. Matt Gaetz, Elise Stephanik, MTG, Lauren Boebert (all “insurrectionists” themselves) held a press conference yesterday to announce they have filed a resolution to declare Jan. 6 was not an “insurrection” and DJT is not an “insurrectionist”. Gaetz seems to think the resolution, if passed, will help DJT “legally” in his defense against Jack Smith’s indictment.
So now Gaetz and company have set up their own law firm in the House to defend DJT. Bizarre in the extreme because a congressional resolution is not binding on the courts. Something Gaetz missed when he went to law school. The MEGADONIANS should be embarrassed by their latest antics. Especially, after coming on the heels of MTG’s failure to impeach Secy. Mayorkas, Jim Comer’s impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden that is dead in the water and the House MAGA rejection of the Senate bi-partisan bill to actually solve the border issue. The MAGA House under Speaker Johnson is in complete disarray and disfunctional. It’s the gang that can’t shoot straight. The latest move by Gaetz and company is further proof.–if any further proof were needed!
So I will renew the Q I posed in my earlier comment. Who in their right minds would vote for the MEGADONIANS or DJT?
Comrade Dennis is an AI generated Marx-bot. Just put in a quarter and watch it go…
. Bizarre in the extreme because a congressional resolution is not binding on the courts
Then Why did the Court quote from Jan 6 congressional findings. Either congressional resolutions are binding are they are not. The Colorado supremes did the same thing. According you the courts are just proving how corrupt they are.
Iowan2: Good point–and why you deserve a reply. The Colorado SC quoted extensively from the J. 6 House Select Committee Report because it was based on months of extensive hearings, witnesses who testified under oath and tons of other evidence. On the other hand, the Resolution proposed by Matt Gaetz and Stephanik is simply a stunt to put the House on record that J.6 was not an “insurrection” and DJT is not an “insurrectionist”. Does Gaetz back up his Resolution with any facts or evidence? Nope.
This why courts can take judicial notice of Congressional reports but not resolutions. See the difference? In any case neither Congressional reports nor resolutions are binding on the courts. They can conduct their own hearings and can take testimony from witnesses under oath. That’s why courts are not “corrupt” because they don’t base their decisions on unproven allegations.
This why courts can take judicial notice of Congressional reports but not resolutions
Show me retard. Show me the law that lays out your little bit misinformation.
The Judge in this decision and Colorado, are corrupt, using what the need to arrive at the decision they wanted.
That’s why courts are not “corrupt” because they don’t base their decisions on unproven allegations.
But there is no evidence there is no proof.
The DoJ says there is no proof.
Every day more exculpatory evidence emerges.
But I dont expect a half wit ,retard like you to catch on to all the lies you eagerly gobble up.
decade
So still the same question. Congressional findings are proper judicial fodder? or not (hint for the half wits. Separation of powers)
That committee presentation you are so impressed with was staged by a professional TV producer, with decades of experience, and the witnesses reading from a script.
The J6 committee is a partisan never Trump farce.
If you want a poster child for how to ensure that your conclusions are distrusted – look to the J6 committtee.
Any committee that has to encrypt and then delete almost half of its records – lest people learn the truth is not to be trusted.
Gaetz, and co do not need evidence.
Those claiming there was an insurection need evidence.
Can not think of a single insurrection anywhere ever where people did not bring firearms.
No one at the capitol brought frozen water bottles – yet these are present at EVER left wing protest.
No one brought lasers to blind the police.
No one brought molitov cocktails.
No one brought bricks
No one brought riot gear and riot sheilds.
No one brought fireworks.
No one brough taxes.
There was no arson.
One by one we find the media photos were “staged” – the latest the guy who put his feet on Pelosi’s desk ?
He was asked to by a reporter.
One of your infamous J6 convictions was of a reporter from a TV station in Florida.
He came through the capital with a News Camera and a press pass, he followed a reporter from the New Yorker who was using an iphone to record video. The New Yorker reporter was not charged. The reporter fromt he TV station in Florida – 8 monhts in federal prison – for a misdemeanor. His ACTUAL crime ? Membership in a Latino’s for Trump group in 2020.
Another reporter – also convicted, but given a probation sentence, was not allowed to enter his press passes into evidence or provide any evidence that he was a reporter.
There is a great deal of evidence that DOJ has targeted reporters at J6 that report events as anything except an insurrection.
Cover the story differently than Biden wants – and the FBI will swat your house and drag you off to jail.
Dennis you keep citing from the Senate report on the collusion delusion – which even the Mueller report proved with evidence was total garbage. That not a single claim of russian collusion in the Senate report has proven to be actually true.
And the Senate report overall was fairly tame and did little more than claim the Russians WANTED to influence the trump campaign but failed.
My point is that even properly conducted congressional investigations often “get it wrong”.
Why would you have us beleive that the J6 Committee should be trusted ?
You have cited Hutchinson – who did not make the claim you fixate on in closed testimoney.
Who was on the record moaning that the RNC and Trump were not footing her legal bills – they can’t that is litterally the smoiking gun in watergate. She was told to open a gofundme or givesendgo campaign to get her bills covered and she did not do so.
Hutchinsons testimony is double hearsay. It is contradicted by the source, it is also contradicted by those in the car,
and finally even if it were true – Trump said at the elipse he was going to the capitol.
How would trying to keep that promise be a problem ?
The point is that you take a sows ear and spin it into a purse.
If there were a dozen AR-16’s at the capitol – it still would not be an insurrection.
If a Dozen CP officers where killed it would not be an insurrection
The masses flowing illegally over our border are not an invasion – they are not an army.
But they are closer to an invasion than the stop the steal protests were to an insurrection.
The “witnesses” were never cross-examined.
Quoting from something doesn’t make it binding on the court. After all, courts quote from motions that they rule against.
Kudo’s to Matt Gaetz, Elise Stephanik, MTG, Lauren Boebert for speaking english rather than woke nonsense.
No the DC appeals court did NOT decide Trump was an insurrectionist. They decided that every single argument Trump made regarding presidential immunity was correct, but that by some unexplained and never before existing balancing test, those arguments are denied Trump and only Trump.
I told you sometime ago that it was highly unlikely the courts were going to say that there is no such thing as presidential immunity.
The DC appeals court has confirmed decisively that there is, They just bent over backwards to find a way to preclude only Trump from having presidential immunity.
Joe Biden sounds pretty lucid here. I can definitely see he’s in total control:
https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1755254911288176948
So here’s a problem. I am getting close to three score and ten years old, so I remember and half-remember a lot of things over my life. One memory, was about someone saying way back when, maybe in Reagan’s days, that one “You’re stupid!” can constitute a complete reply to the most detailed argument. Or something like that.
As Turley notes, above,”What is striking that the two suggest that the column was wrong but do not state a single mistaken fact.”
That is the advantage of controlling the main stream media. You get away with doing stuff like that. It is not, “Who’s watching the watchmen?” – It has become, “Who owns the watchmen?” Which is currently the fascist Left.
Where you find censors and censorship, suspect incompetence.
Where you find supporters of censorship, suspect stooges seeking to participate in power and wealth.
When you see all of the above, call it by the name it goes by and point it out for what it is. Whether that be Joe Biden, Tony Fauci, Francis Collins, Kristian Andersen, Stanford, Harvard, U. of Wisconsin, Amazon, CNN, MSNBC, etc.
Yet more reasons to withhold my contributions from the school I graduated from.
OT free-speech issue: suppose the government says you can say whatever you want as long as you wear a mask while speaking. Does that infringe on freedom of speech? Since the mask mandate goes directly to the action of speaking, I think it may. It’s at least arguable. But the Third Circuit disagrees and likens it to refusing to pay taxes to send a message that taxes are wrong, or refusing to wear a motorcycle helmet to send a message that helmet mandates are wrong. You’d think they could do a little better than that. The mask mandate directly interferes with the physical act of speaking and being understood.
https://whyy.org/articles/covid-face-mask-refusal-free-speech-new-jersey-court/
Disinformation, misinformation, malinformation . . . in reality they all mean the same thing: anything that doesn’t support the government’s narrative.
“Every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered…History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” – George Orwell
When someone tells you or by their actions they are totalitarians, believe them.
Well Turley, have you renounced your dnc registration yet? Both sides cheat, but Dems are over the top. So many things to investigate, at once. When confronted, they cry russia, russia, russia. Their #TDS is still running/ruining what’s left of their brains. “To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” Theodore Roosevelt
Government, commerce, media, and academia colluding to infringe on the Constitution.
Where is the national outrage?
There should be mobs with pitchforks in the streets.