Washington State Univ WSU / U Dub
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3 23 includes U Wa U Dub</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/jim-jordan-disinformation-subpoena-universities">https://www.propublica.org/article/jim-jordan-disinformation-subpoena-universities
</a>
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3 23
</font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">house Republicans have sent
letters to at least three universities and a think tank requesting a
broad range of documents related to what it says are the institutions'
contributions to the Biden administration’s “censorship regime.”</font>
</font></font><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="4.0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The letters are the latest effort by a House subcommittee <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/09/1155459408/house-panel-on-weaponization-of-the-federal-government-will-hold-its-first-heari">set up in January</a>
to investigate how the federal government, working with social media
companies, has allegedly been “weaponized” to silence conservative and
right-wing voices. So far, the committee’s investigations have amplified
a variety of dubious, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/13/house-republicans-govern-lie-weaponization-committeee/">outright false</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/12/house-church-committee-weaponization-overreach/">highly misleading</a>
Republican grievances with law enforcement, many of them espoused by
former President Donald Trump. Committee members have cited supposed
abuses that include the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, its investigations
of Jan. 6 rioters and the Biden administration’s purported use of
executive powers to shut down conservative viewpoints on social media.</font></font></font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="4.0"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">now, universities and their
researchers are coming under the spotlight of the committee, which the
Republicans have labeled the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the
Weaponization of the Federal Government. The letters, signed by Rep. Jim
Jordan, R-Ohio, who is chair of both the House Judiciary Committee and
the subcommittee, were sent in early March.</font>
<font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">They cover an investigation
into how “certain third parties, including organizations like yours,
may have played a role in this censorship regime by advising on
so-called ‘misinformation,’” according to a copy of one of the letters
obtained by ProPublica.</font></p>
<aside class="bb-ad full">
</aside>
<p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The committee requested
documents and information dating back to January 2015 between any
“employee, contractor, or agent of your organization” and the federal
government or social media organizations pertaining to the moderation of
social media content. ProPublica confirmed the requests went to
Stanford University, the University of Washington, Clemson University
and the German Marshall Fund of the United States.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The letters have prompted a
wave of alarm among those in the field that the congressional inquiry
itself, no matter what it finds, will lead universities to pull back on
this research just as the 2024 election gets underway. “Recent efforts
definitely have a chilling effect on the community of experts across
academia, civil society and government built up to understand broader
online harms like harassment, foreign influence and — yes —
disinformation,” Graham Brookie, who leads studies in this area at the
Atlantic Council, told ProPublica.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The ‘weaponization’
committee is being weaponized against us,” another researcher told
ProPublica. Like half a dozen others interviewed for this story, this
person asked not to be identified because of the ongoing congressional
probe.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Democrats have called the committee <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/10/us/politics/house-republican-committee-weaponization-government.html">a modern-day House Un-American Activities Committee</a>, akin to the congressional committee that pursued alleged communists during the McCarthy era.</font>
<font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since Rep. Jordan took over the gavel of the judiciary committee in January, he has <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/documents/letters">issued</a> more than 80 subpoenas and requests for documents. Recipients have included <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/02/15/jim-jordan-subpoenas-ceos/11265052002/">the CEOs</a> of social media companies, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/14/repubicans-hunter-biden-probe/">intelligence officials</a> who signed on to a statement about Hunter Biden’s laptop during the 2020 campaign and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/jim-jordan-parents-rights-disinformation-school-board-5280de301156d47b72ff03abfb511974">members of the National School Boards Association</a>
who asked the Justice Department to investigate threats of violence
against school board officials. Jordan himself refused a subpoena to
testify before the Democratic-led House Select Committee on the January 6
Attack, prompting that committee to refer the matter to the House
Ethics Committee.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jordan’s missives were
sent a day after a committee hearing on the “Twitter files,” leaked
internal communications from the company that purported to show how
right-wing accounts were sidelined and silenced. In written testimony, a
panelist accused a broad swath of organizations and individuals of
being <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/shellenberger-testimony.pdf">members of the “Censorship Industrial Complex,”</a>
including, he implied, the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, CIA,
Department of Defense and universities. The witness wrote disinformation
researchers, working with the government, are “creating blacklists of
disfavored people and then pressuring, cajoling, and demanding that
social media platforms censor, deamplify, and even ban the people on
these blacklists.”</font>
<font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">A <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b6df958f8370af3217d4178/t/6011e68dec2c7013d3caf3cb/1611785871154/NYU+False+Accusation+report_FINAL.pdf">New York University </a><a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b6df958f8370af3217d4178/t/6011e68dec2c7013d3caf3cb/1611785871154/NYU+False+Accusation+report_FINAL.pdf">study</a><a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b6df958f8370af3217d4178/t/6011e68dec2c7013d3caf3cb/1611785871154/NYU+False+Accusation+report_FINAL.pdf"> concluded</a>
in 2021 that social media had not silenced those on the right. “The
claim of anti-conservative animus” by social media companies, the study
said, “is itself a form of disinformation: a falsehood with no reliable
evidence to support it."</font></p>
<aside class="bb-ad full">
</aside>
<p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="15.0"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">A spokesperson for Rep. Jordan did not respond to requests for comment.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Since the 2016 elections<b>,
Stanford, UW, Clemson</b></span> and others have engaged in research, sometimes in
partnership with social media platforms, government officials and each
other, into ways that disinformation can pose tZreats to democracy and
how such efforts can be meaningfully countered. The role of lies and
disinformation leading to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol gave
increased prominence to their work.</font>
<font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">As ProPublica has
previously reported, sustained accusations by congressional Republicans
and right-wing influencers that the Biden administration is stifling
dissent have <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/dhs-disinformation-elections-biden-gop-midterms">caused the administration to back away</a>
from its efforts countering disinformation, including canceling
research contracts and sending messages inside the administration that
disinformation work is too hot to handle.</font>
<font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Those moves followed a bungled rollout of a clumsily named “Disinformation Governance Board” to coordinate efforts to counter <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/National-Strategy-for-Countering-Domestic-Terrorism.pdf">what the administration had called</a>
“dangerous conspiracy theories that can provide a gateway to terrorist
violence.” Following criticism, the administration disbanded the board
and accepted the resignation of its executive director, Nina Jankowicz.</font>
<font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jordan <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2023-03-06-jankowicz-deposition-subpoena-cover-letter.pdf">has subpoenaed</a> Jankowicz, too. She is scheduled to testify April 10 and said she will <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/06/politics/jordan-subpoenas-head-of-former-dhs-disinformation-board/index.html">happily testify under oath</a>.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This sort of inquiry
isn’t something that belongs in the United States Congress,” said
Jankowicz. “But given that this method of bullying has caused other
institutions to fold to Republican pressure in the past, I fear we may
see the blunt force of congressional committees continue to be used in
ways that are in direct opposition to the safety, security and free
expression of the American people."</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="20.0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong /></font></p><div class="story-promoinfo" dir="auto"><strong><strong><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/desantis-google-teneo-video-big-tech-breakup" class="story-promo section-articles"><strong class="story-promohed">deSantis Privately Called for Google to Be “Broken Up”</strong>
</a></font></strong></strong></strong></strong></div><aside data-pp-id="21" data-pp-blocktype="promo" data-pp-location="story promo" dir="ltr" class="bb-promo-story story-promo-group size04 right out02 wide-sm wrap"><strong><strong><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/desantis-google-teneo-video-big-tech-breakup" class="story-promo section-articles">
</a></font> </strong></strong></strong></aside><strong><strong><strong>
</strong></strong></strong><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="22.0"><strong><strong><strong><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stanford did not answer a question about whether it stood by its research or make its researchers, the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><a href="https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io">Stanford Internet Observatory</a>’s Alex Stamos or Renee DiResta,<span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;">available for comment. The university referred ProPublica to an <a href="https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/background-sios-projects-social-media">online fact sheet</a>
addressing “inaccurate and misleading claims” made in the congressional
testimony about Stanford’s “projects to analyze rumors and narratives
on social media relating to U.S. elections and the coronavirus.” The
German Marshall fund said it was working to address the request and
Clemson University’s media relations department did not respond to
requests for comment.</span></font></strong></strong></strong></p><span style="font-weight: normal;">
</span><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="23.0"><font style="font-weight: normal;" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> University of Washington’s <a href="https://www.cip.uw.edu/">Center for an Informed Public</a> issued a <a href="https://www.cip.uw.edu/2023/03/16/uw-cip-election-integrity-partnership-research-claims/">statement</a>
that said “We’re incredibly proud of our work</span>,” adding that “some of
the projects CIP researchers have contributed to have become the subject
of false claims and criticism that mischaracterizes our work, a tactic
that peer researchers in this space are also experiencing.” The
statement did not specifically address the House requests.</font></p><span style="font-weight: normal;">
</span><font style="font-weight: normal;" size="4" face="Times New Roman">A university spokesperson,
Victor Balta, said in an email, “The UW stands behind this important
research aiming to resist strategic misinformation and strengthen our
discourse. We have received a request for documents and information, and
a response is in progress</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/jim-jordan-disinformation-subpoena-universities">https://www.propublica.org/article/jim-jordan-disinformation-subpoena-universities
</a>
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3 23
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">house Republicans have sent
letters to at least three universities and a think tank requesting a
broad range of documents related to what it says are the institutions'
contributions to the Biden administration’s “censorship regime.”</font>
<p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="4.0"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The letters are the latest effort by a House subcommittee <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/09/1155459408/house-panel-on-weaponization-of-the-federal-government-will-hold-its-first-heari">set up in January</a>
to investigate how the federal government, working with social media
companies, has allegedly been “weaponized” to silence conservative and
right-wing voices. So far, the committee’s investigations have amplified
a variety of dubious, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/13/house-republicans-govern-lie-weaponization-committeee/">outright false</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/12/house-church-committee-weaponization-overreach/">highly misleading</a>
Republican grievances with law enforcement, many of them espoused by
former President Donald Trump. Committee members have cited supposed
abuses that include the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, its investigations
of Jan. 6 rioters and the Biden administration’s purported use of
executive powers to shut down conservative viewpoints on social media.</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="4.0"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">now, universities and their
researchers are coming under the spotlight of the committee, which the
Republicans have labeled the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the
Weaponization of the Federal Government. The letters, signed by Rep. Jim
Jordan, R-Ohio, who is chair of both the House Judiciary Committee and
the subcommittee, were sent in early March.</font>
<font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">They cover an investigation
into how “certain third parties, including organizations like yours,
may have played a role in this censorship regime by advising on
so-called ‘misinformation,’” according to a copy of one of the letters
obtained by ProPublica.</font></p>
<aside class="bb-ad full">
</aside>
<p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="7.0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The committee requested
documents and information dating back to January 2015 between any
“employee, contractor, or agent of your organization” and the federal
government or social media organizations pertaining to the moderation of
social media content. ProPublica confirmed the requests went to
Stanford University, the University of Washington, Clemson University
and the German Marshall Fund of the United States.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The letters have prompted a
wave of alarm among those in the field that the congressional inquiry
itself, no matter what it finds, will lead universities to pull back on
this research just as the 2024 election gets underway. “Recent efforts
definitely have a chilling effect on the community of experts across
academia, civil society and government built up to understand broader
online harms like harassment, foreign influence and — yes —
disinformation,” Graham Brookie, who leads studies in this area at the
Atlantic Council, told ProPublica.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The ‘weaponization’
committee is being weaponized against us,” another researcher told
ProPublica. Like half a dozen others interviewed for this story, this
person asked not to be identified because of the ongoing congressional
probe.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Democrats have called the committee <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/10/us/politics/house-republican-committee-weaponization-government.html">a modern-day House Un-American Activities Committee</a>, akin to the congressional committee that pursued alleged communists during the McCarthy era.</font>
<font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since Rep. Jordan took over the gavel of the judiciary committee in January, he has <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/documents/letters">issued</a> more than 80 subpoenas and requests for documents. Recipients have included <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/02/15/jim-jordan-subpoenas-ceos/11265052002/">the CEOs</a> of social media companies, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/14/repubicans-hunter-biden-probe/">intelligence officials</a> who signed on to a statement about Hunter Biden’s laptop during the 2020 campaign and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/jim-jordan-parents-rights-disinformation-school-board-5280de301156d47b72ff03abfb511974">members of the National School Boards Association</a>
who asked the Justice Department to investigate threats of violence
against school board officials. Jordan himself refused a subpoena to
testify before the Democratic-led House Select Committee on the January 6
Attack, prompting that committee to refer the matter to the House
Ethics Committee.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jordan’s missives were
sent a day after a committee hearing on the “Twitter files,” leaked
internal communications from the company that purported to show how
right-wing accounts were sidelined and silenced. In written testimony, a
panelist accused a broad swath of organizations and individuals of
being <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/shellenberger-testimony.pdf">members of the “Censorship Industrial Complex,”</a>
including, he implied, the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, CIA,
Department of Defense and universities. The witness wrote disinformation
researchers, working with the government, are “creating blacklists of
disfavored people and then pressuring, cajoling, and demanding that
social media platforms censor, deamplify, and even ban the people on
these blacklists.”</font>
<font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">A <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b6df958f8370af3217d4178/t/6011e68dec2c7013d3caf3cb/1611785871154/NYU+False+Accusation+report_FINAL.pdf">New York University </a><a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b6df958f8370af3217d4178/t/6011e68dec2c7013d3caf3cb/1611785871154/NYU+False+Accusation+report_FINAL.pdf">study</a><a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b6df958f8370af3217d4178/t/6011e68dec2c7013d3caf3cb/1611785871154/NYU+False+Accusation+report_FINAL.pdf"> concluded</a>
in 2021 that social media had not silenced those on the right. “The
claim of anti-conservative animus” by social media companies, the study
said, “is itself a form of disinformation: a falsehood with no reliable
evidence to support it."</font></p>
<aside class="bb-ad full">
</aside>
<p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="15.0"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">A spokesperson for Rep. Jordan did not respond to requests for comment.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Since the 2016 elections<b>,
Stanford, UW, Clemson</b></span> and others have engaged in research, sometimes in
partnership with social media platforms, government officials and each
other, into ways that disinformation can pose tZreats to democracy and
how such efforts can be meaningfully countered. The role of lies and
disinformation leading to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol gave
increased prominence to their work.</font>
<font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">As ProPublica has
previously reported, sustained accusations by congressional Republicans
and right-wing influencers that the Biden administration is stifling
dissent have <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/dhs-disinformation-elections-biden-gop-midterms">caused the administration to back away</a>
from its efforts countering disinformation, including canceling
research contracts and sending messages inside the administration that
disinformation work is too hot to handle.</font>
<font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Those moves followed a bungled rollout of a clumsily named “Disinformation Governance Board” to coordinate efforts to counter <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/National-Strategy-for-Countering-Domestic-Terrorism.pdf">what the administration had called</a>
“dangerous conspiracy theories that can provide a gateway to terrorist
violence.” Following criticism, the administration disbanded the board
and accepted the resignation of its executive director, Nina Jankowicz.</font>
<font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jordan <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2023-03-06-jankowicz-deposition-subpoena-cover-letter.pdf">has subpoenaed</a> Jankowicz, too. She is scheduled to testify April 10 and said she will <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/06/politics/jordan-subpoenas-head-of-former-dhs-disinformation-board/index.html">happily testify under oath</a>.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This sort of inquiry
isn’t something that belongs in the United States Congress,” said
Jankowicz. “But given that this method of bullying has caused other
institutions to fold to Republican pressure in the past, I fear we may
see the blunt force of congressional committees continue to be used in
ways that are in direct opposition to the safety, security and free
expression of the American people."</font></p><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="20.0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong /></font></p><div class="story-promoinfo" dir="auto"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/desantis-google-teneo-video-big-tech-breakup" class="story-promo section-articles"><strong class="story-promohed">deSantis Privately Called for Google to Be “Broken Up”</strong>
</a></font></strong></div><aside data-pp-id="21" data-pp-blocktype="promo" data-pp-location="story promo" dir="ltr" class="bb-promo-story story-promo-group size04 right out02 wide-sm wrap"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/desantis-google-teneo-video-big-tech-breakup" class="story-promo section-articles">
</a></font> </strong></aside><strong>
</strong><p data-pp-blocktype="copy" data-pp-id="22.0"><strong><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stanford did not answer a question about whether it stood by its research or make its researchers, the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><a href="https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io">Stanford Internet Observatory</a>’s Alex Stamos or Renee DiResta, </span>available for comment. The university referred ProPublica to an <a href="https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/background-sios-projects-social-media">online fact sheet</a>
addressing “inaccurate and misleading claims” made in the congressional
testimony about Stanford’s “projects to analyze rumors and narratives
on social media relating to U.S. elections and the coronavirus.” The
German Marshall fund said it was working to address the request and
Clemson University’s media relations department did not respond to
requests for comment.</font></strong>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> <b>University of Washington’s <a href="https://www.cip.uw.edu/">Center for an Informed Public</a> </b>issued a <a href="https://www.cip.uw.edu/2023/03/16/uw-cip-election-integrity-partnership-research-claims/">statement</a>
that said “We’re incredibly proud of our work</span>,” adding that “some of
the projects CIP researchers have contributed to have become the subject
of false claims and criticism that mischaracterizes our work, a tactic
that peer researchers in this space are also experiencing.” The
statement did not specifically address the House requests.</font>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A university spokesperson,
Victor Balta, said in an email, “The UW stands behind this important
research aiming to resist strategic misinformation and strengthen our
discourse. We have received a request for documents and information, and
a response is in progress.”</font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></div></div><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=""><div style="">
</div></span></font></strong><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></strong></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">68 pp basis for benghazi attack?
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/shellenberger-testimony.pdf">https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/shellenberger-testimony.pdf</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Censorship Industrial
Complex
U.S. Government Support For Domestic Censorship And
Disinformation Campaigns, 2016 - 2022
Testimony by Michael Shellenberger to The House Select
Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
March 9, 2023</font></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">----</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Executive Summary 4
The Censorship Industrial Complex Today 8
Definition and Mission 8
National Science Foundation Funding 8
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Roots 9
Key Organizations 10
Key Individuals 15
The Complex’s Disinformation Campaigns 18
1. The Trump-Russian Collusion Conspiracy Theory, 2016 - 19 18
2. Delegitimizing the Covid Lab Leak Theory, 2020 – 2021 22
3. The Hunter Biden Laptop Conspiracy Theory, 2020–21 22
Ideology, Strategy, And Origins 25
Ideology 25
Strategy 30
Origins 34
Key Events 36
2017 36
New Knowledge runs disinformation campaign against Republican Senate
Candidate in Alabama 36
Former FBI employee web site that falsely accuses ordinary Twitter users of
being Russian bots 38
2018 39
Senate Intelligence Report On Russian Interference 39
2020 40
“Election Integrity Partnership” 40
Aspen Institute Workshop Trains Top Journalists To Pre-Bunk “Hack and Leak” 42
Covid Censorship 45
Lab Leak Theory 45
Mask Skepticism 46
2021 46
DHS Expands Its Censorship Powers 46
Under Pressure From White House, Facebook and Twitter Censor Accurate Vaccine
Information 47
Climate Change and Energy 50
2022 53
U.S. government funds “Disinformation Index” and “News Guard” to drive
advertisers away from disfavored news media 53
Creation of Department Of Homeland Security’s “Disinformation Governance
Board” 54
2023 54
Diresta and Stamos hype “foreign disinformation” threat 55
Recommendations 56
1. Defund the Censorship Industrial Complex 56
2. Mandate instant reporting of all communications between government
officials and contractors with social media executives relating to content
moderation 56
3. Reduce Scope of Section 230 56
=
Shellenberger Testimony March 9, 2022 p. 4</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Executive Summary</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower warned of
“the acquisition of unwarranted influence… by the military-industrial
complex.” Eisenhower feared that the size and power of the “complex,” or
cluster, of government contractors and the Department of Defense would
“endanger our liberties or democratic processes.” How? Through “domination
of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the
power of money.” He feared public policy would “become the captive of a
scientific-technological elite.”1</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Eisenhower’s fears were well-founded. Today, American taxpayers are
unwittingly financing the growth and power of a censorship-industrial complex
run by America’s scientific and technological elite, which endangers our
liberties and democracy. I am grateful for the opportunity to offer this
testimony and sound the alarm over the shocking and disturbing emergence
of state-sponsored censorship in the United States of America.
<b>The Twitter Files</b>, state attorneys general lawsuits, and investigative
reporters have revealed a large and growing network of government agencies,
academic institutions, and nongovernmental organizations that are actively
censoring American citizens, often without their knowledge, on a range of
issues, including on the origins of COVID2
, COVID vaccines3
, emails relating to
Hunter Biden’s business dealings4
, climate change5
, renewable energy6
, fossil
fuels7
, and many other issues.
I offer some cautions. I do not know how much of the censorship is
coordinated beyond what we have been able to document, and I will not
speculate. I recognize that the law allows Facebook, Twitter, and other private
companies to moderate content on their platforms. And I support the right of
governments to communicate with the public, including to dispute inaccurate
and misleading information.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But government officials have been caught repeatedly pushing social
media platforms to censor disfavored users and content. Often, these acts of
censorship threaten the legal protection social media companies need to exist,
Section 230</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shellenberger Testimony March 9, 2022 p. 5]</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If government officials are directing or facilitating such censorship,”
notes George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, “it raises
serious First Amendment questions. It is axiomatic that the government cannot
do indirectly what it is prohibited from doing directly.”8</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moreover, we know that the U.S. government has funded organizations
that pressure advertisers to boycott news media organizations and social
media platforms that a) refuse to censor and/or b) spread disinformation,
including alleged conspiracy theories.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Stanford Internet Observatory, the University of Washington, the
Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, and Graphika all have
inadequately-disclosed ties to the Department of Defense, the C.I.A., and
other intelligence agencies. They work with multiple U.S. government agencies
to institutionalize censorship research and advocacy within dozens of other
universities and think tanks</span>.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is important to understand how these groups function. They are not
publicly engaging with their opponents in an open exchange of ideas. They
aren’t asking for a national debate over the limits of the First Amendment.
Rather, they are creating blacklists of disfavored people and then pressuring,
cajoling, and demanding that social media platforms censor, deamplify, and
even ban the people on these blacklists.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Who are the censors? They are a familiar type. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Overly confident in their
ability to discern truth from falsity,</span> good intention from bad intention, the
instinct of these <b>hall monitor-types is to complain to the teacher </b>— and, if the
teacher doesn’t comply, to go above them, to the principal. Such an approach
might work in middle school and many elite universities, but it is anathema to
freedom and is an abuse of power.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>These organizations and others are also running their own influence
operations, often under the guise of “fact-checking</b>.” The intellectual leaders
of the censorship complex have convinced journalists and social media
executives that accurate information is disinformation, that valid hypotheses
are conspiracy theories, and that greater self-censorship results in more
accurate reporting. NOTE LACK OF EVIDENCE</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> In many instances, censorship, such as labeling social</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Shellenberger Testimony March 9, 2022 p. 6</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">media posts, is part of the influence operation aimed at discrediting factual
information.
The censorship industrial complex combines established methods of
psychological manipulation, some developed by the U.S. Military during the
Global War on Terror, with highly sophisticated tools from computer science,
including artificial intelligence. The complex’s leaders are driven by the fear
that the Internet and social media platforms empower populist, alternative,
and fringe personalities and views, which they regard as destabilizing. Federal
government officials, agencies, and contractors have gone from fighting ISIS
recruiters and Russian bots to censoring and deplatforming ordinary Americans
and disfavored public figures.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Importantly, the bar for bringing in military-grade government
monitoring and speech-countering techniques has moved from “countering
terrorism” to “countering extremism” to countering simple misinformation.
The government no longer needs a predicate of calling you a terrorist or
extremist to deploy government resources to counter your political activity.
The only predicate it needs is simply the assertion that the opinion you
expressed on social media is wrong.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These efforts extend to influencing and even directing conventional
news media organizations. Since 1971, when the Washington Post and New
York Times elected to publish classified Pentagon papers about the war in
Vietnam, journalists understood that we have a professional obligation to
report on leaked documents whose contents are in the public interest, even
when they had been stolen. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And yet, in 2020, the Aspen Institute and
Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center urged journalists to “Break the Pentagon
Papers principle” and not cover leaked information to prevent the spread of
“disinformation.”</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Government-funded censors frequently invoke the prevention of realworld</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> harm to justify their demands for censorship, but the censors define
harm far more expansively than the Supreme Court does. The censors have
defined harm so broadly, in fact, that they have justified Facebook censoring
accurate information about COVID vaccines, for example, to prevent “vaccine
hesitancy.” Their goal, clearly, is not protecting the truth but rather persuading</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shellenberger Testimony March 9, 2022 p. 7]</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the public. That is the purpose of open debate and the free exchange of ideas.
Persuasion by covert means is censorship.
And, increasingly, the censors say their goal is to restrict information
that “delegitimizes” governmental, industrial, and news media organizations.9
That mandate is so sweeping that it could easily censor criticism of any part of
the status quo from elected officials to institutions to laws. This extreme,
reactionary attitude is, bluntly, un-American.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Congress should immediately cut off funding to the censors and
investigate their activities.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Second, it should mandate instant reporting of all
conversations between social media executives, government employees, and
contractors concerning content moderation. Third, Congress should limit the
broad permission given to social media platforms to censor, deplatform, and
spread [GUBMINT PRESUMABLY] propaganda.</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whatever Congress does, it is incumbent upon the American people to
wake up to the threat of government censorship via behind-the-scenes
pressure on media corporations. “Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry,”
Eisenhower noted, “can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and
military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that
security and liberty may prosper together.”
=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">p11</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Key Organizations
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CISA: The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency,
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an agency
within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). On January 6, 2017,
outgoing Obama Administration DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson designated
“election infrastructure” as “critical infrastructure,” opening up CISA’s mission
to censoring alleged “disinformation.”15 Congress created CISA in November
2018 to defend the U.S. from cybersecurity threats from hostile foreign actors
(e.g., Russian hackers).16
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Digital Forensics Research (DFR) Lab at the Atlantic Council.
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The lab is
one of the most established and influential full-time censorship institutions in
the world.17 Atlantic Council DFR Lab created the foreign-facing DisinfoPortal
in June 2018, working directly with the National Endowment for Democracy
(NED) and 23 organizations to censor election narratives leading up to the
2019 elections in Europe.18 In 2018, Facebook named Atlantic Council, an
official partner in “countering disinformation” worldwide.19 US taxpayer
funding to the Atlantic Council comes from the Defense Department, the US
Marines, the US Air Force, the US Navy, the State Department, USAID, the
National Endowment for Democracy, as well as energy companies and
weapons manufacturers.20
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Graphika: </b>a private network analysis firm. Graphika published a report
for the Senate Intelligence Committee in December 2018, which claimed to
have uncovered “in unusually rich detail the scope of Russia's interference not
only in the 2016 U.S. presidential election but also in our day-to-day
democratic dialogue.”21 Graphika hired as its director of investigations Ben
Nimmo away from DFR lab.22
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Defense Department's Minerva Initiative,
which focuses on psychological warfare, and DARPA, both gave grants to
Graphika.23 In 2021, the Pentagon awarded nearly $5 million in grants and
nearly $2 million in contracts to the organization.24 Last fall, Graphika alleged
that cartoons on a fringe website were “suspected Russian actors” that were</font></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">p12</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shillenberger Testimony March 9, 2022 p. 11]</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
Shellenberger Testimony March 9, 2022 p. 12]</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“engaged in a renewed effort” to interfere in the 2022 midterm elections.25
The New York Times picked up on the story.26</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Moonshot CVE is private firm to redirect right-wing people online away
from radicalism </b>27 but was found to have pushed right-wing people toward an
anarchist leader. “They sent people who were already looking for violence to a
convicted felon with anarchist and anti-Semitic views,” Rep. Morgan Griffith (RVa.)
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">said to Google’s CEO. “Who is vetting the vetters? We continue to need
more transparency and accountability.”28 Moonshot includes Elizabeth
Neumann, former DHS Asst. Sec. for Counter Terrorism.
FITF: Foreign Influence Task Force, a cyber-regulatory agency
comprised of members of the FBI, DHS, and ODNI</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>GEC: Global Engagement Center, </b>an analytical division of the U.S. State
Department which systematically launders domestic censorship by working
through “counter-disinformation” NGOs and foreign firms.
Hamilton 68: A dashboard created with U.S. government funding and
the support of New Knowledge claiming to reveal Russian bots on Twitter but
was mocked by Twitter staff because all or almost all belonged to American
citizens</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>HSIN: Homeland Security Information Network,</b> a portal through which
states and other official bodies can send “flagged” accounts
EIP: Election Integrity Project, a partnership between four government</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">funded censorship organizations: Stanford Internet Observatory, Graphika,
University of Washington Disinformation Lab, and the Atlantic Council’s Digital
Forensic Research Lab. EIP has served as CISA’s deputized domestic
disinformation flagger
<b>IRA: Internet Research Agency,</b> the infamous Russian “troll farm”
headed by “Putin’s chef,” Yevgheny Prigozhin</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>MISP: Malware Information Sharing Platform. </b>Used by cyber security
operatives to share malware, tools around bots, coordinated and inauthentic
ops. “When DFR wanted to apply cybersec tools to misinformation,” said a
government disinformation specialist, “they used MISP.”29</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index,</b> both taxpayer-funded,
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">are urging advertisers to boycott disfavored publications, and direct
their funding to favored ones The organizations have been caught spreading
disinformation, including that the COVID lab leak theory is a debunked
conspiracy theory, and seeking to discredit publications which accurately
reported on Hunter Biden’s laptop, such as the New York Post</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Cognitive Security Collaborative and Adversarial Misinformation and
Influence Tactics and Techniques.
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These are online platforms for describing
and coordinating disinformation attacks. “It works like other security
operations focused on threat actors,” noted the specialist. “If they have a
threat actor who has launched a coordinated inauthentic information attack,”
said a source, “they would log the threat actor and start mapping the actor
just as they would a cyber attack. They then coordinate social media
takedowns” [removals].30</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>University of Washington (UW), </b>one of two academic institutions that
DHS worked directly with and had as its partner, to censor information on
social media platforms during the 2020 election.31 It received a $3 million
government grant, shared with Stanford Internet Observatory, from the Biden
Administration in 2021, to continue its “election misinformation” flagging.32
Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO).
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the four members of the
Election Integrity Project (and later the Virality Project) with UW, Graphika, and
DFR. It was created in June 2019 by director Alex Stamos and research
manager Re<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">nee DiResta. SIO monitors social media and promotes Internet
censorship. For the 2020 election, as part of its partnership with CISA, SIO had
50 “misinformation” analysts assigned to monitor social media</span>.33 <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">SIO was
originally funded by Craig Newmark Philanthropies, the <b>Omidyar Network, and
the Charles Koch Foundation<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">.</span></b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">34</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Key Individuals</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
● Graham Brookie, leader of the Atlantic Council’s DFR Lab. Brookie
served in the Obama White House on the National Security Council.35</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">●<b> Renee DiResta, Stanford Internet Observatory. </b>DiResta was the research
director for the organization caught creating bot accounts and spreading
disinformation about Alabama Republican Senate Candidate Roy
Moore.36 In her 2018 Senate testimony DiResta advocated “legislation
that defines and criminalizes foreign propaganda” and allowing law
enforcement to “prosecute foreign propaganda.”37 According to
recorded remarks by DiResta’s supervisor at Stanford, Alex Stamos, she
had previously “worked for the CIA.”38</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">● Jen Easterly, CISA Director. A former military intelligence officer and the
National Security Agency (NSA) deputy director for counterterrorism.
“One could argue we’re in the business of critical infrastructure,” said
Easterly in November 2021, ”and the most critical infrastructure is our
cognitive infrastructure, so building that resilience to misinformation and
disinformation, I think, is incredibly important.”39 The month before,
Easterly said during a CISA summit that Chris Krebs's construction of a
“counter-misinformation” complex with the private sector was a high
priority for DHS.40 A U.S. District Court ruled in October of last year that
Easterly could be deposed because of her “first-hand knowledge” of the
CISA “nerve center” around disinformation.41</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">● Chris Krebs. CISA Director (2018 to 2020). Chair of Aspen Institute
“Commission on Information Disorder,” helped organize DHS’s “whole-of-society”
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">approach to censorship.42 Krebs administered the federal
side of the 2020 election after DHS effectively nationalized election
security on January 6, 2017, via the declaration of elections as “critical
infrastructure.” Krebs then declared that “misinformation” was an attack
on election security. Krebs said in April 2022 that the Hunter Biden
laptop still looked like Russian disinformation and that what mattered
was that news media did not cover the laptop during the 2020 election
cycle.43 Krebs advocated for censoring critics of government COVID-19
protocols44 and said “misinformation” is the largest threat to election
security.45</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">● Ben Nimmo, Head of Global Threat Intelligence for Facebook, and thus
one of America’s most important censors. Nimmo was the technical lead
for censorship at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensics Research Lab,
was employed by Graphika in the fall of 2020 46, and worked in NATO
information operations.47 In 2018, Nimmo publicly reported an
anonymous Twitter account, “Ian56”, as a Russian disinformation bot
account because it expressed left-of-center populist anti-war views when
in reality Ian56 was a real person.48 After Nimmo's report, “Ian56” was
reported to the UK government.49</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">● Kate Starbird, who runs the University of Washington disinformation lab,
has for years been funded primarily by U.S. government agencies to do
social media narrative analytics of political groups, or insurgency
movements, of interest or concern to U.S. military intelligence or
diplomatic equities. Starbird acknowledged that the censorship focus of
CISA and EIP moved from “foreign, inauthentic” social media users to
“domestic, authentic” social media users between 2016 to 2020.50</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Starbird is now the head of CISA’s censorship advisory subcommittee.
Alex Stamos was the senior leader at EIP and VP, which served as the
deputized domestic “disinformation” flagger for DHS via Chris Krebs’
CISA. Stamos in 2020 proposed that DHS centralize government
censorship.51 Stamos was the Chief Security Officer of Facebook and led
Facebook's response to alleged Russian disinformation after the 2016
election. Stamos left Facebook, now Meta, in 2018, after reportedly
conflicting with other Facebook executives over how much to censor.52
Stamos says he favors moving away from a free and open Internet
toward a more controlled “cable news network” model. A huge part of
the problem is “large influencers,” said Stamos.53</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">● Claire Wardle cofounded and directed, <b>First Draft News.</b> a nonprofit
coalition, in June 2015, to build the censorship complex. “In September
2016, our original coalition expanded to become an international Partner
Network of newsrooms, universities, platforms and civil society
organizations.” In 2017, while at the Shorenstein Center for Media,
Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School, Wardle helped
develop the “Information Disorder Lab,” a framing that Aspen Institute
would embrace. In June 2022, First Draft closed, but its work lives on at
the Information Futures Lab at Brown University’s School of Public
Health.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Complex’s Disinformation Campaigns</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many of the leaders and participants in today’s censorship industrial ex
have been involved in spreading disinformation, including conspiracy
theories compl, while discrediting accurate information and alleging that valid
theories were debunked conspiracy theories.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1. The Trump-Russian Collusion Conspiracy Theory, 2016–2019</b>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The complex’s first major disinformation campaign was the conspiracy
theory that Donald Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin and the Russian
government to steal the 2016 election.</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">There is no evidence that Russia’s social media investments, or its
hacking and leaking of emails, had any impact, much less a decisive one, on
the outcome of the 2016 election</span>.54 Most neutral analysts, as well as many
Democratic strategists, believe that they did not.55</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Two of the four leading censorship organizations, New Knowledge and
Graphika, provided the Senate Intelligence Committee provided the academic
foundation for the claim that the Russians had elected Trump. They pointed to
evidence that ten million people in the U.S. had seen the ads</span>.56</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The Russian disinformation operations that affected the 2016 United
States presidential election are by no means over,” wrote DiResta in the New
York Times in December 2018. “Russian interference through social media… is
a chronic, widespread and identifiable condition that we must now
aggressively manage.”57</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Her findings were widely respected and publicized. Former director of
national intelligence James Clapper called the evidence that Russia had
influenced the election "staggering." University of Pennsylvania
communication professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson pointed to the evidence to
conclude that Trump would not have been president without the Russians.</span>58
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But there is no evidence that the Russians had any influence on the
2016 campaign, much less that they won it for Trump. </b>Robert Faris, Hal
Roberts and Yochai Benkler of Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and
Society analyzed millions of articles from 2015 to 2018 using network analysis
to measure how audiences paid attention to media coverage, text analysis to
see which sites wrote about what and when, and wrote detailed case studies of
the most salient issues in the election. “<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Russians are there,” wrote Benkler.
“They are trying. But in all these cases, American right-wing media did the
heavy lifting to originate and propagate disinformation.”..</span>..
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div></div><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></strong></div><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></div><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mcguire set up as martyr?</font></strong></div><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></strong></div><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></strong></div><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="line-height: 32px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In 2012, Washington State University researcher </span><a href="http://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2012/10/increased-pesticide-use-and-resistant-weeds-the-troubling-legacy-of-ge-crops/" style="line-height: 32px; text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Charles Benbrook, Ph.D. found</a><span style="line-height: 32px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> that the use of herbicides in the production of three genetically engineered herbicide-tolerant crops (cotton, soybeans and corn) has increased, contrary to industry claims that biotechnology will reduce pesticide applications. According to a </span><a href="http://www.wssajournals.org/toc/wees/59/3" style="line-height: 32px; text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">series of studies in the journal <em>Weed Science</em></a><span style="line-height: 32px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, at least 21 different species of weeds Monsanto’s “Roundup-Ready” crops, which leads to an increased pesticide use to try to combat resistance, escalating the pesticide treadmill effect. The latest herbicide tolerant </span><a href="http://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2015/04/epas-expansion-of-24-d-enlist-duo-challenged/" style="line-height: 32px; text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">GE corn and soybean plants are engineered to be used with the herbicide 2,4-D</a><span style="line-height: 32px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, one-half of the mixture of Agent Orange and linked to non Hodgkins lymphoma. Experts expect increased public exposure to 2,4-D through the food supply and in the environment, leading to weed resistance.</span></font></strong></div><div><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></strong></div>