The Stanford Internet Observatory, a laboratory focused on combating disinformation research that collaborated with the American government in favor of censorship on social media during the pandemic and the 2020 presidential elections in the United States, is expected to soon close its doors. doors.
According to the newspaper The Washington Post, the observatory lost most of its employees, currently having only three. The last professionals must leave or find positions at the Cyber Policy Center at the same university.
One of the observatory’s initiatives in 2020 was the “Election Integrity Partnership” (EIP) to combat “misinformation” during that year’s election. American government bodies, such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), created by George W. Bush in 2001 to combat terrorism, were part of the EIP.
Twitter Files Revelations
You Twitter Files showed that during the pandemic, collusion between government agencies and civil entities, including the Stanford Internet Observatory, recommended censoring even true information to avoid vaccine hesitancy. Twitter had a system called Flashpoint, used to receive complaints from various government entities against profiles to be censored. In addition to government agencies, NGOs such as the Atlantic Council, Alliance to Secure Democracy, and the Stanford Observatory have actively participated in these efforts.
The Stanford Internet Observatory created the EIP in 2020, which was renamed the Virality Project to expand its activities against alleged misinformation related to Covid-19. EIP placed disinformation warning labels on 22 million tweets leading up to the 2020 election. The documents reveal that the partnership was actually a DHS initiative, despite being presented as an independent Stanford research project. EIP worked through a ticket system to request the censorship of content on social media.
Internal Twitter emails showed that the idea for EIP came directly from DHS and not from Stanford students as claimed. The EIP, disguised as a research project, recommended the removal of content and suspension of social media accounts. The U.S. Judiciary Committee confirmed that the EIP’s true function was to serve as a censorship conduit for the federal government.
The Twitter Files revelations highlight close collaboration between the CIA, DHS, technology companies, and disinformation consultancies such as the Stanford Internet Observatory to control and censor content on social media. Censorship included truthful information about the pandemic and political events, with significant impact in countries like Brazil during the 2022 elections. These actions raise serious questions about government interference in freedom of expression and the use of disinformation as a pretext for censorship.
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