The Stanford Internet Observatory is a narrative curation organization at Stanford University that has reportedly worked closely with the Biden administration and social media organizations to flag and crack down on objectionable speech, particularly regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 election.
Despite proving its worth to those in power, key members of the SIO recently left. Newsletter Platformer, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter, said:
Revealed This week, that ship nearly sank.
background
The SIO was established in 2019 and led the so-called Election Integrity Partnership, which was launched in July 2020.
Tackle He recognized the wrong ideas on the right in the run-up to the presidential election and subsequently launched the Virality Project. Initiative To address “trends unique to the COVID-19 crisis.”
The narrative curation company received $748,437.
Grant After demonstrating its capabilities in the run-up to the 2020 election, it won a grant from the National Science Foundation in 2021 to “support research into the spread of misinformation on the internet.”
SIO
Features Twitter files, and also in a controversial lawsuit soon to be decided regarding some of the Biden Administration’s First Amendment violations.
The U.S. Supreme Court is set to rule on whether the Biden administration violated the Constitution by pressuring social media companies to spread favorable causes during the pandemic and beyond, censoring and suppressing Americans’ protected free speech.
The case in question is
Murthy v. MissouriJudge Terry A. Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana sent the case to the Supreme Court. I was blocked Various groups and individuals within the Biden Administration will pressure social media companies to stop them from censoring “protected free speech” on their platforms.
Judge Doughty noted that the Biden administration “appears to be fulfilling a role similar to George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth,” and enjoined the government from further cooperation with the Election Integrity Partnership, the Virality Project, the Stanford Internet Observatory, or similar projects or groups, for the purpose of “promoting, encouraging, pressuring, or in any way inducing social media companies to remove, erase, suppress or reduce content posted that contains protected free speech.”
by
VerdictThe SIO and its narrative curation division worked closely with the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and other parts of the federal government.
“Stanford and other universities worked with the federal government to establish EIP for the express purpose of violating the civil rights of Americans.”
Renee DiRestaHe is a fellow at the Truman National Security Project and a longtime research manager at SIO.
allegedly worked CIA representatives reportedly acknowledged that the EIP was designed to “avoid unclear legal grounds, including very real First Amendment issues,” that arise when CISA or other government agencies monitor and flag information on social media for censorship.
The House Select Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government
November Report “Stanford and other universities worked with the federal government to establish EIP for the express purpose of violating Americans’ civil liberties. With no federal agency focused on or with the authority to address election misinformation emanating from domestic sources in the United States, there is a critical gap for non-governmental organizations to fill.”
“EIP administrators report misinformation to platforms and communicate with government partners about reports of misinformation,” Judge Doughty’s ruling states. “The social media platforms that participated in the EIP are Facebook, Instagram, Google/YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, Nextdoor, Discord, and Pinterest.”
During the 2020 election, EIP processed 639 “tickets,” 72% of which sought to delegitimize the election results. Overall, social media platforms took action on 35% of reported URLs. A “ticket” may contain an entire idea or story, not necessarily just one post. Less than 1% of tickets were related to “foreign interference.”
The ticket states:
Millions What has sometimes been flagged as “misinformation” in “social media posts” is a true report that EIP believes is “lacking broader context.”
The EIP typically targets content on the political right and has reportedly “called for widespread censorship of social media speech in other areas, such as ‘public health.'”
When it comes to the pandemic, Virality Project has taken on this role.
Matt Taibbi
Shown According to the published SIO email, “After the 2020 election, when the EIP was renamed the Virality Project, Stanford Research Institute joined Twitter’s JIRA ticketing system and absorbed this government proxy into Twitter’s infrastructure, which has the capacity to handle a staggering 50 million tweets per day.”
Taibi
Highlighting In an email, the Virality Project also recommended that social media platforms take action against “true stories about vaccine side effects” and “true posts that may incite hesitancy.”
The Virality Project, which named DiResta as principal executive director in its final 2022 report, appeared to call for “more aggressive censorship of misinformation about COVID-19…the involvement of more federal agencies through ‘interagency coordination’…a ‘whole of society response.'”
“The Virality Project targeted disinformation about COVID-19 before it could spread,” the ruling reads.
The ruling noted that, like EIP, Virality Project primarily targets American content, often without evidence that it is false. Among the Americans Virality Project has named as peddlers of misinformation are Tucker Carlson, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Alex Berenson.
According to Taibbi, the SIO’s relationship with Twitter is “the ultimate example of the perfect fusion of a state-owned enterprise and a private social organization,” the result of which he labels the “censorship-industrial complex.”
Jumping ship
Platform reported that Di Resta left SIO last week after his contract was not renewed. The contracts of other staff appear to have expired and others have reportedly been told to look for work elsewhere.
Founding Director of SIO and Co-Founder of EIP Alex Stamos He left in November, just months after he testified. Transcript of interview Before the House Judiciary Committee.
The rest of the SIO will be “reorganized” under the direction of Jeff Hancock, professor of communication studies, who is the faculty sponsor of the lab, according to the platform. The organization’s Online Trust and Safety journal and related conferences will be published in the former case.
Omidyar Network.
The university has sought to put a positive spin on the organisation’s ostensible dissolution, saying in a statement to the Newsletter that “SIO’s important work will continue under new leadership, including its important work on child safety and other online harms, the publication of the Journal on Online Trust and Safety, the Trust and Safety Research Conference and the Trust and Safety Education Consortium.”
“Stanford remains deeply concerned about efforts, including lawsuits and congressional investigations, to stifle investigative freedom and stifle legitimate and much-needed scholarly research at Stanford and across the academic community,” the university added.
House Judiciary Committee Republican Account was suggested X said the event was a “huge win” and that Elon Musk Said That was “progress.”
While many free speech advocates and victims of censorship alike welcomed the news that the SIO might be scaled back, some suggested similar initiatives were on the way.
Bret Weinstein I got it.“Of course, the enemies of freedom will morph and regroup. We should expect that. And whenever and wherever infections resurface, the natural immunity we have now should be able to thwart them.”
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