Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Nov 10, 2023 6 tweets 5 min read Read on X
Representatives of a US government front group, "Stanford Internet Observatory," denied ever demanding censorship of anyone. They lied, and we have the proof. They got social media companies to censor accurate Covid information in a clear violation of the First Amendment. Bam. Image
Stanford Group Helped US Government Censor Covid Dissidents and Then Lied About It, New Documents Show

A trove of newly released Virality Project reports confirms that the government used a Stanford cut-out to censor true content about Covid vaccines, vindicating Twitter Files reporting
by @galexybrane & @NAffects

A Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) spokesperson says it “did not censor or ask social media platforms to remove any social media content regarding coronavirus vaccine side effects.”

This denial came in response to Twitter Files published by Matt Taibbi in March, which revealed that SIO’s so-called “Virality Project” had pushed platforms to treat user concerns about vaccine mandates and passports as “disinformation” and to consider “stories of true vaccine side effects” to be actionable content on social media.

The Virality Project was an initiative undertaken jointly by Big Tech, universities, and NGOs to combat “anti-vaccine misinformation.” SIO responded to Taibbi’s Twitter Files by claiming that his findings were “inaccurate and based on distortions of email exchanges in the Twitter Files.”

But new evidence shows that Stanford lied about the scope of the Virality Project and that its censorship efforts were undertaken on behalf of the US government.

As Public reported on Tuesday, new documents shared by the House Judiciary Committee revealed that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), created the Virality Project’s predecessor, the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), to censor protected speech. Explains the committee, “EIP reconstituted as the Virality Project” and continued working with the federal government. The Twitter Files also found that the Project partnered “with several government agencies,” including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Office of the Surgeon General, and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Still, Stanford and the mainstream media insist that “disinformation” experts were merely conducting research, and not involved in actual censorship.

Now, an investigation by Public has uncovered clear evidence that the Project was directly and deliberately involved in successful censorship efforts. Public analyzed a trove of newly released Jira system tickets, the Virality Project’s tipline to social media companies. These tickets overwhelmingly contradict Stanford’s assertion that it did not try to get content censored.

The Virality Project, acting as a cut-out for DHS and CISA, worked directly with employees at Facebook, Google, YouTube, TikTok, and more, who were all signed up to their Jira system.

Those companies regularly assured the Project that they were addressing the content it flagged. Companies responded with comments like, “Thanks for flagging this. We have actioned the content,” or “Thanks for escalating to us — our team is looking into this now.”

The Virality Project kept track of actions on the content it flagged, and was frequently successful in getting content labeled or removed by platforms, and in getting users suspended.

The Virality Project appears to have played a major role in one particularly infamous case of Covid-related censorship. On March 15, 2021, Harvard professor of medicine Martin Kulldorff tweeted, “Thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should. COVID vaccines are important for older high-risk people, and their care-takers. Those with prior natural infection do not need it. Nor children.”

“Dear Twitter Team,” a representative of the Virality Project wrote in response to Kulldorff’s post, “This Tweet directly contradicts CDC’s advice.”

“Thanks team — we’re looking into this,” a senior Twitter Trust & Safety policy specialist wrote back.

Kulldorff’s tweet was then labeled as misleading and he was temporarily suspended from the platform. Internally, the Virality Project identified Kulldorff, a renowned biostatistician, as a “repeat offender.”

This process was indeed a deliberate, state-sponsored act of censorship. In many egregious instances, the Virality Project — again, a government cut-out — intentionally and knowingly worked to silence and deplatform social media users. Jira records vindicate the Twitter Files and are evidence of First Amendment violations.

Here are some of the Virality Project’s most egregious, absurd, and anti-science censorship efforts:
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This is game over for the "Stanford Internet Observatory."

— It is a front group ("cut out") for the US Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)

— It is run by a "former" CIA "fellow"

— It lied about what it did

Here's what needs to happen next:

— Congress MUST defund and dismantle CISA. It is a rogue agency that has repeatedly violated the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

— @Stanford President Richard Saller MUST shut down "Stanford Internet Observatory" immediately.

We will not rest until CISA and SIO are shut down. They are a menace to free speech and America's liberal democracy.

They are run by unelected and self-appointed spies and goons who feel entitled to decide what we are allowed to say, hear, read, and write.

They are proven liars, along with the mainstream news media, which spent the last year smearing those of us who blew the whistle on the Censorship Industrial Complex.

Shame on CISA, Stanford, and all of the "journalist" propagandists who defended the censorship regime and the creepy people who run it.

More receipts:

Our ancestors fought and died so that we could have a free country that was run by the people, not by the speech police. It is grotesque that DHS, DOD, NSF, and other agencies secretly created and grew the Censorship Industrial Complex. I hope every presidential candidate will commit to defunding and dismantling it. We Americans are free people. We don't want secret committees of bureaucrats to decide what we are allowed to say, hear, write, and read. Let the Europeans engage in such authoritarian paternalism. Our ancestors invented America to get away from such horrors.

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More from @shellenberger

Sep 16
Wow — massive free speech victory! Europe’s top censor has quit. This comes a few weeks after he got in trouble for sending an open letter to Elon Musk claiming his upcoming interview with Donald Trump might violate Europe’s censorship laws.
Here’s the backstory, including media coverage about how @ThierryBreton got in trouble with his colleagues in Brussels. I don’t know that he quit because of this but it may be that @vonderleyen and others felt he had become a liability in their crusade to censor the Internet:
@ThierryBreton @vonderleyen In his letter, @ThierryBreton says that @vonderleyen asked France to withdraw Breton’s name as a nominee to serve five more years for “personal reasons.” 🤔 Image
Read 4 tweets
Sep 7
Brazilian President Lula and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes say they must block X to protect Brazil’s independence. X is a platform for dangerous, false, and hateful words, they say, and many of those words violate Brazil’s laws and Constitution.

But their censorship goes far beyond what Brazil’s constitution allows. The government demanded that X and other social media networks censor and ban individual people, including journalists and politicians. Such bans are immoral, illegal, and unconstitutional. They constitute election interference and undermine democracy by preventing candidates from getting the word out.

I agree that lying is wrong, hate speech is ugly, and there are limits to freedom of speech. We must not allow people to use words that directly result in physical violence.

But everybody lies, everybody engages in hate speech, and the limits to free speech must never include elections. Imagine what would happen if it were illegal to lie: everyone should go to prison starting with the journalists and politicians. As for hate speech, did Lula express hatred when he praised Adolf Hitler? Does he not express hatred every time he speaks of Elon Musk and Jair Bolsonaro?

People blame speech for the chaos of January 6 in the United States and January 8 in Brazil. But the events of those days resulted from inadequate security, not anything anyone said online. And if the government can censor disfavored election information, how would anyone ever know if the government stole an election? 

Democracy and secure elections depend on freedom of speech. The idea that we must censor speech to protect democracy ranks with other Orwellian ideas like “War is peace” and “Slavery is freedom.” For thousands of years, democracy and freedom walk hand in hand, as do censorship and dictatorship.

Everybody knows in their heart that censorship is wrong. We all know that we are imperfect and do not know everything. We know that we rely on others to discover the truth. Why, then, do so many people want censorship?Image
Please subscribe now to support our fight for free speech And to read the rest of the article!
The crowd was absolutely enormous. Without a doubt one of the largest free speech protests in history.
Read 7 tweets
Sep 5
The Washington Post has been attacking @elonmusk for years for not censoring more. Now, amazingly, it is praising him for standing up Brazil’s dictator. Image
“Whatever the threat to democracy that the accounts Mr. Moraes wanted gone might have posed, the threat from one government official limiting the speech of 220 million people is greater.”
“Taken together with Mr. Moraes’s choice to freeze the assets of internet-provider Starlink, a separate company of Mr. Musk’s, this move aligns Brazil not with the free world but with the likes of China and Russia.”
Read 11 tweets
Sep 2
Thousands of Brazilians are resisting the order by the Dictators Moraes and Lula. They include journalists and Senators from Left, Right, and center. And people in the federal capital, Brasilia, are able to access X without VPN. Moraes’ immoral censorship crusade is doomed.
Read 12 tweets
Aug 31
Unbelievable. President Lula’s own party, the PT, is breaking the law and posting on X. They are like the pig rulers from Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” The laws don’t apply to them. This is a what totalitarianism looks like.
The biggest media company in Brazil, Globo, which has been demanding censorship, is also breaking the law and posting on X. Globo is a state-funded propaganda network. Lula increased government funding for Globo by 60%. This is grotesque. Brazil’s elites are lawless.
George Orwell was a prescient genius Image
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Read 5 tweets
Aug 29
Brazil President @LulaOficial says he respects free speech, the rule of law, and free markets, but he doesn't. @LulaOficial and @Alexandre de Moraes are about block X and have just frozen the bank accounts of @ElonMusk 's @Starlink . Both acts are flagrantly illegal.. Image
Brazil is now a dictatorship. It is run by two men, President @LulaOficial and Supreme Court Justice @Alexandre de Moraes. They are today ending both freedom of speech and free markets. Brazil is no longer safe for foreign investment and its currency should reflect that.Image
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When I first saw this story, I thought it was fake news, but it's accurate. The story is from Globo News, which received a 60% increase of government money under @LulaOficial , and Valdo Cruz is a reporter who is very sympathetic to Lula and De Moraes.

Read 5 tweets

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