The Biden-Harris administration has lavished millions of taxpayer dollars on research that drives online censorship of free speech, a damning report found.
The Biden-Harris administration has spent $267 million on research grants earmarked to battle so-called misinformation since 2021, according to a Nov. 22 report by government watchdog Open the Books. The grants included massive spending on labeling opinions at variance with government narratives on COVID-19 “misinformation.” The administration also allocated hundreds of thousands of dollars specifically to frame President-elect Donald Trump as a misinformation spreader, in what appeared to be an attempt at election interference and a violation of the First Amendment.”
The federal government also earmarked $127 million in grants to “overcome” so-called misinformation about COVID-19 mandates—many of which were later exposed as ineffective or actively harmful, such as masking and lockdowns. Open the Books explained that “voice[s] were silenced in favor of the ‘expert’ class.”
The Biden-Harris administration exerted pressure on social media companies to censor, but it also offered financial incentives to groups to bring pressure to bear. While federal misinformation grants began during Trump’s first term, the overwhelming majority of grants were awarded after President Joe Biden took office, according to Open the Books. Coincidentally, the Media Research Center found over 800 documented cases of COVID-19 censorship in 2022, according to its unique CensorTrack database.
Indeed, Open the Books explained, “An enormous year-over-year jump in new grants occurred between 2020 and 2021—from $2.2 million to $126 million as the federal government poured money out to address COVID-related ‘misinformation,’ among other projects.” This year, the government still offered $18.3 million for this anti-free speech research. The Department of Health and Human Services, the National Science Foundation (NSA) and the State Department were the top three federal funders of this “misinformation” research.
HHS defines misinformation as “false, inaccurate, or misleading according to the best available evidence at the time.” But such information is fully protected by the First Amendment. Also, leftists often label anything they disagree with as “misinformation.” As Open the Books noted, who is the arbiter of truth, who gets to decide what is the best available information? It pointed out that people were targeted for criticizing the 6 feet social distancing rule, which infamous COVID-19 csar Anthony Fauci later admitted was not based on any data.
Similarly, the feds gave university researchers funding to identify tools and methods of combatting this alleged misinformation. NSA funded a 2022 grant of $200,000 for George Washington University to study how “populist” leaders supposedly prevented Covid “solidarity,” most particularly targeting Trump. Yet the very U.S. agencies pushing censorship have been accused of misinformation, Open the Books stated. This includes their recommendation of COVID-19 boosters, which continued long after other countries had stopped recommending them based on evidence.
Open the Books concluded, “Americans simply cannot trust that continued grant and contract spending and various bureaucratic programmatic activities involved in ‘misinformation’ will not be ideologically motivated to silence critics.”
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
