Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
NEWNow you can listen to Fox News articles!
Editor’s note: This essay was first published on the author’s blog: Res ipsa loquitur – The thing itself speaks.
2025 has just begun and, for the first time in many years, free speech advocates have a reason to celebrate.
With the departure of 2024, we say goodbye to one of the most reviled offices of the Biden administration: the Global Engagement Center (GEC). I talk about the Center in my recent book, “The indispensable right: freedom of expression in a time of anger” as one of the most active components of the massive censorship system funded by the Biden administration.
The demise of the GEC is a good start. However, like the weight loss resolutions, a much greater commitment will be needed if we are to restore free speech in America. It is time to make the final resolution to uproot censorship, root and branch, from our government.
In December, the biden administration He fought to keep the GEC funded, but Republicans refused to include it in the continuing budget resolution. However, even with the closure of this office, Biden will leave behind the most comprehensive censorship system in US history.
JONATHAN TURLEY: WHAT ABC’S APOLOGY TO TRUMP REVEALS ABOUT THE MEDIA LANDSCAPE
Over the past three years, many of us have detailed a comprehensive system of subsidizing academic and third-party organizations to create blacklists or pressure advertisers to withdraw support for specific sites. Censorship topics ranged from election fraud to social justice and climate change.
I testified at the first hearing of the special committee investigating the censorship system funded or coordinated by the Biden administration. It is an unprecedented alliance of corporate, government and academic groups against free speech in the United States. The Biden administration set the most anti-free speech record since the Adams administration.
The House investigations showed the critical role government officials play in “networking,” or channeling, calls for impeachment or bans on social media. Officials skirted the limits of the First Amendment by using these groups as surrogates for censorship.
Even with the elimination of the GEC, other offices remain in several agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which emerged as one of the critical control centers of this system.
CISA Director Jen Easterly stated that her agency’s mandate on critical infrastructure would be expanded to include “our cognitive infrastructure.” That includes not only “disinformation” and “misinformation,” but also the fight against “misinformation,” described as information “based on facts, but used out of context to deceive, harm or manipulate.”
These groups form a censorship consortium where suppression of speech attracts millions of federal dollars. The Electoral Integrity Partnership (EIP) was created in partnership with Stanford University “at the request of DHS/CISA.”
EIP provided a “centralized reporting system” to process what were known as “Jira tickets” targeting unacceptable views. It would include not only politicians but also commentators and pundits, as well as the satirical site The Babylon Bee.
The Biden administration set the most anti-free speech record since the Adams administration.
Stanford’s Virality Project pushed to censor even true facts, as “true stories…could fuel hesitancy” about vaccination or other measures. The emails show government officials emphasizing that they cannot be seen as “openly supporting” censorship, while other groups sought to minimize public scrutiny of their work.
For example, one article featured the work of Kate Starbird, director and co-founder of the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington. In a statement, Starbird warned against giving examples of disinformation to prevent them from being used by critics, adding that “since everything is politicized and disinformation is inherently political, every example is bait.”
Similarly, James Park of the University of Michigan is shown introducing that school’s WiseDex First Pitch program, promising that “our disinformation service helps policymakers on platforms who want to…shift responsibility of difficult judgments to someone outside the company… by outsourcing the difficult responsibility of censorship.”
The system has layers of interconnected grants and systems. For example, EIP worked with the Global Engagement Center, which contracted with the Atlantic Council on censorship efforts.
JONATHAN TURLEY: ANTIFA TEAM FOR KIDS? DEMOCRATS THINK IT’S CUTE TO SUPPORT A VIOLENT GROUP
The censorship system included scoring groups through a National Endowment for Democracy (NED) grant to the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), based in Britain. The index focused on ten conservative and libertarian sites as the most dangerous sources of misinformation, including sites like Reason, which publishes conservative legal analysis. In contrast, some of the most liberal sites were ranked as the most trustworthy for advertisers.
The system is still in force, but on December 23, 2024, the GEC closed its doors. This is something to celebrate, but not something to be taken as great consolation. It is a redundant and overlapping system created precisely to allow for this wear and tear.
Years ago, some of us wrote about the creation of the infamous Disinformation Governance Board in National security under her so-called “Disinformation Nanny”, Nina Jankowicz. When the Biden administration bowed to public outcry and dissolved the Board, many celebrated. However, as I previously testified, the Biden administration never informed the public about a much larger censorship effort at other agencies, including approximately 80 FBI agents secretly targeting citizens and groups to spread misinformation.
CLICK HERE TO REVIEW MORE FROM FOX NEWS
The system has functioned as a multi-headed hydra where cutting off one head only allows two more to grow back. These censors won’t just walk away and become dentists or waiters. They have censorship skills and this is now a profitable industry supporting dozens of people who now promote themselves as “disinformation specialists.”
Closing the GEC will eliminate a $61 million budget and 120 employees. However, these employees will find ample opportunities not only in other agencies but also in academia and state agencies. There are also pro-censorship sites like BlueSky, which are becoming safe spaces for liberals who don’t want to be “provoked” by opposing views. (Notably, BlueSky hired a former Twitter employee who was fired after Elon Musk cleared into what is now X).
They won’t go anywhere unless the Trump administration and Congress make free speech a priority by eliminating each of these funding sources.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
As I wrote in my book, we need to get America out of the censorship business by passing a law except federal funds for the use of censorship, including grants to academic and NGO groups.
Eradicating this censorship system will require a comprehensive effort on the part of the new trump administration. So here’s a resolution I hope many in the Trump administration will share: Let’s get America out of the censorship business by 2025.