Stanford Group Helped US Government Censor Covid Dissidents and Then Lied About It, New Documents Show
The Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) maintains it “did not censor or ask social media platforms to remove any social media content regarding coronavirus vaccine side effects” in a statement published to their website on March 17, following revelations of the Twitter Files published by Matt Taibbi. These revelations include 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.”
However, 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). Additionally, an analysis of Jira system tickets (the Virality Project’s tipline to social media companies) overwhelmingly contradicts Stanford’s assertion that it did not try to engage in censorship. The Virality Project worked directly with employees at Facebook, Google, YouTube, TikTok, and more, who were all signed up to their Jira system. 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.
One instance includes the censorship of Martin Kulldorff, a Harvard professor of medicine On March 15, 2021, 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.” With direction from the Virality Project, Twitter labeled Kulldorff’s tweet as misleading and he was temporarily suspended from the platform. Internally, the Virality Project characterized Kulldorff as a “repeat offender.”
This is just one instance of an intentional state-sponsored act of censorship. For a complete, publicly available list of censored content via the Virality project, read more below. Ultimately, Jira system tickets reveal the SIO lied about its engagement in censorship.
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