CITIZENS NEWS

Congressional report exposes State Dept. efforts to censor Americans’ lawful speech

By isabelle // 2024-09-23

A new congressional report has revealed that the Department of State funded fact-checking entities both in the U.S. and abroad that censored Americans who dared to question the Biden administration’s policies, especially those surrounding the pandemic and COVID-19 vaccines. Their efforts targeted individual social media users as well as independent media. The report noted: “The Federal government has funded, developed, and promoted entities that aim to demonetize news and information outlets because of their lawful speech.” It was issued by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Small Business, who referred to a “censorship ecosystem” that infringed on Americans’ First Amendment rights and prevented some small businesses from being competitive in the online space. The report identifies several entities that took part in the scheme, including the State Department’s Global Engagement Center. The GEC reportedly funded tech startups who worked to detect so-called disinformation and gave them domestic censorship powers. One of the fact checkers singled out by the report was NewsGuard, who used funds from the GEC and Department of Defense to reduce ad revenue for businesses it claimed spread misinformation. Supported by taxpayer funds, it came up with “misinformation fingerprints” to assess narratives and determine which ones should be censored. According to the report, “A system that rates the credibility of press is fatally flawed as it is subject to the partisan lens of the assessor, making the ratings unreliable.” NewsGuard went on to partner with other organizations and agencies, including the World Health Organization, the Office of the Surgeon General, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report notes that the WHO even reached out to search engines and social media platforms to have content removed. Another fact checker identified by the report was the International Fact-Checking Network, which they claim was funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, which is affiliated with the State Department, along with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, and the Open Society Foundations. This group not only detected what it claimed was misinformation that needed to be moderated, but they also worked alongside foreign governments to censor speech. According to the report, their actions were a violation of international restrictions and by targeting independent media, “the scales are tipped in favor of outlets which express certain partisan narratives rather than holding the government accountable.”

Fact checkers are nothing more than government-supported entities trying to control the narrative

University of Illinois international law professor Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., told The Defender that the State Department has been “working to censor those who disagree with U.S. government policies and their globalist agenda.” The publisher of technology news publication The Sociable, Tim Hinchliffe, took a similar stance, asserting: “These so-called ‘fact-checkers’ are not in the business of actually checking facts. They are in the business of controlling narratives … Nobody wanted or needed these organizations until actual truths started getting out.” The House Small Business Committee's chairman, Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas), said at a hearing in June that they were informed the government had been funding “certain third-party organizations” that compromised the competitiveness of conservative businesses online. He pointed out that some of the views that could get a business or publisher censored included the COVID-19 virus being manmade and coming from a lab – something that we now know is true. Of course, the Biden administration doesn’t care what is actually true, and they apparently believe that by censoring people’s speech, they can ultimately create a false reality online that promotes their preferred narratives while punishing those who dare to question it. Sources for this article include: ChildrensHealthDefense.org SmallBusiness.House.gov RealClearPolitics.com

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