Biden spent millions researching “misinformation.” The details are even worse

A new report from Open the Books, a nonpartisan government watchdog group, has found that the Biden administration has spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on research related to “misinformation” since 2021, a significant increase compared to the first Trump administration.

The increase in spending raises serious concerns about civil liberties and free expression online, particularly on social media platforms where much of the Biden administration’s efforts have been focused.

Since 2021, the Biden-Harris White House has spent at least $267 million on research grants and contracts related to “misinformation” or “disinformation.”

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During President-elect Donald Trump’s first term, the same federal agencies allocated just $6.72 million to similar programs. That means the Biden administration has increased federal spending on misinformation contracts and grants by more than 3,800%.

The Biden-Harris White House spent hundreds of millions of dollars pursuing a censorship effort against free speech. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Disturbing details

The very fact that the Biden-Harris administration spent $267 million on misinformation grants and contracts is deeply troubling. The federal government should not be involved, directly or indirectly, in the fact-checking industry. Nor should it undertake efforts aimed at restricting citizens’ freedom of speech, especially if taxpayers bear the costs.

But the cost and creation of these misinformation programs are just the tip of the iceberg. Open the Books conducted a detailed review of many programs, contracts, and grants as part of its report, and I subsequently reviewed and expanded on some of their findings.

What we have found is clear evidence that the Biden-Harris White House has used funds to support or develop Orwellian surveillance and propaganda strategies, develop methods and tools to restrict speech online, and even to fund highly politicized reports critical of Trump.

For example, Open the Books reports that in 2022, the Department of Health and Human Services provided $2.3 million to the University of Pennsylvania to “address the heterogeneity of COVID-19 misinformation presence on social media among Black and rural communities.” to investigate and identify communities in order to accurately inform the public.” Health News” because “misinformation contributes to confusion, distrust and stress around health behaviors such as vaccinations, mask wearing and social distancing.”

The research description suggests that the project requires collecting and analyzing large volumes of online social media posts, all under the guise of stopping public health misinformation – a term that has been used to describe the silencing of the speeches of To justify Americans who challenged the views of government, academia, and other powerful institutions.

The Biden administration also funded similar COVID-19 misinformation projects at other universities, including the University of Texas and Michigan State University.

Of course, it’s true that health-related misinformation can be harmful to the public, but the Biden administration and many of America’s elite universities are clearly not qualified to speak authoritatively on this issue, nor are they worthy of receiving significant taxpayer funding. After all, they continued to spread false information about public health issues during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

For example, despite overwhelming evidence that mask mandates do not prevent the spread of COVID-19, the Biden administration has forced Americans to wear masks when using public transportation such as airlines. Masks were also required for many federal employees and for citizens entering government buildings. This lasted until 2022 — two years after the pandemic began and long after government health data showed mask mandates weren’t working.

The Department of Homeland Security participated in the government’s censorship efforts, hiring a contractor to investigate “misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation.” (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

The University of Pennsylvania didn’t fare much better. It issued its own draconian mask mandate policies and its medical school published poorly designed research claiming that designed research claimed mask mandates were effective.

Much larger studies conducted over longer periods of time later proved that reports like the University of Pennsylvania’s were wrong, a conclusion echoed by countless public health officials and even some pundits at left-wing publications, including New York Times columnist, Bret Stephens, was supported.

Incredibly, the grant to the University of Pennsylvania is still active and isn’t scheduled to end until 2027, meaning taxpayers will likely continue to fund the research for years to come.

Propaganda machine

Open the Books also discovered that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) hired a defense contractor, Guidehouse, to conduct “misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation analysis.” In September 2023, DHS entered into a $1.2 million contract with Guidehouse.

Public and private sector clients use Guidehouse to combat alleged misinformation online. In a report published by Guidehouse on the “growing threat of misinformation,” the group noted that it helps its clients, including governments, with a “six-step approach to misinformation and disinformation detection.” The six steps include a plan to “configure and deploy the tools and technologies used to monitor the information landscape” and create “counter-messages to inaccurate or false information.”

It’s not hard to imagine how such programs and policies could be abused by federal officials, who have repeatedly been caught pressuring social media companies to limit their users’ speech and limit the spread of left-leaning news Harming politicians and their family members, like Hunter Biden.

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The Biden administration even went so far as to fund partisan reporting on its main political opponent, Donald Trump. In fiscal year 2022, the National Science Foundation paid nearly $200,000 to researchers at George Washington University to develop a study titled “Pandemic Communication in Time of Populism: Building Resilient Media and Ensuring Effective Pandemic Communication in Divided Societies.”

As Open the Books explains, “Researchers in this Biden-era scholarship examined how so-called ‘populist’ leaders allegedly prevented society from coming together in ‘solidarity’ during the COVID pandemic.” Trump’s presidency stood alongside Trump’s presidency the focus of the research is leaders from three other countries.

What we have found is clear evidence that the Biden-Harris White House has used funds to support or develop Orwellian surveillance and propaganda strategies, develop methods and tools to restrict speech online, and even to fund highly politicized reports critical of Trump.

Not surprisingly, the NSF-funded report included a recommendation to give academics, government officials, and other “experts” more authority in dealing with future public health crises.

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A better future?

The truth is that a government that respects the right to free speech does not spend hundreds of millions of dollars finding ways to restrict, combat, or research the speech of its citizens.

President-elect Trump has promised that his administration will defend free speech. If that is truly his intention, and I have no reason to believe it is not, then a good place to start is by eliminating the Biden administration’s troubling, extensive misinformation and disinformation programs.

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