Conservatives take on disinformation researchers
Republican lawmakers have launched investigations against scientists who study fake news, accusing them of censoring their speeches and collaborating with the government.
Posted5 July 2023, 08:59
Jim Jordan, a close friend of Donald Trump, heads the parliamentary committee which has opened investigations against researchers.
Getty Images via AFP
Researchers and think tanks that study disinformation in the United States say they face a relentless legal campaign by conservatives, which they denounce as an attempt to intimidate the approach of the next American presidential election.
The study of disinformation is seen as a useful resource in view of this electoral deadline, but the main researchers in this field are the target of legal actions by conservative groups, and investigations by elected Republicans.
These scholars, including from reputable institutions like Stanford or the University of Washington, have worked on sensitive topics, like Donald Trump’s challenge to the 2020 presidential election results, or conspiracy theories about vaccines against the Covid. They are accused by some politicians of collaborating with the government to censor conservative speeches.
A hindrance to their work
The Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, with a Republican majority, asked certain researchers for their e-mails exchanged with government officials or social networks dating back to 2015, according to documents consulted by AFP. Requests that take a lot of time, and incur legal costs, denounce academics.
“It has a significant discouraging effect on the work done to study different forms of false or misleading information,” one of these researchers told AFP. “People are so caught up in the responses to these queries that most of them have almost stopped working.”
In addition to the threats that researchers regularly face in an ultra-politically polarized country, these strategies consist of “harassment tactics” with consequences for their morale, according to another academic.
Bullying
AFP interviewed four of them, who did not want their names published for their safety. “It’s notable and very disturbing that a parliamentary group that purports to investigate censorship is intimidating researchers,” said Jameel Jaffer, a free speech defense attorney at Columbia University.
In a statement to AFP, Stanford University said it was “extremely concerned about current efforts to impede freedom of research and discredit legitimate and necessary work.” In May, America First Legal, an organization headed by former Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller, took legal action in Louisiana to strike at the heart of what it calls a “censorship system”: academics, but also researchers from think tanks, such as the Atlantic Council. One of the complainants is Jim Hoft, founder of conspiracy site Gateway Pundit.
For free speech group PEN America, it’s “a calculated attempt to silence academic research and hamper the fight against misinformation.” Stanford researchers face another complaint in Texas, from anti-vaccine people. They say flagging their posts as misinformation and deleting them amounts to “mass censorship.”
“Censorship of unappreciated speech”
Organizations working on disinformation deny having the power to suppress these publications, and deny any collusion with the government. This is despite everything the angle of attack of the parliamentary commission headed by the influential elected Republican Jim Jordan, who did not respond to requests from AFP. A Trump ally, he accused these organizations of “censoring unappreciated speech.”
Last month, a subcommittee he heads argued in a report that a government cybersecurity agency had stepped in to censor Americans, in concert with “Big Tech.”
Against this backdrop, the Biden administration has backtracked on some of its initiatives to counter misinformation. Last summer, a Disinformation Governance Council, which conservatives called the “Ministry of Truth” in reference to George Orwell’s “1984” book, was disbanded.
In February, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), supported by the US State Department, said it would stop funding the NGO Global Disinformation Index (GDI), which fights disinformation. This announcement followed a campaign by elected Republicans, including Jim Jordan, who accused the GDI of “secretly seeking to defund conservative media”.
A presidential strategy
For many disinformation researchers, these actions against them are a right-wing strategy ahead of the November 2024 presidential election.
“If you want to get away with dirty tricks next year, you have to get rid of this space” research, said a researcher to AFP. “The goal is to make sure no one examines the ground before the next election.”
(AFP)Show comments
2023-07-05 06:59:23
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