A domestic censorship industry indirectly financed and allegedly directly coordinated by U.S. government agencies in 2020 to target supposed ‘misinformation’ is now gearing up for the 2022 election cycle after receiving millions of taxpayer dollars from the Biden administration.
The Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) was formed in 2020 with input from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to analyze potential election “misinformation” on social media and “route [its] findings to the appropriate parties to mitigate the impact.”
The group was comprised of advocacy groups and other institutions such as the Stanford Internet Observatory’s Program on Democracy and the Internet, data-analysis company Graphika, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, and the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public.
In total, 35% of the targeted information deemed “wrong” by EIP was “labeled, removed, or soft blocked” by major social media organizations, according to its report following the 2020 election.
The creation of the Election Integrity Partnership seemingly originated from within the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in the Department of Homeland Security. Several students from the Stanford Internet Observatory returned from an internship at CISA with the idea.
The collaboration sought to support government agencies in efforts to “monitor and correct election mis- and disinformation.”
The group noted that while the government’s hands are tied by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, organizations technically outside the government could pressure private organizations to electively censor information contradictory to approved narratives.
Therefore, “in consultation with CISA and other stakeholders, a coalition was assembled with like-minded partner institutions.”
The result was a system where governmental, social, and media groups could file “tickets” with the EIP for assessment and “mitigation” if the organization agreed with the objections of the “external stakeholders.”
The EIP noted in its report, “Of the tickets we processed, 72% were related to delegitimization of the election.”
Stakeholders included technology industry titans such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as other organizations such as TikTok, Reddit, Nextdoor, Discord, and Pinterest.
Civic groups that participated included AARP, NAACP, National Conference on Citizenship, MITRE SQUINT, Common Cause, Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project, and the Belfer Center’s Defending Digital Democracy Project. A number of these groups receive taxpayer money or receive federal grants.
Government involvement exceeded inspiration and funding, however, and actively involved government elements, including CISA, the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC), and the Global Engagement Center within the State Department.
The group rejected the idea that its members were participating in censorship, dismissively referring to the fact that social media services such as Parler “saw a remarkable increase in its active user base, as users rejected the ‘censorship’ they perceived on other platforms.”
Following the election, all four major partners received millions of taxpayer dollars to continue the program.
The Center for an Informed Public’s collaboration with Stanford’s group received $3 million from the National Science Foundation to develop applications of “rapid-response research to mitigate online disinformation.”
Graphika was similarly given $3 million of taxpayer money in the form of a Department of Defense Grant, which does not end until after the midterm elections. The Atlantic Council, the parent organization of the Digital Forensic Research Lab, has collected roughly $4.7 million since 2021.
Watchdog groups such as the Foundation for Freedom Online have denounced the alleged coordination between the federal government and external organizations, claiming that the Department of Homeland Security “acts like a coordinator of a censorship network” to avoid constitutional limitations.