Conservative Group Launches Project To Expose Censorship

When President Donald Trump signed an executive order to protect Americans’ free speech, he signaled what could be the end of the censorship-industrial complex. Now, a conservative legal group is rooting out the government’s anti-free speech apparatus.

Alliance Defending Freedom filed two Freedom of Information requests with the National Science Foundation (NSF) Feb. 28 to expose “federal funding of tools that may be used to censor Americans’ speech” and “cooperation with organizations” that do so. The group will file “more than a dozen public records requests to federal government agencies” to uncover the operations of the censorship-industrial complex.

 Mathew Hoffmann, legal counsel for ADF’s Center for Free Speech, told The Federalist the group may take legal action if it finds the government is violating Americans’ rights.

“I think if anyone’s rights have been violated by the censorship-industrial complex, that litigation will certainly be an option,” Hoffmann said. “Primarily at this point again, it’s the right to know where our tax dollars are being spent to fund censorship of our own people, so that we can all kind of understand and proceed forward that censorship is not the role of the government, that’s not its role to pick winners and losers.”

In one of its requests, ADF sought information including communications between the NSF’s Convergence Accelerator Section and Meedan, the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2018 to Jan. 1, 2025.

The NSF’s Convergence Accelerator Section makes grants and aids in “technological issues” regarding speech deemed “misinformation” online, Hoffmann said. UM used Convergence Accelerator funding to create an online tool “WiseDex” which enables “fast, comprehensive misinformation enforcement.” WiseDex’s “partners” include Meedan — a pro-censorship nonprofit that targets so-called internet “misinformation,” and MIT — which works with the federal censorship hub Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Additionally, UW was awarded $5 million from the Convergence Accelerator to develop “Course Correct,” an online software to “tell journalists the most effective ways to correct misinformation.” 

In ADF’s other request, it sought information regarding NSF’s relation to other groups “that may work to censor Americans’ speech” from 2018 to Jan. 1, 2025. These include the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), “Meta, Facebook, Instagram, Alphabet, Google, YouTube, Snap, Twitter, X Corp., Reddit, or Wikipedia.”

As The Federalist previously reported, leftist lawfare group States United set up a call between Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer’s office and ISD — a London group that censors conservative opinions online, according to InfluenceWatch. The ISD was the recipient of a 2021 grant sponsored by the State Department’s now-defunct Global Engagement Center which “fund[ed] the development of censorship tools,” as The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland reported. Meanwhile, Big Tech companies like Facebook (now Meta) and Twitter (now X) colluded with former President Joe Biden’s administration to censor inconvenient speech regarding Covid-19 and the Hunter Biden laptop story.

“The Biden administration enacted its censorship by asking social media companies to remove information that they thought was harmful, even if it may have been true as well, but that they didn’t want promoting dissent on certain issues just based on the viewpoint,” Hoffmann said. “I think there should be revelations about multiple government subagencies and the role that they may have had in suppressing free speech.”

Hoffmann said ADF has not yet heard back from the NSF on these requests, but the group will be rolling out its other requests in the coming weeks. 

“We’re really hoping that this can uncover and inform the public about any of those inappropriate interactions in the censorship industrial complex,” Hoffmann said. 

The project falls under ADF’s Center for Free Speech, which launched in December. Hoffmann said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and the Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government spurred the initiative, publishing reports that began bringing to light the censorship-industrial complex.

“We’re kind of picking up the fight in that respect and working toward getting a complete record of any censorship that happened, or that may be continuing to happen,” Hoffmann said. 

ADF filed other FOIA requests in January with UM, UW, Indiana University, the University of North Carolina, and the University of California Los Angeles. At the time, it sought information regarding “their participation in the ‘censorship-industrial complex,’ the often interlocking and hidden network of public and private censors who sought to silence protected speech.”

“As pertains to the federal government, we are planning many more,” Hoffmann said. “We’re working to uncover the censorship-industrial complex in all its facets.”

The Federalist, The Daily Wire, and the State of Texas have sued the State Department for using its Global Engagement Center to fund censorship tools like NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index, which discredit and demote conservative media outlets. The GEC is now defunct, though its funding and 51 employees have since been transferred to another “hub.” But under the Trump administration, this hub is overseen by Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy Darren Beattie — a former journalist who has helped expose the censorship-industrial complex.

Trump signed an executive order “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship” on his first day in office. This directed federal agencies to secure “constitutionally protected speech,” ban “conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen,” and “correct past misconduct by the Federal Government related to censorship of protected speech.”

“I think the executive orders are very commendable and step in the right direction. But under the previous administration, this censorship was ongoing, this funding of certain tools was ongoing,” Hoffmann said. “So I think we do need to still have a complete picture of what happened in the past to understand exactly what violations may have occurred and to prevent that from happening again.

ADF hopes to combat the recent rise in “state-private partnerships to censor speech, both at the federal government level, and also at the state government level,” he said. 

“It violates the principles of our Constitution and our society for the government to pressure private actors to suppress speech or to develop tools that can be used to suppress views that the government disfavors,” Hoffmann said. “That’s not the proper role of the government.”

Logan Washburn is a staff writer covering election integrity. He is a spring 2025 fellow of The College Fix. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan is from Central Oregon but now lives in rural Michigan.