‘Twitter Files’ Alleges Collusion Between Government, Stanford Project to Censor COVID Vaccine Misinformation

The latest version of the journal was released by Matt Taibbi, an investigative journalist. “The Twitter Files” On March 17, there was an allegation of collusion between Stanford University’s Virality Project, and Twitter in order to censor misinformation they deemed about the COVID-19 virus vaccine.

Taibbi claims that the Virality Program (VP) colluded also with the U.S. government.

“Though the Virality Project reviewed content on a mass scale for Twitter, Google/YouTube, Facebook/Instagram, Medium, TikTok, and Pinterest, it knowingly targeted true material and legitimate political opinion, while often being factually wrong itself,” Tweeted Taibbi

Taibbi was called the VP “a smash success” As “government, academia, and an oligopoly of would-be corporate competitors organized quickly behind a secret, unified effort to control political messaging.” Taibbi also said, “it accelerated the evolution of digital censorship, moving it from judging truth/untruth to a new, scarier model, openly focused on political narrative at the expense of fact.”

Twitter announced that it had partnered with the VP on February 17. The VP then informed Twitter that there was no vaccine. “true content which might promote vaccine hesitancy” Included “stories of true vaccine side effects.” According to the VP, such content should be subject to Twitter’s censorship of COVID-19 post. Such content was subject to Twitter’s censorship rules. “demonstrably false or misleading” And that they make misleading claims “must be an assertion of fact (no opinion).”

Twitter users were able to complain to VP about what conservatives called vaccine passports. They require people to prove their vaccinations to institutions like restaurants. According to VP, this backlash had “driven a larger anti-vaccination narrative about the loss of rights and freedoms.”

“By March of 2021, Twitter personnel were aping VP language, describing ‘campaigns against vaccine passports,’ ‘fear of mandatory immunizations,’ and ‘misuse of official reporting tools’ as ‘potential violations,'” Taibbi reported.

The VP even said that they “just asking questions” About the use of vaccines “a tactic commonly used by spreaders of misinformation to deflect culpability.” Taibbi says that the VP “also described a ‘Worldwide Rally for Freedom planned over Telegram’ as a disinformation event.”

The VP declared breakthrough COVID-19 infections for immunized people in April 2021 “extremely rare events.”

“Even in its final report, VP claimed it was misinformation to suggest the vaccine does not prevent transmission, or that governments are planning to introduce vaccine passports,” wrote Taibbi. “Both things turned out to be true.”

The VP partnered up with “[Department of Defense]-funded Graphika, the National Science Foundation-funded Center for an Informed Public (CIP), the GEC-funded DFRLab, and the NYU Center for Social Media and Politics, or CSMaP,” Taibbi stated that the VP is also available. “would later say it partnered with ‘several government agencies,’ including the Office of the Surgeon General and the CDC. It reportedly also worked with [the Department of Homeland Security]’s CISA” (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and Government Engagement Center “among others.”

The Government Engagement Center, which is part the State Department, has reportedly funded the UK-based Global Disinformation Index. It recommended that conservative outlets be censored over disinformation claims.

Taibbi wrote that the day was over. “America’s information mission went from counterterrorism abroad, to stopping ‘foreign interference’ from reaching domestic audiences, to 80% domestic content, much of it true” and that while DHS’s ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ is out … truth-policing is not.”

The Epoch Times reached out to the Office of the Surgeon General, CDC, State Department and CISA for comment