Twitter Files: US government-funded organizations pushed censorship of COVID-19 'malinformation' in collaboration with Big Tech

The US government has allegedly been working with major tech companies and other third parties to censor COVID-19 information online, according to journalist Matt Taibbi, who published the latest batch of Twitter Files on Friday.

The files reportedly unveil the Virality Project, a cooperative effort between federal agencies, state-funded non-governmental organizations, and Stanford University aimed at monitoring and combating COVID-19 disinformation — including “malinformation,” which can described as factually true information that could be seen to promote vaccine hesitancy or opposition to lockdowns and other COVID mandates.

According to Taibbi, the project was initiated in February 2021, soon after President Joe Biden took office. He claims that the Virality Project had been scrutinizing COVID-19-related content on a large scale for Twitter, Google, Medium, and TikTok. While the initiative did initially target disinformation, Taibbi alleges it also vetted legitimate information and political opinions.

Taibbi explained that from July 2020, the criteria for identifying disinformation involved assessing whether the information was "demonstrably false" or an "assertion of fact."

However, true stories that could "fuel hesitancy" were also categorized as misinformation. He cited an email from the Virality Project sent to Twitter that labeled information about vaccine side effects or countries banning specific vaccines as misinformation.

10.THE BEGINNING: On February 5, 2021, just after Joe Biden took office, Stanford wrote to Twitter to discuss the Virality Project. By the 17th, Twitter agreed to join and got its first weekly report on “anti-vax disinformation,” which contained numerous true stories. pic.twitter.com/QbJuQ4mROH

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023

In April 2022, the Virality Project recommended that the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) establish a center focused on misinformation and disinformation. The Disinformation Governance Board was created the following day, but was later disbanded due to criticism.

A similar agency would eventually be reformed in late 2022 called the Foreign Malign Influence Center, operating under the Director of National Intelligence, which essentially performs the same functions as the disbanded Disinformation Governance Board.

1. #DisinfoGate PART 2

FOREIGN MALIGN INFLUENCE CENTER#FMIC quietly opened it’s doors in Sept 2022

It’s mission is identical to DHS Disinformation Governance Board

FMIC mission is to counter “malign influence” that seeks to influence public opinion & behavior@elonmusk pic.twitter.com/9JSapMdGAW

— Name Redacted (@NameRedacted247) February 23, 2023

Taibbi also revealed that the Office of the Surgeon General and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were involved in the Virality Project. He referred to the network of tech companies, government agencies, and private organizations involved in vetting social media information as the "Censorship-Industrial Complex."

The Twitter files indicate that the US government has been collaborating with Twitter to control information, as posts containing alleged misinformation on topics such as the origins of COVID-19 or the Hunter Biden laptop scandal were flagged by the network.