A peculiar and frustrating aspect of our current political moment is that, while the public is perhaps more informed than ever regarding the corrupt behavior of the ruling class, there is rarely anything that can be done about such behavior. This widening gulf between awareness and accountability has generated massive demand for easy solutions. The uncomfortable truth is that it takes far less time to learn about political behavior than to fix it, especially when fixing the problem goes beyond simply winning a presidential election and requires that one create a massive bureaucratic, legal, and financial infrastructure to match that of one’s political enemies, who have had nearly a half-century head start (at least).
All of this is to say that we must enthusiastically take note of and celebrate the rare occasions on which elements of our corrupt regime actually suffer accountability. As it so happens, one of the most notorious censorship think tanks, the Stanford Internet Observatory, is shutting down in the aftermath of months of devastating exposés detailing the organization’s collusion with the federal government to illegally censor First Amendment-protected speech.
The Washington Post:
The Stanford Internet Observatory, which published some of the most influential analysis of the spread of false information on social media during elections, has shed most of its staff and may shut down amid political and legal attacks that have cast a pall on efforts to study online misinformation.
Just three staffers remain at the Observatory, and they will either leave or find roles at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center, which is absorbing what remains of the program, according to eight people familiar with the developments, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.
The Election Integrity Partnership, a prominent consortium run by the Observatory and a University of Washington team to identify viral falsehoods about election procedures and outcomes in real time, has updated its webpage to say its work has concluded.
The Stanford Cyber Policy Center has attempted to minimize the public disgrace, assuring the public that the Stanford Internet Observatory has not shut down but merely “faces funding issues.” Nice try, but there’s simply no way to sugar-coat the fact that the Observatory is in shambles after the departure of two of its most disgraced operatives, Alex Stamos and Renee DiResta, both of whom the Washington Post piece makes clear have been buried in lawsuits for their nefarious and potentially illegal censorship activity during their tenure at the Observatory.
For those who need a little refresher, one of the dirty little secrets that came to light over the past year is the extent to which the censorship industry was not simply propelled by censorious left-wing radicals within the private sector tech companies, though that of course was part of the story. At times, the government also tried its hand directly in the censorship business, the most notorious example of which must be the Department of Homeland Security’s ill-fated Disinformation Governance Board led by disgraced Nina Jankowicz.
https://revolver.news/2024/06/major-tentacle-sliced-off-censorship-beast-stanford-internet-observatory-whats-next/