In a recent congressional hearing, Daily Caller News Foundation reporter Katelynn Richardson illuminated a concerning trend within the Biden administration: the funding of research aimed at suppressing “misinformation” online through a program known as “Track F.” This revelation is not just a mere footnote in the ongoing discourse about censorship and free speech; it is a glaring example of the lengths to which the government is willing to go to control the narrative and suppress dissenting voices under the guise of combating misinformation.
According to Richardson’s findings, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has been the financial backbone of this initiative, pouring millions of taxpayer dollars into projects that effectively censor American speech. This development is part of a broader pattern of federal involvement in online censorship, from the CDC’s efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic to the FBI‘s coordination with social media platforms to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story, which would have harmed political allies.
What is particularly alarming about the NSF’s program is not just the amount of taxpayer money being funneled into these censorship efforts—over $38.8 million since Biden’s inauguration—but the covert nature of these operations. The NSF’s insistence that it does not directly engage in censorship or partner with social media platforms is a thin veil that barely covers the agency’s true intentions. The discovery of internal communications strategizing ways to pull down or lock pages in response to journalistic inquiries is a stark reminder of the government’s inclination towards information control.
This situation raises fundamental questions about the role of the government in regulating speech and the inherent dangers of granting it the power to arbitrate truth. The First Amendment was enshrined in our Constitution precisely because the Founders recognized the peril of allowing the state to dictate what can and cannot be said. They understood that freedom of speech and the press were the cornerstones of a free and democratic society, not just rights to be upheld in principle but in practice.
The Biden administration’s funding of these censorship initiatives through the NSF is a direct affront to these principles. It is an attempt to outsource government censorship to third parties, thereby circumventing the Constitution and undermining the public’s right to a free and open discourse. This “Censorship Industrial Complex,” as Richardson aptly named it, represents a significant threat to the very fabric of our democratic society.
As citizens, we must remain vigilant against such overreaches and advocate for transparency and accountability in government. The fight against misinformation should not come at the cost of our fundamental freedoms. The government’s role should be to protect and uphold these freedoms, not to erode them under the guise of protecting the public from false information.
