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Editor’s note: This essay was first published on the author’s blog: Res ipsa loquitur – The thing speaks for itself.
2025 has just begun, and for the first time in many years, free speech advocates have reason to celebrate.
With the departure of 2024, we said goodbye to one of the most hated offices in the Biden administration: the Global Engagement Center (GEC). I discuss the Center in my recent book, “An Inalienable Right: Freedom of Speech in an Age of Rage” as one of the most active components in the massive censorship system funded by the Biden administration.
The collapse of GEC is a good start. However, like weight loss resolutions, it will take a lot more commitment if we are to restore free speech in the United States. It is time to make a final decision to uproot censorship, root and root, from our government.
It’s in December Biden administration fought to keep the GEC funded, but Republicans refused to include it in a further budget resolution. However, even by closing this one office, Biden will leave behind the most extensive system of censorship in the history of the United States.
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Over the past three years, many of us have detailed a comprehensive system of support for academic institutions and third-party organizations to blacklist or pressure advertisers to withdraw support for targeted sites. Topics for censorship ranged from election fraud to social justice to climate change.
I testified at the first hearing of the special committee investigating the censorship system funded or coordinated by the Biden administration. It is an unprecedented alliance of corporate, government and academic groups against free speech in the United States. The Biden administration has established the greatest anti-free speech record since the Adams administration.
Domestic investigations have shown a key role for government officials in “diverting” or directing takedown requests or bans on social media. Officials avoided First Amendment restrictions by using these groups as surrogates for censorship.
Even with the abolition of the GEC, other offices remain in various agencies, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in the Department of Homeland Security, which has emerged as one of the critical control centers in this system.
CISA chief Jen Easterly said her agency’s critical infrastructure mandate will be expanded to include “our cognitive infrastructure.” This includes not only “disinformation” and “disinformation,” but also combating “disinformation”—described as information “based on facts but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”
These groups form a censorship consortium where suppressing speech attracts millions in federal dollars. The Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) was created in collaboration with Stanford University “at the request of DHS/CISA.”
EIP has provided a “centralized reporting system” to process what are known as “Jira tickets” targeting unacceptable views. This would include not only politicians, but also commentators and pundits, as well as the satirical site The Babylon Bee.
The Biden administration has established the greatest anti-free speech record since the Adams administration.
Stanford’s Virality Project pushed for censorship of even true facts because “true stories … might encourage hesitancy” about taking vaccines or other measures. The emails show government officials stressing that they cannot be considered “open supporters”.[ing]” censorship, while other groups sought to reduce public scrutiny of their work.
For example, one article featured the work of Kate Starbird, director and co-founder of the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington. In a statement, Starbird cautioned against giving examples of disinformation so critics would not exploit it, adding “since everything is politicized and disinformation is inherently political, every example is bait.”
Likewise, James Park of the University of Michigan is shown pitching the school’s WiseDex First Pitch program, promising that “our disinformation service helps platform policymakers who want to… shift the responsibility of making tough judgments to someone outside the company… by outsourcing the heavy responsibility of censorship.”
The system has layers of interconnected supports and systems. For example, EIP worked with the Global Engagement Center, which contracted with the Atlantic Council on censorship efforts.
The censorship system involved scoring groups through the National Endowment for Democracy’s (NED)-backed UK Global Disinformation Index (GDI). The index targeted ten conservative and libertarian sites as the most dangerous sources of misinformation, including sites like Reason, which publishes conservative legal analysis. In contrast, some of the most liberal sites were rated as the most trustworthy for advertisers.
The system is still in place, but on December 23, 2024, GEC closed its doors. That is something to celebrate, but not something to take great comfort in. This is a redundant and overlapping system created precisely to allow such attrition.
Years ago, some of us wrote about the creation of the infamous Disinformation Steering Committee Homeland security under his so-called “disinformation nanny”, Nina Jankowicz. When the Biden administration caved to the public outcry and disbanded the Committee, many celebrated. However, as I testified earlier, the Biden administration never told the public about the much larger censorship efforts at other agencies, including an estimated 80 FBI agents who covertly target citizens and groups for disinformation.
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The system worked like a multi-headed hydra where cutting off one head allows two more to grow back. These censors won’t just go off and become dentists or bartenders. They have a skill set for censorship and this is now a profitable industry that supports a host of people who are now marketing themselves as “disinformation experts”.
Closing GEC will eliminate a $61 million budget and 120 employees. However, these employees will find numerous opportunities not only in other agencies, but also in academia and government agencies. There are also censorship sites like BlueSky, which are becoming safe spaces for liberals who don’t want to be “triggered” by opposing viewpoints. (Notably, BlueSky hired a former Twitter employee who was subsequently fired Elon Musk cleared at what is now X).
They’re not going anywhere unless the Trump administration and Congress make free speech a priority in eliminating each of these funding sources.
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As I wrote in my book, we need to get the United States out of the censorship business by passing legislation barring any federal funds for the use of censorship, including grants to academic and non-governmental groups.
Eradicating this system of censorship will require extensive efforts by the new Trump administration. So here’s a resolution that I hope many in the Trump administration will agree on: Get the United States out of the censorship business in 2025.
