Biden-era censorship initiatives involved 90 agencies, independent report concludes

As the Trump administration battles the courts over the president's far-reaching orders and animus toward individual judges, earning a rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts, the Biden administration's four years of alleged censorship via Big Tech collusion and coercion — sporadically blocked in court — continues to unravel.

Ninety federal agencies and components were involved in 57 "distinct" Biden-era censorship initiatives through direct actions, policies or rulemakings, partnerships and grants, according to a report by the Media Research Center, whose prior documentation of news-rating service NewsGuard's alleged bias played a role in subsequent congressional and agency investigations.

While the initiatives happened "behind closed doors," readers should view them "in the context" of President Biden's bully pulpit, MRC said, which promoted censorship of political opponents, called platforms un-American for "declining to contract with censorship outfits" and famously accused Facebook owner Meta of "killing people" for insufficient censorship.

The conservative watchdog emphasized that Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland "refused to prosecute any of the perpetrators" for illegal censorship and his Department of Justice "refused to even launch a single investigation" after a federal judge compared the whole-of-government effort to an "Orwellian 'Ministry of Truth.'"

Building on Trump's executive orders on free speech and artificial intelligence means "learning the extent of the harm the last four years have inflicted – and understanding how easily and swiftly censorship could come roaring back if the American public does not remain more vigilant," MRC said.

The conservative watchdog, whose report systematically organizes and diagrams initiatives but does not appear to have surfaced any previously unknown, is unofficially tag-teaming probes with the House Judiciary Committee.

Last month's subpoena by committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, prompted FBI Director Kash Patel to turn over documents related to the Biden Justice Department's alleged weaponization scandals that targeted parents, Catholics and pro-life activists.

The report showed that DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security appeared in a whopping 15 and 13 initiatives respectively, such as DHS's "collusion" with the U.K.'s Counter Disinformation Unit to "target speech in each other’s countries" and DOJ's "imaginary, alternative version of antitrust law" that requires artificial intelligence developers to collude on "anticompetitive censorship."

One of MRC's more notable reminders is how the prior administration used the cover of fighting antisemitism to coordinate censorship of "hate" through AI.

AI shows up in five initiatives, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken's Partnership for Global Inclusivity with Big Tech firms that dedicated $3 million in taxpayer money to "train AI to favor certain ideologies (and thus censor disfavored ideologies)" and censor purported misinformation, disinformation and hate.

Going the other direction, the Federal Communications Commission sought to regulate political speech that uses AI, a proposal MRC called vague enough to punish "automatic color grading or voice amplification." 

The FCC was also involved in five initiatives, including what MRC called "perversion" of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act by imposing antidiscrimination rules on Title II-regulated common carriers "and then making the bizarre and incongruous choice to exempt firms like Amazon, Apple and Google … de facto blessing Big Tech censorship."

Elon Musk joined the five-timers club as a target, with special prosecutor Jack Smith gagging his social media company X from telling users – including then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump – that Smith was reading their private messages and the State Department was funding a Ukrainian group that sought Musk's censorship for his antiwar views.

The National Labor Relations Board repeatedly harassed Musk before and after he purchased Twitter, including an order to delete a post criticizing the United Auto Workers and warning Tesla employees what unionizing could mean for their stock, the report says.

NLRB blocked companies from "even verbally discouraging" misconduct by employees who support the Biden administration's COVID-19 policies, in MRC's view, when it punished Trader Joe's for firing an employee who "scream[ed] at her managers in front of customers" for removing its mask mandate, skipped shifts and kept agitating for mask mandates.

Much as the second Trump administration's enforcement actions in the name of antisemitism have drawn criticism as attacks on free speech, MRC's report notes the Biden administration used antisemitism to justify sweeping control over online speech.

State's Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor & Combat Anti-Semitism hosted an online symposium – attended by White House official Neera Tanden and U.K. Labour Party-tied Center for Countering Digital Hate – in which "domestic and foreign government officials colluded directly with Big Tech" to censor purposed harms.

The Biden White House promoted "AI algorithms to censor speech and debate" through its National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, which also called on Congress to punish platforms that insufficiently censor undefined hate, "creating a nebulous standard that would make it easy for government officials to coerce platforms into silencing their critics," the report says.

Secretary Blinken makes the first of several appearances in what MRC calls "The Framework for Censorship" – the Global Engagement Center's Framework to Counter Foreign State Information Manipulation, which roped in countries including Canada, the U.K. and even tiny Montenegro to fund "censorship organizations" and direct platforms to censor.

He's mentioned in the funding of NewsGuard by agencies and components including State and its Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights & Labor, Defense and its Air Force and Army, and the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy.

The prior administration "covertly defied" the non-reauthorization of GEC by Congress in December, MRC said, by seeking "to hide career bureaucrats doing censorship work in various sub-cabinet agencies," including a new Counter Foreign Information Manipulation & Interference Hub and State's DHRL, where some GEC staff were tasked with "information integrity."

MRC's recommendations for Trump include removing officials involved in censorship, such as National Science Foundation Director Sethuraman Panchanathan for overseeing the "Track F" grants that target misinformation or disinformation, and defunding "censorship outfits" such as the Poynter Institute, whose fact-checker deemed the COVID-19 lab-leak theory a lie.

It called on Congress to "provide justice for victims of censorship" such as through a bill by Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyoming, that resembles last session's Censorship Accountability Act, which created a private right of action to sue federal officials for First Amendment violations.

"Congress should reassert its constitutional authority and rescind its vast, unconstitutional delegation of power to independent agencies like the National Labor Relations Board and Securities & Exchange Commission," MRC said.