FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Ted Cruz stated the Biden administration “funneled” greater than $66 million in taxpayer {dollars} to nonprofits and tutorial establishments for “misinformation research,” in what he calls an effort by the federal authorities to “censor Americans” whereas making an attempt to “absolve” itself of “liability for infringement of Americans’ First Amendment rights.”
Cruz, R-Texas, is now demanding the State Department, FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the National Science Foundation flip over info concerning their function in “helping facilitate the censorship of Americans’ constitutionally protected speech online.”
![Ted Cruz during Senate hearing](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/05/1200/675/GettyImages-1253906513.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Sen. Ted Cruz attends a Senate Judiciary Committee markup within the Hart Building on May 11, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc by way of Getty Images)
The transfer comes as a part of Cruz’s months-long investigation into Big Tech’s content material moderation and alleged censorship practices. Cruz’s workplace says the continuing investigation has “exposed the extent to which suppression of free speech on social media has been driven by government agencies and non-governmental third parties that receive funding from taxpayers.”
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In letters to the State Department, FBI, CISA, and NSF, Cruz stated the Biden administration “directly” flagged content material to social media corporations, but in addition “funneled money to private-sector third parties, including nonprofits and academic institutions that then pressured social media companies to remove content and accounts.”
“By laundering taxpayer dollars through third parties, government agencies tried to absolve themselves of liability for infringement of Americans’ First Amendment rights,” Cruz wrote.
Cruz supplied examples, together with one through which the State Department made an effort to “counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts” and despatched social media corporations lists of people that they recognized as “inauthentic.” But Cruz’s investigation revealed that these lists included not solely overseas actors however “everyday Americans.”
Cruz additionally stated the National Science Foundation despatched tens of millions of {dollars} to fund “Election Integrity Partnerships” at Stanford University and the University of Washington. Cruz stated these packages efficiently influenced social media corporations into “moderating” tens of millions of tweets flagged by CISA and the FBI.
Cruz pointed to a 2021 interview with the chief of the Stanford University program. Cruz stated the lead researcher instructed taxpayer {dollars} had been “intentionally channeled through a third party so that the government could evade First Amendment liability.”
“Just because the government hires a hitman to kill speech does not absolve the government of guilt,” Cruz wrote within the letters. “Regrettably, the examples described above appear to be just a handful of numerous instances of third parties being awarded taxpayer dollars and other government support to suppress speech.”
Cruz added: “It has also become apparent that our nation’s higher education institutions were often used as conduits through which the government could police speech online.”
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Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., signed onto Cruz’s letter to the FBI.
Cruz asks the companies to supply detailed info concerning their taxpayer-funded grant-making and non-governmental partnerships processes. The deadline for the companies to reply is Dec. 19, 2023.
The letters come amid Cruz’s months-long investigation. Since the onset of the probe, Senate Commerce Committee Republican employees have recognized greater than 100 National Science Foundation grants between 2021 and 2023, which totaled greater than $66 million in taxpayer funding towards “misinformation” analysis.
The committee discovered that NSF despatched $5 million to the University of Washington to create a “digital dashboard” in order that public officers might establish “trending misinformation” and “strategically correct” misinformation on social media; $5 million to George Washington University to create a remedy toolkit and digital reporting assistant for journalists who believed they had been the targets of “misinformation-driven harassment campaigns”; greater than $100,0000 to Georgia Tech to create a program that writes posts for social media customers to counter “misinformation”; and extra.
JORDAN DEMANDS BIG TECH RECORDS DETAILING ‘COLLUSION’ WITH BIDEN ADMIN TO CENSOR CONSERVATIVES
Meanwhile, Cruz’s investigation comes amid the same House Weaponization Subcommittee probe. In June, that panel additionally stated CISA had “facilitated the censorship of Americans directly” and thru third-party intermediaries through the Biden administration.
![Sen Ted Cruz and President Biden](https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/07/1200/675/Cruz-Biden.jpg?ve=1&tl=1)
Sen. Ted Cruz and President Biden (Getty Images)
CISA Executive Director Brandon Wales, in a press release to Fox News Digital in June, stated the company “does not and has never censored speech or facilitated censorship; any such claims are patently false.”
“Every day, the men and women of CISA execute the agency’s mission of reducing risk to U.S. critical infrastructure in a way that protects Americans’ freedom of speech, civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy,” Wales stated. “In response to concerns from election officials of all parties regarding foreign influence operations and disinformation that may impact the security of election infrastructure, CISA mitigates the risk of disinformation by sharing information on election literacy and election security with the public and by amplifying the trusted voices of election officials across the nation.”
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CISA, which was based in 2018, was supposed to be an company targeted on defending crucial infrastructure and guarding in opposition to cybersecurity threats.