These academics studied falsehoods spread by Trump. Now the GOP wants answers.
Source: Washington Post
These academics studied falsehoods spread by Trump. Now the GOP wants answers.
Rep. Jim Jordan is demanding emails and meetings with leading disinformation researchers, part of a flurry of records requests, subpoenas and lawsuits that academics say have become a means of harassment
By Naomi Nix and Joseph Menn
Updated June 6, 2023 at 1:56 p.m. EDT | Published June 6, 2023 at 1:08 p.m. EDT
Republican House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and his allies in Congress are demanding documents from and meetings with leading academics who study disinformation, increasing pressure on a group they accuse of colluding with government officials to suppress conservative speech.
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Jordan’s colleagues and staffers met Tuesday on Capitol Hill with a frequent target of right-wing activists, University of Washington professor Kate Starbird, two weeks after they interviewed Clemson University professors who also track online propaganda, according to people familiar with the events.
Last week, Jordan (Ohio) threatened legal action against Stanford University, home to the Stanford Internet Observatory, for not complying fully with his records requests. The university turned over its scholars’ communications with government officials and big social media platforms but is holding back records of some disinformation complaints. Stanford told The Washington Post that it omitted internal records, some filed by students. The university is negotiating for limited interviews.
The push caps years of pressure from conservative activists who have harangued such academics online and in person and filed open-records requests to obtain the correspondence of those working at public universities. The researchers who have been targeted study the online spread of disinformation, including falsehoods that have been accelerated by former president and candidate Donald Trump and other Republican politicians. Jordan has argued that content removals urged by some in the government have suppressed legitimate theories on vaccine risks and the covid-19 origins as well as news stories wrongly suspected of being part of foreign disinformation campaigns.
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Will Oremus contributed to this report.
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By Naomi Nix
Naomi Nix is a staff writer for The Washington Post, covering Meta and other social media companies. Before joining The Post in 2022, she was a reporter for Bloomberg News and the Chicago Tribune. Twitter https://twitter.com/NaomiNixWrites
By Joseph Menn
Joseph Menn joined The Post in 2022 after two decades covering technology for Reuters, the Financial Times and the Los Angeles Times. His books include "Cult of the Dead Cow: How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World" (2019) and "Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords who are Bringing Down the Internet" (2010). Twitter https://twitter.com/JosephMenn
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/06/disinformation-researchers-congress-jim-jordan/
Rep. Jim Jordan is demanding emails and meetings with leading disinformation researchers, part of a flurry of records requests, subpoenas and lawsuits that academics say have become tools of harassment.
washingtonpost.com
Congress escalates push for disinformation researchers’ private documents
Rep. Jim Jordan is demanding emails and meetings with leading disinformation researchers, part of a flurry of records requests,
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