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Reporter Katelynn Richardson testified at a congressional hearing detailing the Biden administration's funding of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) efforts to suppress “misinformation” online. Richardson emphasized that the NSF received millions for its “Track F” research plan, which she described as part of a “censorship industrial complex.” The NSF has reportedly spent over $38.8 million on projects to combat misinformation since 2021, sparking concerns about government-funded censorship of American speech.

Daily Caller News Foundation reporter Katelynn Richardson outlined how the Biden administration is funding research to suppress “misinformation” online during a congressional hearing on Tuesday.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) received the funding for its research plan, dubbed “Track F,” the DCNF reported in February 2023. During the hearing of the Select Committee on Arming the Federal Government, Richardson outlined her findings that the multimillion-dollar program, which she called the “censorship industrial complex,” used taxpayer money to fund numerous projects that censored American speech.

“The effort fits into a broader trend of increasing federal involvement in online censorship, from the Center for Disease Control's labeling of posts during the COVID-19 pandemic to the FBI's collaboration with social media companies to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story,” Richardson said. (RELATED: ‘Did not deny the allegations’: DCNF reporter analyzes the latest developments in the Fani Willis saga)

According to a November 2022 report by the Foundation for Freedom Online (FFO), the NSF has spent $38.8 million on its “disinformation” efforts since Biden took office in 2021. However, the DCNF uncovered additional grants, suggesting that the NSF has allocated additional funding to combat misinformation and disinformation since the FFO report.

“The NSF swears it does not engage in censorship and does not work directly with social media platforms,” ​​Richardson added. “But the taxpayer dollars spent on projects that do so are still concerning, as are the agency's responses to direct questions about its programs.”

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Emails released by the Judiciary Committee and the Select Committee on Armament of the Federal Government ahead of the hearing show that NSF program director Michael Pozmantier sent a message with the intention of “trying to withdraw [the videos] down or lockdown the page ASAP”, one day after the DCNF report was published.

“If the agency's response to legitimate questions from journalists is to develop strategies to avoid attention, why does it have any funding tools to tell reporters what is true and what is false? If its impulse is to hide information, how can the projects it supports be trusted to figure out what information is authoritative?” Richardson asked.

“The government is not the arbiter of truth. Our Founding Fathers understood that, and that's why we have a First Amendment,” Richardson added. “They recognized the danger of government telling people what to believe and targeting opinions that contradict the official narrative. Pursuing information control by funding outside organizations is no less a threat to freedom of speech and freedom of the press than a tyrannical government.”

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