Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, is on Stanford University’s case for its refusal to provide documents about its involvement in censorship. The Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) ran two programs that flagged online “misinformation;” the Virality Project (VP) and the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP).
In a letter sent last week, addressed to Stanford’s legal team, Jordan said that the university provided insufficient documents in response to a subpoena sent in April requesting documents related to the SIO’s involvement in the censorship of “disfavored speech.”
We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.
Jordan gave the university until June 14 or else the committee will “be forced to consider the use of one or more enforcement mechanisms.”
The SIO’s involvement in the censorship was exposed in the Twitter Files, which were published by journalist Michael Shellenberger.
The internal documents showed that the EIP and VP flagged content. The two groups flagged claims of election fraud and claims that the COVID-19 vaccines were ineffective.
“Individuals affiliated with SIO tracked both specific posts and entire ‘narratives’ through the Jira ticketing system and shared them, at a minimum, with large social media companies,” Jordan said.
“Public and non- public information obtained by the Committee confirms that large social media companies moderated content based upon these tickets and other information shared by Stanford personnel.”
