US Stanford Internet Observatory wilts under legal pressure during election year - Because who needs disinformation research at times like these

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Thomas Claburn
Fri 14 Jun 2024

The Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), which for the past five years has been studying and reporting on social media disinformation, is being reimagined with new management and fewer staff following the recent departure of research director Renee DiResta.

The changes coincide with conservative legal challenges to the US university group's online speech moderation efforts, particularly around elections. A Stanford spokesperson responded in a statement that insists SIO is not being dismantled and that the organization will continue to pursue its mission under new leadership.

Stanford's spokesperson told The Register, noting that SIO will continue working on child safety and other online dangers. Just not election misinformation it seems, which is odd considering the year. There is a presidential race in the USA, for one thing, as well as a general election in the UK.

"Stanford remains deeply concerned about efforts, including lawsuits and congressional investigations, that chill freedom of inquiry and undermine legitimate and much needed academic research – both at Stanford and across academia," the spokesperson told us.

The Register asked whether a new leader has been named, whether election integrity work will continue, and whether SIO will operate under the same name. We were referred to Jeff Hancock, director of the Stanford Social Media Lab and the Cyber Policy Center, under which the SIO operates. Hancock, however, had no comment.

Alex Stamos, the former chief security officer at Yahoo and Facebook who founded SIO, moved to an advisory role last November.

According to The Washington Post, only three staffers remain with SIO, which currently lists nine employees.

SIO came under fire last year from the Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, overseen by House Judiciary chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH). Last summer the panel demanded documents from SIO related to its online speech moderation efforts and threatened legal action for non-compliance. Stanford is said to have partially complied.

SIO participated in the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) and the Virality Project (VP), along with other organizations, in an effort to limit online misinformation. Those efforts made it the target of legal groups like America First Legal, which sued SIO and those involved last November claiming [PDF] that the EIP, as a public-private partnership, violates First Amendment free speech rights.

A November 2023 report [PDF] from the subcommittee claimed, EIP was created at the request of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and that "EIP provided a way for the federal government to launder its censorship activities in hopes of bypassing both the First Amendment and public scrutiny." Under the First Amendment, the government is prohibited from policing speech, with limited exceptions.

Two lawsuits and two ongoing Congressional investigations, according to the Post, have saddled Stanford with millions of dollars in legal fees. Hence Stanford's concern about lawsuits and congressional investigations "that chill freedom of inquiry and undermine legitimate and much needed academic research." ®


 
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The kind of academic drawn to work at such a place has consistently been shown to be a heavily-biased and ignorant sort who feel their own opinions are pretty much the truth and any disagreement is nefarious and subversive by nature.

And every lefty college has one.

Fortunately, they're starting to die off because the left has done such a shitty job running things, the economy is running out of the free money they need to survive on.
 
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Catboy Ranch said:
I'm surprised they didn't come out of the gate with the "danger to democracy" claptrap.
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It's implied in the headline and subheading.

Dangers to muh democracy, foreign actors, oh my! Don't worry, the deep state's got y'all backs. El Presidente is a "temporary employee".
 
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hahahaha "internet observatory" like it's some kind of fuckin telescope or something. what an absolute joke, every retard involved in this stupid shit should feel deeply embarrassed. it would be less embarrassing if they were just using grant money to shitpost on Twitter, but being a college institution, you know that at least most of the people working on that stupid project are dead fucking serious about it. good work team, today we found a dozen bot accounts reposting pictures of Hunter Biden's dick and balls... send this to Twitter High Command for immediate processing. the war wages on, my friends.
 
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Clearly it was the wrong sort of disinformation they were researching.
 
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Source: https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/14/...ormation-covid-vaccines-elections-republicans
Archive: https://archive.is/Dr8bA

A major disinformation research center’s future looks uncertain​

The Stanford Internet Observatory studied key issues plaguing online spaces, like election and vaccine disinformation. It’s long been a target of Republican lawmakers.​

By Mia Sato, platforms and communities reporter with five years of experience covering the companies that shape technology and the people who use their tools.


The Stanford Internet Observatory, a small but prominent research group studying abuse on social media platforms, looks to be in crisis, according to a report by Platformer.

Some key staff have departed recently, including founding director Alex Stamos and research director Renée DiResta, Platformer reports. A handful of staff have left recently after not having their contracts renewed, and other members have been told to look for other jobs. Platformer describes the turmoil as a “dismantling” of the research group.

Stanford Internet Observatory research centers on some of the most pressing types of abuse online, including threats to democracy and elections, artificial intelligence, and child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The group’s cutting-edge, real-time research on content moderation has been cited by news outlets around the world, including here at The Verge many times. Stamos founded the Internet Observatory in 2018 after working as Facebook’s chief security officer, hoping to create more accountability and transparency for issues that touch the tech industry, academia, and Capitol Hill.
Stanford didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the Internet Observatory’s future but told Platformer that the Internet Observatory’s work will continue under new leadership and that the university “remains deeply concerned about efforts... that chill freedom of inquiry and undermine legitimate and much needed academic research.” Platformer notes that some of the group’s work, including a peer-reviewed journal and conference on trust and safety, will remain.

The Internet Observatory’s work, like its research into election integrity, has made it a target for right-wing and Republican attacks. Researchers working on Election Integrity Partnership have been sued by right-wing groups who accuse them of “mass-surveillance and mass-censorship.”
The censorship claim stems from how the federal government communicates with social media platforms around topics like covid-19 disinformation and threats to elections. Government agencies sometimes communicate with platforms like Facebook, for example, to share public health information. In a case that has reached the Supreme Court, Republican attorneys general say the Biden administration suppressed free speech when it “coerced” social media companies into moderating certain content on their platforms. Researchers who study these topics and may share findings with the government have become recurring boogeyman characters in right-wing conspiracy theories online.

In response to lawsuits brought by attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, Stanford has asserted that researchers have the right to conduct research and share their findings, including with government entities.

“Stanford will continue to defend its First Amendment rights — including those of its faculty, staff and students, who are free to investigate all manner of subjects, free to collaborate with other scholars and organizations, and free to communicate their findings to the public, to private enterprise and to the government,” the university wrote.

Lawsuits targeting the Internet Observatory and other related research institutions could create a chilling effect for people studying contentious issues online — particularly given the changes underway at Stanford. Individual researchers have faced threats against their careers and personal safety, and the potential reorganizing of the Internet Observatory is likely to be celebrated by the same forces working to delegitimize its work in the first place.
 
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