Hany Farid has declared that artificial intelligence image generation has reached a point where it can fool even the world’s greatest experts, including himself.
Farid is a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information and the senior faculty adviser for the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity. He is widely considered to be the world’s leader in digital forensics and image analysis. But according to a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/14/us/ai-deepfake-hany-farid.html">report</a> from The New York Times, Farid is struggling to pick up on some AI-generated content.  
Farid has noticed that AI has improved dramatically at mimicking real shadows, projectile trajectories, plant life, human faces, and sound, removing many of the clues that digital forensics experts relied on to detect deepfakes.
“I don’t trust anything. Every image I see, I’m drawing lines for shadows and doing geometry in my head, trying to figure out what I’m looking at. It’s over,” Farid said. “Within a year or two, our whole visual system will be utterly useless.”
Farid has collaborated with Microsoft to <a href="https://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/news/2020/hany-farid-leads-microsoft-project-detect-child-sex-predators">create</a> PhotoDNA, software used by many major tech firms to detect child sexual abuse material. Additionally, Farid worked with the U.S. military to create scanning software to detect deepfake videos before the 2020 election, according to an article originally published in The Los Angeles Times.
Farid told The New York Times that he is frustrated with how Big Tech is rapidly developing AI with no concern for the repercussions and hopes to retire from the scene and move to a farm in Vermont. 

“I can’t stand this place anymore,” Farid said. “These major tech giants will burn everything to the ground as long as they’re making a profit. They’re not interested in anything that’s going to slow them down.”
According to cybersecurity firm DeepStrike, deepfake files have <a href="https://deepstrike.io/blog/deepfake-statistics-2025">increased</a> dramatically from 500,000 in 2023 to 8 million in 2025, coinciding with a 3,000% increase in fraud attempts worldwide. 

Now that human detection systems are failing, experts are fighting fire with fire by using AI to combat AI deepfakes, such as the AI-powered <a href="https://zinc.cse.buffalo.edu/ubmdfl/deep-o-meter/">Deepfake-O-Meter</a> and Farid’s own company, <a href="https://www.getrealsecurity.com/teams/labs/pr-hany-farid">GetReal Security</a>.
Additionally, experts are advocating for new standards for digital photography to make it easier to determine a photo’s authenticity. 
For example, the Content Credentials movement is <a href="https://contentcredentials.org/">advocating</a> for a pin to accompany digital photos that will allow viewers to “determine the method of creation” for a photo “and see a record of editing history.”
Copyleaks, an AI content-detection platform, has <a href="https://copyleaks.com/blog/5-most-common-types-of-video-deepfake-scams">detailed</a> five major emerging deepfake scams potentially jeopardizing Americans&#8217; well-being.
Celebrity scams utilize deepfakes of famous people to promote products, while catfishing scams involve deepfaking a beautiful person to manipulate lovers into giving money or personal information. 
Fake security footage is being used to prosecute innocent people, and scammers are using AI voice changers to make people believe a loved one has an emergency and is asking for help. 
In the political realm, scammers are making fake videos of political candidates making controversial claims they never actually made.

Changing face using AI generated deepfake technology concept

World’s Best Deepfake Expert Can’t Detect AI Videos

Artificial Intelligence

Deepfake

Fake News

Misinformation

scams

The amount of misinformation and outright propaganda related to the current war has reached absurd levels. Politicians, commentators, podcast hosts, and activists are now regularly spreading false claims, AI-generated slop, and disinformation originating from the Islamic Republic and its allied sources — all designed to portray the United States as being in a weaker position and losing the war.
The latest example came from Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), who <a href="https://x.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/2046345472915206646">responded</a> to a report claiming that Iranian ships were successfully circumventing the U.S. naval blockade with the single word “awesome.” Murphy later defended the post by claiming he was being sarcastic, but the report itself turned out to be completely <a href="https://x.com/FoxNews/status/2046568720781156395">false</a>. Murphy obviously has access to government officials who could have quickly verified the claim, but he couldn’t resist the opportunity to promote the narrative that the U.S. is failing in the war effort.
This has become all too common among critics of the current administration. They are not merely critical of the management of the war or the decision to confront the terror regime in Tehran — they are actively participating in the information war against the United States by consistently promoting false claims that support their preconceived narrative.
Democrats are convinced that Trump has mismanaged the war. That is a legitimate argument to make, but it crosses a line when they actively aid the other side — a terror regime that has killed countless Americans, terrorized the region through its proxies, and massacred tens of thousands of its own people — by spreading falsehoods in the accompanying information war.
Of course, Democrats are not alone in this effort. Several podcast hosts who claim to be on the Right have also gone to great lengths to provide cover for the terrorist regime in Tehran after their previous <a href="https://x.com/AGHamilton29/status/1933334859872862489">alarmist predictions</a> about the likely outcome of a war failed to materialize. Tucker Carlson has promoted misinformation on an almost daily basis, including inventing a claim that Saudi Arabia and Qatar had caught Mossad agents trying to plant bombs, to deflect from the reality of Iranian attacks on those countries. <a href="https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-888793">Both</a> <a href="https://english.alarabiya.net/News/saudi-arabia/2026/03/05/sources-dismiss-claim-mossad-agents-planting-bombs-arrested-in-saudi-arabia-qatar">nations</a> quickly debunked the story. Other recent guests on his podcast have <a href="https://x.com/AGHamilton29/status/2045860836837671387">pushed</a> similarly absurd claims, such as reports of U.S. soldiers being ambushed during a scouting mission. There is a reason these same podcast hosts are now regularly <a href="https://x.com/search?q=tucker%2520RT&amp;src=typed_query&amp;f=top">featured</a> on Russian state television.
The result of these efforts — whether intentional or not — is that they relieve pressure on the leadership in Tehran and make it less likely that the United States will secure a successful agreement to end the war. Such an agreement would require the Islamic Republic to freeze its nuclear enrichment activities, freeze its ballistic missile program, and end its funding for terror proxies throughout the Middle East. While a worse outcome might help Democrats and other Trump opponents politically, it would be disastrous for the United States and the world. Those engaging in these efforts have made their priorities clear.
***
A.G. Hamilton is a writer and commentator. He can be found on X at @aghamilton29.

US-POLITICS-GOVERNMENT-SHUTDOWN

The Information War’s Useful Idiots

DW Opinion

Tucker Carlson

A University of Pennsylvania professor who was sanctioned by a court for acting in “bad faith” is set to teach a course on “misinformation” next year.
Michael Mann, a prominent climate activist and director of Penn’s Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media, announced that he will again co-teach a course on climate change communication alongside Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The course, previously offered at the University of Pennsylvania, focuses in part on combating what Mann describes as a “surplus of misinformation” surrounding climate change.
“The problem isn’t so much a deficit of information; it’s a surplus of misinformation,” Mann said at a journalism conference, arguing that outright climate denial is fading and being replaced by what he calls “doomism, division, deflection, and delaying action.”
Mann recently confirmed the course’s return on a university podcast, describing it as a “real pleasure” to collaborate across Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences and the Annenberg School for Communication.
But Mann’s role as an authority on misinformation should draw scrutiny given his own legal history. A District of Columbia judge previously sanctioned Mann and his legal team, finding “by clear and convincing evidence” that they had acted in bad faith by presenting erroneous evidence and making false representations related to damages claims.
“Here, the Court finds… that Dr. Mann… acted in bad faith when they presented erroneous evidence and made false representations to the jury and the Court,” the <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/yixcqfv4h1idp1xt5elo7/2025.03.12-Order-Granting-Def-s-Sanctions-Mots.pdf?rlkey=yqactvu9h9bpwlyp6q2taaj7h&amp;st=g53sry23&amp;dl=0">ruling stated</a>. The court ordered Mann to pay more than $28,000 in legal fees. The controversy adds to a broader pattern of inflammatory rhetoric and political activism from Mann, who has repeatedly targeted conservatives in public statements and on social media.
Mann has compared prominent figures such as Peter Thiel, Charles Koch, and Rupert Murdoch to the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks, and previously wrote that the Republican Party should be “destroyed.” He deleted the posts, but they were saved in screenshots.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Michael Mann has been trafficking in violence-justifying (wink wink) Tweets for a long time
He is celebrated and rewarded for it in the climate community
His latest won&#8217;t change that <a href="https://t.co/YMpnmxAdWX">pic.twitter.com/YMpnmxAdWX</a>
— The Honest Broker (@RogerPielkeJr) <a href="https://twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/1966493707345019074?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 12, 2025</a></blockquote>
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As reported by the <a href="https://freebeacon.com/campus/upenn-provost-resigns-after-boosting-social-media-post-likening-charlie-kirk-to-hitler-youth/">Washington Free Beacon</a>, Mann faced backlash for amplifying a social media post referring to conservative activist Charlie Kirk as “Hitler Youth,” a controversy that preceded his resignation as vice provost at Penn. He remains on faculty and continues to lead his research center.
The resignation came after Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) <a href="https://x.com/SenMcCormickPA/status/1966307689023287332?s=20">called on the university</a> to take “immediate, decisive action.”
Mann has also drawn criticism for comments interpreted as invoking political violence, including a post referencing “second amendment territory” in relation to President Donald Trump, he has since deleted the post, but it was <a href="https://archive.is/dSu5A">digitally archived</a> to verify.
The course’s co-instructor, Jamieson, is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, which has itself <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gop-officials-demand-trump-admin-suspend-funding-of-science-org-over-climate-activism">faced scrutiny</a> over its handling of climate-related materials. Critics have pointed to the academy’s refusal to remove a controversial climate chapter from its judicial reference manual, even after the Federal Judicial Center declined to include it, citing concerns about bias.
Mann has also <a href="https://x.com/MichaelEMann/status/2034046926208045535?s=20">recently praised</a> the late biologist Paul Ehrlich, whose 1968 book &#8220;The Population Bomb&#8221; famously predicted mass starvation and societal collapse due to overpopulation — predictions that failed to materialize. Despite that track record, Mann continues to position himself as a leading voice on climate communication and misinformation.
The announcement of the course raises broader questions about credibility, academic standards, and whether individuals with documented histories of misleading claims should be tasked with defining “misinformation” for the next generation of students.

Image 3

What’s Being Taught Behind Ivy League Doors? Inside Controversial ‘Misinformation’ Course

Climate Change

Education

U.S.

University of Pennsylvania

Media outlets have employed a photo of an emaciated Gaza child to substantiate claims that Israel is intentionally starving residents of the Hamas-controlled zone.
But the legacy media never reported that the child, now 20 months old, suffers from numerous medical problems — nor that his three-year-old brother looks healthy with no signs of malnutrition, <a href="https://david-collier.com/the-truth-behind-the-viral-gaza-famine-photo/">according</a> to an investigation.
This viral image of a child in Gaza was misreported as proof of starvation caused by Israel. In reality, Muhammad&#8217;s health condition, not hunger, is the issue. It&#8217;s time for the media to correct their misleading coverage. <a href="https://t.co/UnE28pyyrb" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://t.co/UnE28pyyrb</a>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) <a href="https://twitter.com/HonestReporting/status/1949768419491913868?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">July 28, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Published initially on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DMXyCYCN2CD/?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Instagram</a> with the caption, “A body eated [sic] by hunger, and eyes looking for mercy in a deaf world,” the visuals went viral after The Daily Express <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2085539/gaza-palestine-muhammad-israel-hamas-war" target="_blank" rel="noopener">showcased</a> them on its front page.
“Within hours, almost every major outlet was using the image to tell the same story,&#8221; investigative reporter David Collier <a href="https://david-collier.com/the-truth-behind-the-viral-gaza-famine-photo/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a>. &#8220;<a href="https://news.sky.com/story/gaza-faces-mass-starvation-with-supplies-totally-depleted-aid-agencies-warn-13400462" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sky News</a>, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2025/07/world/photos-starvation-in-gaza-intl-cnnphotos/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CNN</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/23/starvation-in-gaza-is-destroying-communities-and-will-leave-generational-scars" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Guardian</a>, <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14939703/Reduced-skin-bones-Gaza-famine-hell-Horrifying-picture-shows-starving-child-plastic-bag-nappy-lying-exhausted-arms-desperate-mother.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Daily Mail</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/24/world/middleeast/gaza-starvation.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New York Times</a>, and The <a href="https://archive.ph/kfN5n" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Times (UK)</a> – they all ran with it, reinforcing the message: Gaza is gripped by mass starvation.&#8221;
“Except this image proves none of it,” he said.
“Wider and unpublished pictures show Mohammed’s healthy brother Joud, who was born on 18 April 2022 and is 3 years old. Mohammed was born on 23 December 2023, just two months after October 7. What we can see from the pictures is that both Mohammed’s mother and his older brother, look healthy and are not suffering from any type of starvation that would be necessary to cause the thinness suffered by Mohammed.
&#8220;This is visible in multiple images we have in our possession,&#8221; Collier continued. &#8220;The published images in all the various news broadcasts and publications have either been deliberately cropped to remove the image of the healthy brother, blurred him into obscurity, or the journalists have only chosen to use photos in which the brother is not visible at all.”
A medical report issued in May 2025 showed Mohammed was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as well as hypoxemia. Collier noted that in a BBC interview with Mohammed’s mother, she admitted he had physiotherapy sessions to help him stand, and the curvature of the spine could well be a result of the child’s cerebral palsy. “In a CNN report published on Saturday, the boy’s mother explained that Muhammad suffers from a muscle disorder,” Honest Reporting <a href="https://honestreporting.com/another-photo-another-lie/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a>.
“From everything I’ve learned, Mohammed’s mother is simply trying to find help for her child,” Collier wrote. “She’s not hiding the truth. She tells the full story to anyone who asks. Yet every journalist who has spoken to her has made the same cynical decision: ignore the medical reality, strip the context, and turn her child into a propaganda weapon.”
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee also dismissed &#8220;Hamas&#8217;s fake narrative,&#8221; writing on X that &#8220;the lie told by the media &amp; Hamas is itself a tragedy.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Hamas&#8217; fake narrative exposed: Truth about Gazan child who made global headlines. The child’s health is no less tragic but the lie told by the media &amp; Hamas is itself a tragedy. <a href="https://t.co/MdUEPAcO33" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://t.co/MdUEPAcO33</a>
— Ambassador Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) <a href="https://twitter.com/GovMikeHuckabee/status/1949793740882649521?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">July 28, 2025</a></blockquote>
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The media also pushed another lie about the Gazan child.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
This is what a modern blood libel looks like:
A sick child. A hijacked photo. A lie that spreads faster than truth.
His name is Osama al-Raqab. He has cystic fibrosis, a serious genetic illness.
He’s been in Italy receiving treatment since June 12. Israel enabled his medical… <a href="https://t.co/Sh8UBK3HVh" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pic.twitter.com/Sh8UBK3HVh</a>
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) <a href="https://twitter.com/IsraelMFA/status/1949781081751765052?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">July 28, 2025</a></blockquote>
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“Hamas cannot afford to lose <a href="https://x.com/AGHamilton29/status/1948701831040811068" target="_blank" rel="noopener">control</a> over aid distribution – not if it intends to remain the ruling power in post-war Gaza,” Collier posited. “Channeling or controlling aid has always been one of the terrorist group’s most <a href="https://archive.ph/MywhU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reliable</a> sources of income. That’s why it has been essential for Hamas to discredit the US-Israeli <a href="https://www.gov.il/en/pages/gaza-humanitarian-foundation-operational-update" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GHF</a> aid <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/07/1165396" target="_blank" rel="noopener">program </a>and portray it as a failure. This has included an almost <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20rz63g1zko" target="_blank" rel="noopener">daily</a> pantomime of <a href="https://x.com/mishtal/status/1946619392118210608" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unverified</a> claims that hundreds have been killed in Israeli attacks while queuing for aid. Yet in the most documented conflict zone in history, credible video evidence remains conspicuously absent = despite claims of daily occurrences.”
“There is plenty of publicly available <a href="https://x.com/Aizenberg55/status/1948009090841731308?t=XV2bpG8Dm755IFqW7P6ecw&amp;s=19" target="_blank" rel="noopener">information</a> showing that significant quantities of food are entering Gaza. But with local <a href="https://x.com/AGHamilton29/status/1948701831040811068" target="_blank" rel="noopener">media</a> firmly under the control of Hamas, none of this gets reported,” he stated. “Instead of helping facilitate aid delivery, UN agencies have imposed impossible conditions, <a href="https://archive.ph/XNkGg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stalling</a> convoys and leaving hundreds of trucks abandoned – their contents rotting just a short distance from those in need. &#8230; Let’s call this what it is: The UN, UNRWA and other NGOs are not prioritizing the safety of Palestinian civilians or indeed getting aid to a population they maintain are in desperate and immediate need of food. Instead it seems, they are prioritizing a political agenda that aligns with – and thus ensures – the survival of Hamas. They’re not neutral. They’re enablers.”
Collier’s comments were buttressed by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who told NBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday, that “Israel, since this war began, has supplied over 94,000 truckloads full of food. It&#8217;s enough food to feed two million people for two years, trying to get that into Gaza. But Hamas has stolen the food, a huge amount. In fact in 2024, the numbers are that Hamas profited over $500 million in stolen food aid that was supposed to go to these poor people who needed it. That&#8217;s half of their budget.”

Fake news against white background

Media Share Misleading Images Of Gazan Child To Falsely Accuse Israel Of Mass Starvation

Gaza

Israel

Media

Media Bias

Propaganda

Starvation

World

Russia and Iran are attempting to sow division among President Donald Trump&#8217;s &#8220;Make America Great Again&#8221; movement by amplifying deceptive voices and opinions “masquerading as MAGA loyalists,” according to a new report.
The report comes around high-stakes talks the Trump administration has had with Russia on ending the war in Ukraine and Iran on ending its nuclear enrichment capability.
The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) report, titled “<a href="https://networkcontagion.us/reports/6-18-25-false-flags-and-fake-maga-how-foreign-and-inauthentic-networks-use-fake-speech-to-destabilize-the-right-from-within/">False Flags and Fake MAGA: How Foreign and Inauthentic Networks Use Fake Speech to Destabilize the Right from Within</a>,” states that Russia and Iran’s “coordinated playbook delegitimized every fresh headline as a false narrative, amplified Tehran’s lines, and accused Donald Trump of complicity and moral corruption.”
Those efforts exploited what the institute called a “false flag reflex,” a “conditioned response that turns every major atrocity into a trigger for trending conspiracy claims.” The report listed the Uvalde, Texas, shooting, the October 7 Hamas massacre of more than 1200 people in Israel, the attempted Trump assassinations, as well as other domestic attacks.
“In the days following these crises, Kremlin-affiliated propagandists and Iranian state-linked media are able to rapidly inject narratives that are taken up by MAGA-impostor influencers, who then inject them into MAGA-branded spaces, often within minutes of breaking news,” the report asserted, “During one such activation window, 650,000 posts supporting false flag conspiracies drew nearly four million interactions, powered by a pipeline of Kremlin-affiliated propagandists, spam-bot networks, and domestic influencers such as Nick Fuentes, Jake Shields, and Jackson Hinkle.”
“These figures, who have long been associated with right-wing cultural commentary, first used their platforms to propagate Kremlin-seeded narratives; these influential accounts then turned on Trump himself in a coordinated assault following a public break between Elon Musk and the president,” it continued. “In the lead-up to the war with Iran, this network then pivoted outward and amplified false Iranian claims that the International Atomic Energy Agency was operating under foreign control, echoing Tehran’s strategic messaging.”
NCRI added that their “findings suggest that what appears to be grassroots disillusionment may in fact reflect foreign-directed efforts to fracture American identity from within.”
“If you talk to Republicans right now, more than 80% of them support the war against Iran,” an NCRI analyst stated, according to the <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/06/19/us-news/armies-of-kremlin-and-iran-bots-aimed-at-attempting-to-destroy-maga-report/">New York Post</a>. “But if you go on Twitter you get the sense that there is a civil war raging. This is exactly the purpose of the psychological operation — to destabilize people’s perceptions of institutions that are supposed to protect us.”
An analysis of the main accounts driving such narratives appears to show a coordinated effort, according to the report.
“To identify key narrative drivers, NCRI analyzed X accounts with the highest audience engagement on ‘foreign flag’ posts,” the report stated. The report added that &#8220;he leading amplifiers split into two dominant clusters,&#8221; breaking them down as &#8220;foreign-linked actors&#8221; and &#8220;US-based influencers with MAGA branding&#8230;who gave the campaign domestic legitimacy.&#8221;
&#8220;Despite differing origin points, the accounts converged in timing, tone, and target, suggesting coordinated amplification across aligned ecosystems,” the report said.

Russia, Iran

Russia, Iran Boost Accounts ‘Masquerading As MAGA Loyalists’ To Sow Division In U.S.

Iran

Russia

The misinformation published on social media sites about Israel is now being destroyed by fact-checkers all across the internet.
After an image possibly fomented by Iran of a downed Israeli fighter jet went viral, and other fake images were purveyed that also targeted Israel, a website devoted to defending Israel from the myriad falsehoods spread about it by antisemites demolished the narrative in a series of posts on X.
“Iran couldn’t down an F-35, so it conjured one with AI. A ‘destroyed jet,’ a ‘leveled airport,’ even a Star Wars Star Destroyer hidden under Tel Aviv—all fabricated and pushed out as proof of victory,” Honest Reporting pointed out. When someone hilariously posted a claim that Israel was hiding F-35 jets and submarines under an apartment building, Honest Reporting gibed, “This isn’t in the sub-level of a Tel Aviv apartment building. It’s an Imperial Star Destroyer from Star Wars.”
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Iran couldn’t down an F-35, so it conjured one with AI. A “destroyed jet,” a “leveled airport,” even a Star Wars Star Destroyer hidden under Tel Aviv—all fabricated and pushed out as proof of victory. ⬇️ <a href="https://t.co/lmR76QPyGA">pic.twitter.com/lmR76QPyGA</a>
&mdash; HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) <a href="https://twitter.com/HonestReporting/status/1935650076942037265?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 19, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&nbsp;
“Look closely: tail fins installed backwards, an engine still glowing, untouched grass, absurd scale. Each detail betrays the image, but the fakes raced around the internet long before anyone asked questions,” Honest Reporting noted.
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Look closely: tail fins installed backwards, an engine still glowing, untouched grass, absurd scale. Each detail betrays the image, but the fakes raced around the internet long before anyone asked questions. <a href="https://t.co/rHzhotR6oX">pic.twitter.com/rHzhotR6oX</a>
&mdash; HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) <a href="https://twitter.com/HonestReporting/status/1935650078351311109?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 19, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&nbsp;
D-Intent Data, another site devoted to combating misinformation posted on X, “A terrifying video showing a massive explosion, thick black smoke rising into the sky, and people fleeing the scene is being circulated with the claim that it shows Iranian missile strikes on Israel amid the ongoing tensions.”
“However, we found that the video is actually from the Russia-Ukraine war. According to reports, it shows the aftermath of a Ukrainian drone attack in January 2025 that caused fires at a Russian oil refinery in the Ryazan region,” the post continued. “INTENT: Propaganda accounts are circulating old videos from the Russia-Ukraine war with misleading claims to set their narrative over the ongoing tensions in the Middle East.”
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However, we found that the video is actually from the Russia-Ukraine war. According to reports, it shows the aftermath of a Ukrainian drone attack in January 2025 that caused fires at a Russian oil refinery in the Ryazan region. (2/3) <a href="https://t.co/srbndFGu94">pic.twitter.com/srbndFGu94</a>
&mdash; D-Intent Data (@dintentdata) <a href="https://twitter.com/dintentdata/status/1935268143838150970?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 18, 2025</a></blockquote>
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INTENT: Propaganda accounts are circulating old videos from the Russia-Ukraine war with misleading claims to set their narrative over the ongoing tensions in the Middle East. (3/3)<a href="https://t.co/v7rEfC7DFQ">https://t.co/v7rEfC7DFQ</a>
&mdash; D-Intent Data (@dintentdata) <a href="https://twitter.com/dintentdata/status/1935268150737838406?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 18, 2025</a></blockquote>
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“An unofficial Iranian ‘news’ outlet is peddling fake images to push blatant disinformation in [a] time of conflict. This isn’t journalism- it’s manipulation. Fabricating visuals to deceive people is shameless and dangerous,” Priyankka Deo, professor and host of “The Indian Abroad,” wrote on X.
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An unofficial Iranian &quot;news&quot; outlet is peddling fake images to push blatant disinformation in aa time of conflict. This isn’t journalism- it’s manipulation.
Fabricating visuals to deceive people is shameless and dangerous. <a href="https://t.co/9yNqkNQHTX">https://t.co/9yNqkNQHTX</a>
&mdash; Priyankka Deo (@priyankadeo) <a href="https://twitter.com/priyankadeo/status/1934789493699055829?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 17, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Fact or Fake concept, change wooden cube

Fact Checkers Destroy Fake News And False Narratives About Israel

Fact Check

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Ben Shapiro that the closure of the Global Engagement Center (GEC) put an end to a State Department agency that “was labeling American speech by Americans as foreign interference.”
“It metastasized and metamorphosed into a government-run entity that was targeting political speech in America, labeling it disinformation and silencing it, all paid for by the American taxpayers directly and indirectly,” Rubio said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Biden’s regime used YOUR tax dollars to censor you. <a href="https://twitter.com/SecRubio?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SecRubio</a> is nuking their propaganda machine—firing the censors, ending the abuse, restoring free speech.
Full breakdown on The Ben Shapiro Show tomorrow. Don’t miss it. <a href="https://t.co/5V0KptOZyg">pic.twitter.com/5V0KptOZyg</a>
— The Ben Shapiro Show (@BenShapiroShow) <a href="https://twitter.com/BenShapiroShow/status/1912552542719902129?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 16, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> 
President Donald Trump closed the agency, which was created to counter terrorists, but eventually shifted its focus to combating domestic “misinformation,” via executive order.
“What we are announcing today is that we are taking the whole thing down,” Rubio said. “We’re going to be in the business of promoting free speech in America and around the world.”
Rubio added that the organization’s record will be investigated for being “used as a weapon against the American people.”
The GEC was created in 2011 under President Barack Obama as the Center for Strategic Counter Terrorism Communications. It was renamed the GEC in 2016. The organization was tasked with coordinating government communications “aimed at countering foreign terrorist propaganda, particularly from groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda.” Its mission later expanded to countering misinformation from adversaries, including Russia, China, and Iran.
But after the 2016 election, the agency turned its focus from terrorists to countering &#8220;misinformation&#8221; on American social media platforms, which was deemed a national security threat. GEC established an office in Silicon Valley to ramp up pressure on social media companies. The agency is accused of funding projects that created blacklists of media companies, especially right-wing media.
“They started it by saying Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and all of these terrible groups are radicalizing people online, we should do something about it,” Rubio said. “Then it metastasized, and they [said], ‘There is foreign interference in our elections, we need to start going after that. Well then, by 2020, it became a big movement to go after voices inside of American politics and begin to label people.”
Although GEC was forbidden from operating on Americans as a State Department program, it is believed that the organization may have circumvented the ban by funding private companies to classify news as “misinformation.” It reportedly paid groups like Global Disinformation Index and NewsGuard.
The former labeled outlets, including The Daily Wire, as “risky” and put them on its “Dynamic Exclusion List” that was distributed to advertisers. In response, The Daily Wire, The Federalist, and the State of Texas <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/daily-wire-texas-ag-ask-court-to-block-state-departments-domestic-misinformation-efforts">sued</a> the GEC for working to “render unprofitable, disfavored press outlets by funding the infrastructure, development, and marketing and promotion of censorship technology and private censorship enterprises to covertly suppress speech of a segment of the American press.”
“The issue here is they put labels on people and then that was used to go to social media companies and used to go to outlets to say you have to deplatform these people, you have to cut back on how much views they’re getting,” Rubio said.
The organization fought to censor “conspiracy theories,” including the belief that the coronavirus came from a Chinese lab, which has since been <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/cia-assesses-chinese-lab-leak-responsible-for-coronavirus-pandemic">echoed by the CIA</a>.
When the GEC hit its eight-year sunset, Republicans refused to refund it, leading to the Biden Administration rebranding it under a new name but with similar staff.

Senate Holds Confirmation Hearing For Secretary Of State Nominee Marco Rubio

Marco Rubio Tells Ben Shapiro Why He Nuked State Department’s Censorship Agency

Ben Shapiro

Marco Rubio

State Department

A rapid response team created by the Democratic National Committee shared a fake video of Donald Trump Jr. purportedly saying the U.S. &#8220;should have been sending weapons to Russia,&#8221; not Ukraine.
FactPostNews posted the video of Trump Jr. speaking with someone who prompted, “But they forget that Ukraine isn’t the kind of country you go all in on — this is ridiculous,” Mediaite <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/news/viral-video-of-don-jr-arguing-america-should-have-been-sending-weapons-to-russia-is-fake/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>, adding, “The alleged comments went viral on social media, and were promoted by a number of prominent accounts including <a href="https://archive.ph/keItD" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FactPost</a>, which is run by the Democratic National Committee.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The Democratic National Committee shared a fake clip of Donald Trump Jr. saying the US should have sent weapons to Russia, not Ukraine. <a href="https://t.co/pJQPTV8hwZ">https://t.co/pJQPTV8hwZ</a>
— Andy Kaczynski (@KFILE) <a href="https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1894873341107863640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
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The video reportedly shows Trump Jr. responding, “I honestly can’t imagine anyone in their right mind picking Ukraine as an ally when Russia is the other option. I mean, just think about it: Massive nuclear power loaded with natural resources everyone needs, literally the biggest country on the planet. And ha ha, there’s Ukraine, which has Chernobyl, and some radiation-proof dogs. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is like, ‘Oh, yeah, this is definitely the ally we need. Let’s dump all our money into them.’ Honestly, if anything, the U.S. should have been sending weapons to Russia.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I deleted a post with a clip of Don Jr talking abt Russia bc I&#39;m having a hard time tracking down the source of it. It&#39;s circulating on a number of big X accounts, but when I scrolled through the podcast from which it purportedly came, I couldn&#39;t find original soundbite. Will…
&mdash; Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1894849661422178366?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Democratic National Committee <a href="https://democrats.org/news/icymi-dnc-launches-new-factpost-digital-accounts-economic-messaging-to-take-on-trumps-billionaire-cabinet-as-confirmation-hearings-kick-off/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> the formation of FactPostNews in mid-January, heading the announcement, “DNC Launches New FactPost Digital Accounts, Economic Messaging to Take on Trump’s ‘Billionaire Cabinet’ as Confirmation Hearings Kick Off.” In the announcement, the DNC hilariously trumpeted the “wildly popular @KamalaHQ social media team” as they stated:
<blockquote>
The Democratic National Committee is tapping veterans of the wildly popular @KamalaHQ social media team for a new rapid response push ahead of Donald Trump’s return to office. … The new rapid response @FactPostNews initiative will try to combat online misinformation and respond to Trump administration actions by pushing out memes, videos and graphics. … The DNC is also teeing up fresh economic attacks on Trump as he takes office, per a memo obtained by Axios. &#8230; @FactPostNews will start on X, Threads, and Bluesky and will eventually expand to TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram.
</blockquote>

President Trump Holds MAGA Rally

DNC-Created Group Promotes Fake Video Of Trump Jr. Urging Arms Sales To Russia

Democratic National Committee

Donald Trump Jr.

General

Politics

A grant from the National Science Foundation went to George Washington University to police so-called misinformation and harassment online.
The grant, which began in September 2022, allocated $5 million to GWU to address “the links between two significant problems impacting trust in contemporary communications systems: (1) The broad and rapid spread of misinformation and (2) abuse and harassment directed at members of expert communities,” <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_2230683_4900" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the grant summary says</a>.
“Misinformation-driven harassment campaigns have particularly large impacts on those at the forefront of efforts to accurately inform the public, including journalists, scientists, and public health officials,” the grant continues. “As a result, this harassment undermines confidence in pivotal sources of knowledge and reduces expert participation in the information ecosystem.”
The grant provides no examples of what “misinformation” needs to be corrected, what “harassment” took place, or even which “experts” were being harassed.
Given the timing of the grant, it is likely that the “misinformation” being targeted was the same “misinformation” the Biden administration warned against: Conservatives pointing out facts with which the Left disagrees. For example, for years the idea that the COVID-19 virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China was considered misinformation, yet now it is the dominating theory about where the virus originated. Combatting misinformation has always been less about actual misinformation and more about censorship.
In November, The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-admin-spent-267m-on-grants-mentioning-misinformation-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> that the Biden administration spent at least $267 million on research grants to combat “misinformation,” but the administration itself <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/mary-poppins-of-disinformation-returns-with-new-group-to-defend-disinformation-industry" target="_blank" rel="noopener">promoted</a> misinformation.
Likewise, “harassment” has also meant criticism of “experts” anointed by the Left – who also agree with Leftist policies such as endless masking, rather than the doctors who spoke out against such policies.
A Daily Wire inquiry to George Washington University went unanswered prior to press time.
The grant to GWU went to creating “a socio-technical system that provides real-time support to experts experiencing online harassment” and would focus on “journalists” in the beginning, but expand to others.
The system would include: “(1) personalized assistance with digital safety and security, (2) support monitoring and reporting abuse, and (3) help identifying and building a community care system.”
That community care system would be “[g]rounded in best practices from trauma-informed care,” which has also been weaponized in certain situations. For example, colleges and universities use “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/junk-science-behind-trauma-informed-investigations-ashe-schow" target="_blank" rel="noopener">trauma-informed care</a>” to insist women claiming to be the victims of sexual assault are telling the truth because they exhibit the actions of some other women who have been victims. That translates into absurd levels of belief, including insisting that women who lie about details of the alleged encounter or continue to send loving messages to their alleged attacker are only doing so out of trauma.

Joe Biden

Biden Admin Gave University $5 Million To Combat ‘Misinformation’ And Harassment of ‘Experts’

Biden Administration

George Washington University

It’s one thing to hear the alarm go off … and another to roll out of bed and hit the ground running. After several years of increasing revelations about the growing complex of private enterprises, non-profit organizations, and governments — federal and state — that have been censoring Americans’ speech, it’s refreshing to see political leadership that throws back the covers and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-the-weaponization-of-the-federal-government/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">confronts the danger head-on</a>.
Our newly re-elected president, to his credit, seems clear-eyed on what we’re facing. “If we don’t have free speech, then we just don’t have a free country — it’s as simple as that,” now President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNcLWKdyiOY&amp;t=403s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told the nation</a> shortly after the November election. “If this most fundamental right is allowed to perish, then the rest of our rights and liberties will topple … like dominoes.”
Few people in the public eye have as much reason as the president to take seriously the blunt instrument of political censorship being wielded against all Americans by the <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Biden-WH-Censorship-Report-final.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">federal government</a>, its <a href="https://www.standingforfreedom.com/2023/11/new-york-announces-it-will-take-citizen-surveillance-and-censorship-to-the-next-level/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blue state allies</a>, and their <a href="https://adflegal.org/article/free-speech-issue-our-generation-corporate-cancellations-threat-freedom/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">private enterprise proxies</a>. Even fewer are in so ideal a position to do something about that threat.
The mere fact that Trump is beginning his second term signals his remarkable personal triumph over the massive campaign of censorship hurled against him over the last 10 years. He was still serving his first term when he found himself removed from Facebook, invisible on Google, and locked out of what was then called Twitter.
“This censorship is unlawful, it’s unconstitutional, and it’s completely un-American,” he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4d6jiGEXWU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in 2021, announcing a class-action lawsuit against the three platforms. “We’re demanding an end to the shadow-banning, a stop to the silencing, and a stop to the blacklisting, banishing, and canceling that you know so well.” Four years don’t seem to have assuaged his determination to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNcLWKdyiOY&amp;t=4s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lay an axe</a> to the roots of the problem.
He won’t be swinging his axe alone. Another key member of the incoming administration, Elon Musk, has already taken some major initiatives, buying Twitter and rebranding it as “X,” after <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60979656" target="_blank" rel="noopener">raising his own questions</a> about political censorship on major social media platforms.
And Rep. Jim Jordan’s congressional subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government has released multiple reports—including <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/final-report-weaponization-federal-government" target="_blank" rel="noopener">one</a> last month detailing the Biden administration’s largely successful “monthslong campaign … to coerce large companies … to censor books, videos, posts, and other content online.” This campaign, the committee’s report concluded, “needlessly imposed harm and suffering on Americans across the country.”
Earlier this month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg publicly <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPhY5ggQK08" target="_blank" rel="noopener">confirmed</a> those findings, describing how Biden administration officials angrily and aggressively demanded that Facebook remove Covid-related content, “even things that were facts, or memes and humor. When we refused, we found ourselves under investigation by several agencies.” His was one of many social media platforms, he admitted, that buckled under the government’s pressure.
In fact, these revelations are only the tip of a very large iceberg. In recent years, an illegal Cold War against unwelcome messaging and messengers has targeted <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNhGAWtzbTY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">schoolchildren</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qvt5IBRBQ8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">college students</a>, <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/ohio-school-district-coughs-450k-settle-free-speech-case-teacher?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">teachers</a>, <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/families-doctors-affirm-counseling-based-biological-reality-effective?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">counselors</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3vyja7NKrM">artists</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZE6KKpbj1U&amp;t=2s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pregnancy care centers</a>, <a href="https://adfmedia.org/press-release/adf-court-church-speech-ban-must-go" target="_blank" rel="noopener">churches</a>, <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/de-banking-victim-steve-happ-indigenous-advance-ministries-bank-america-i-dont-want/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ministries</a>, and <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/babylon-bee-files-suit-against-humorless-california-censorship-laws/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped">humor websites</a> all over the country, intimidating ordinary Americans through everything from <a href="https://adflegal.org/article/educators-have-rights-too/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">job termination</a> to <a href="https://adflegal.org/support/debanking-video/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">de-banking</a>, and with threats of <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/virginia-photographer-now-free-government-coercion/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">costly fines</a> and even <a href="https://adflegal.org/client/brush-nib-studio/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">jail time</a>.
But recognizing the threat — like hearing the alarm — isn’t enough. Someone has to rise to challenges posed by this Censorship Industrial Complex to cut Americans off from news, information, and viewpoints that some in positions of power and authority don’t want them to have.
Fighting this good fight is going to require significant and concentrated effort by the executive and legislative branches to root out the offenders — even within the federal government itself. All records evidencing governmental attempts to censor speech should be made public — after all, those records belong to the American people. The officials who acted to infringe rights of free speech must be held accountable. And each leader in every government agency must make one thing abundantly clear: state power may never be used to censor, limit, or diminish protected speech — it’s that simple.
Thankfully, the incoming administration seems intent on pursuing all these actions — and keenly aware of the stakes. “The fight for free speech is a matter of victory or death for America,” Trump recently said, “and for the survival of Western Civilization itself.”
So the president himself has sounded the alarm, most recently through his executive orders. Here’s hoping the rest of this administration won’t be caught napping.
* * *
Philip A. Sechler is senior counsel and director of the Center for Free Speech at <a href="http://www.adflegal.org/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped">Alliance Defending Freedom</a> (<a href="https://twitter.com/ADFLegal">@ADFLegal</a>).
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris

Government Officials Who Engaged In Censorship Must Be Held Accountable

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)

Donald Trump

Free Speech

Hate Speech

Jim Jordan

Social Media Censorship

In a world of mounting censorship, it’s never been more important to protect every person’s right to speak. Freedom of speech is indispensable to a free society—there’s little meaning to an electoral system if we can’t speak our mind to one another and to our representatives. It’s also a fundamental human right, guaranteed by the First Amendment and every major human rights treaty around the world.
Responding to this rising threat, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), where I serve as legal counsel, recently launched a new litigation team, the <a href="https://adflegal.org/article/introducing-the-adf-center-for-free-speech/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped">Center for Free Speech</a>. ADF’s mission in creating this dedicated team of attorneys is to defend every person’s right to free speech and to hold the government and powerful corporations accountable when they unlawfully censor or punish speech.
This new era of censorship calls for innovative strategies. A complex international web of shadowy government actors, nonprofit groups, and for-profit corporations are colluding to stop speech they don’t like, invoking buzzwords like “misinformation” and “disinformation” as their pretext for viewpoint-based restrictions. We will stop unlawful censorship while preserving the fundamental rights of individuals and organizations.
My team’s efforts will include suing private-sector censors who are working with the government or abusing their power to suppress or deplatform disfavored speech. There must be consequences for governments and government proxies that participate in the corrupt Censorship Industrial Complex (CIC).
The coordinated push of government, universities, think tanks, NGOs, and private businesses bleeds into almost every major industry and part of life. When entities or people are deplatformed, debanked, blacklisted, or refused business for their speech because the government has enlisted private sector participation in engaging in unlawful censorship, that is government corruption and must be stopped.
In Brazil, a justice on the country’s Supreme Court <a href="https://adflegal.org/article/brazil-elon-musk-x-and-censorship-what-you-need-know/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suspended the social media platform X</a> across the country after the company declined to censor certain voices. The justice’s order spoke of the “real danger” posed by X of influencing the electorate with “massive misinformation.” Once a government begins using such vague criteria to censor messages, it opens the door to widespread suppression of speech.
But it’s not just happening in Brazil. The U.S. Department of Justice <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/adf-scotus-govt-cant-coerce-social-media-companies-act-speech-police/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pressured</a> Facebook, Twitter, and Google into silencing dissenting voices on a wide range of hot-button cultural issues, including climate change, abortion, economic policy, gender identity, and COVID-19 policies. Big tech companies collude with the government to censor viewpoints they don’t like.
We’ve already begun to litigate several cases under the umbrella of the Center for Free Speech including a pair of cases where we’re suing the state of California.
In <a href="https://adflegal.org/article/humor-trial-babylon-bee-challenges-california-laws-censoring-political-satire/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Babylon Bee v. Bonta</a> and <a href="https://adflegal.org/article/rumble-joins-the-babylon-bee-in-challenging-californias-censorship/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rumble v. Bonta</a>, ADF represents popular satire website The Babylon Bee, attorney and blogger Kelly Chang Rickert, and video platform Rumble. One of the laws our clients are challenging is AB 2655, passed by the California legislature earlier this year. The law requires large online platforms to become state censors by sometimes labeling and other times taking down posts with “materially deceptive content” about elections.
And in <a href="https://adflegal.org/case/studnicki-v-sage-publications/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Studnicki v. Sage Publications</a>, we represent several doctors who published multiple papers in a peer-reviewed medical journal on the dangers of abortion drugs. After the publisher received complaints about the authors’ pro-life affiliations, Sage retracted these articles and even removed one of the authors from the journal’s board of directors.
Defending free speech is nothing new to ADF. We’ve won landmark free speech victories before the U.S. Supreme Court and have been especially prolific on public university campuses as its Center for Academic Freedom has <a href="https://adflegal.org/issues/free-speech/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped" target="_blank" rel="noopener">secured</a> more than 400 victories protecting students’ free speech rights.
Government agencies and powerful private actors – or worse yet, a combination of the two – are using vague buzzwords as an excuse for censorship. The outgoing administration spent the past four years relentlessly attacking our constitutionally protected freedoms and unlawfully extending executive power.
But we cannot expect the entrenched censorship apparatus to unilaterally disarm. And we must insist that the new administration dismantle the CIC instead of trying to wield it for its own purposes.
That means calling balls and strikes, especially when President-elect Trump hangs a curve with a nominee like <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14154833/donald-trump-surgeon-general-dr-janette-nesheiwat-maga-fury-covid.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Janette Nesheiwat for Surgeon General</a>, who previously “commend[ed] Mark Zuckerberg for taking action” against so-called vaccine misinformation on Facebook.
It’s critical that the Republican party keeps its avowed commitment to free speech. The new administration has a great opportunity to lead the defense of our First Amendment rights. If the majority of current nominees do what they claim they want to do, there is reason to be hopeful.
Through pioneering legal strategy, ADF will tear down the Censorship Industrial Complex and preserve free speech in the new frontier of our digital age. We will ensure that ordinary people worldwide have full clarity on their free speech rights and are empowered, without fear, to expose any government or its agents attempting to undermine them.
* * *
Logan Spena serves as legal counsel at <a href="http://www.adflegal.org/?utm_source=dailywire&amp;utm_medium=oped">Alliance Defending Freedom</a> (<a href="https://twitter.com/ADFLegal">@ADFLegal</a>).
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Censorship vs Free speech

Combating The Rising Threat Of Censorship In 2025

Brazil

Censorship

Federal Government

First Amendment

Opinion

An astonishing report details how the Biden administration <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/11/22/us-news/feds-blew-267m-on-misinformation-grants-under-biden-much-on-covid-report-finds-as-trump-vows-to-ban-term/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spent $267 million</a> since 2021 on research grants whose proposals mentioned “misinformation.”
The report was issued by OpenTheBooks, a nonprofit organization founded in 2011 as a transparency group. Ironically, in 2006, then-Senator Barack Obama <a href="https://www.fsrs.gov/#:~:text=The%20Federal%20Funding%20Accountability%20and,wasteful%20spending%20in%20the%20government.">co-sponsored</a> the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which permitted public access to federal spending. Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) also co-sponsored the bill, later serving as the honorary chairman of OpenTheBooks before his <a href="https://www.openthebooks.com/in-loving-memory-of-open-the-books-honorary-chairman-dr-tom-coburn/">passing</a> in 2020.
Of the $267 million, “The feds have spent at least $127 million in grants specifically targeted to study the spread of “misinformation” &#8212; or to help people ‘overcome’ it, so to speak &#8212; by persuading them to go along with Covid-related public health recommendations and mandates,” the <a href="https://openthebooks.substack.com/p/taxpayer-funded-censorship-how-government" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> states.
Further, a methodology note in the report states, “This likely does not cover all grants given to combat misinformation, because transaction descriptions may not include this keyword, but the trend in spending illustrates a sudden explosion of interest in misinformation starting in 2021.” The report adds that the Department of Health and Human Services issued grants totaling $185 million, the National Science Foundation total was $65 million, and the Stated Department $12 million.
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Last month, a <a href="https://d1dth6e84htgma.cloudfront.net/We_Can_Do_This_NIH_PR_Campaign_Report_PUBLIC_82616d81eb.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> from the House Committee on Energy &amp; Commerce’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations noted that in August 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services initiated the “We Can Do This” campaign — a campaign that ultimately cost more than $900 million — which was meant to affect the public’s response to the COVID pandemic. “The Campaign came to serve as a critical vehicle for disseminating the Biden-Harris administration’s messaging on mask usage, social distancing, vaccine effectiveness, the risks COVID-19 posed to children, and how to reopen schools, businesses, and civil society,” the report stated.
“It appears the administration most concerned with ‘misinformation’ itself trafficked in misinformation: on masks, on risks to children, on social distancing, and on the need to vaccinate even infants,” the OpenTheBooks report asserted.
In December 2022, then-former President Donald Trump <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/12/15/trump-vows-to-ban-feds-from-id-ing-domestic-misinformation-if-elected/">stated</a> he would &#8220;prohibit federal policing of lawful domestic speech&#8221; upon becoming the 47th president: “Within hours of my inauguration, I will sign an executive order banning any federal department or agency from colluding with any organization, business, or person, to censor, limit, categorize, or impede the lawful speech of American citizens. I will then ban federal money from being used to label domestic speech as ‘mis’- or dis-information.’ And I will begin the process of identifying and firing every federal bureaucrat who has engaged in domestic censorship — directly or indirectly — whether they are the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the FBI, the DOJ, no matter who they are.”

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