The Cost of Censorship: Biden Admin’s Misinformation War Chest

It may well be that the stupidest – but also most dangerous – new word to enter the mainstream lexicon in the past decade is “misinformation.” Quite apart from the Orwellian “Newspeak” (à la 1984) undertone, it’s a word with a meaning that is entirely subjective. How is that possible? Simply put, just about any fact, statistic, description of an event, or opinion could be classified as misinformation, depending on who is doing the classification. The last thing rational human beings should wish for is that their government – no matter who is leading it – confers upon itself the authority to decide what is and is not misinformation. Then, worse still, to have the government actively seek to suppress anything to which it has arbitrarily applied this term. Yet that is just what the Biden administration has been doing for the past four years – and spending hundreds of millions of US taxpayer dollars to do it.

A report by the nonpartisan government accountability watchdog Open the Books reveals shocking details of how far the outgoing administration went to control what news, information, and opinions the American people were permitted to consume. That isn’t to say that Joe Biden directed these efforts himself or that this wasn’t happening before he took office. Clearly, this goes beyond the work of any one elected official.

Open the Books found that government spending on various projects designed to combat misinformation goes back to at least FY2017 and that there was a massive uptick in spending after the COVID-19 outbreak. The watchdog group also discovered that the vast majority of the approximately $273 million spent on this unprecedented effort to kill freedom of speech was dished out since 2021. In fact, on Biden’s watch, no less than $267 million was distributed in the form of “grants” to various entities engaged in the suppression of so-called misinformation.

One of the most egregious examples was the censorship of news, information, and opinions regarding COVID. According to Open the Books:

“Federal spending records show at least $127 million tax dollars [sic] funding anti-misinformation efforts directly related to COVID-19 for a variety of activities, from on-the-ground advocacy working to dispel vaccine misinformation, to scientific studies on how supposed misinformation is spread online [emphasis by Open the Books].”

What is noteworthy here is that money was spent on studying how misinformation is spread. Does that sound at least a little bit like a scam? One could be forgiven for thinking it does. In this information age, it doesn’t take government-funded research to figure out how information – any information – is spread online. A focus group of 15-year-olds could have explained that.

The study also noted that the Biden administration worked with social media platforms to censor online content that “often included cases where people simply questioned or disagreed with the Administration’s COVID policies.”

Misinformation as a Government Tool?

This brings us to the cold, hard truth at the center of this exercise in authoritarianism. According to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), “Misinformation is information that is false, inaccurate, or misleading according to the best available evidence at the time.” But how could anything that is a personal opinion or belief be considered false, inaccurate, or misleading? It cannot – and that is proof enough that this was never about ensuring the public was getting accurate information; it was about making certain that the public didn’t read or hear anything the government didn’t like.

That last part of the definition neatly provides an out for government officials who, as everyone now knows, had spread plenty of misinformation during the pandemic.

Mass-masking would “flatten the curve” of virus transmission within weeks, people were told. A vaccinated individual could not get COVID, said officials, including Joe Biden. Natural immunity is a myth, some insisted. Do these statements fit the HHS definition of misinformation? Certainly, they do because, as the pandemic unfolded, it became undeniably clear that all of them were false, inaccurate, or misleading. Ah, but according to the best available evidence at the time …

How convenient, the cynic would surely say.

Hunter Biden’s laptop was nothing more than a Russian ruse, according to a letter signed by 51 Intelligence Community officials. Were they spreading misinformation? Of course, because the authenticity of the laptop had been verified.

Accountability for Thee, but …

Has anyone from or connected to the US government been held accountable for spreading misinformation? Not that anyone is aware of. The word and its definition have been created to silence dissenting opinions or facts on any subject – leaving only that which is bureaucrat-approved.

The millions spent on this effort should itself be a matter for investigation. House Republicans made an effort, but toothless congressional committees rarely solve the big problems.

In the final analysis, any effort – by any government, regardless of its political philosophy – to interfere with the free and open exchange of ideas, beliefs, and information should be thoroughly condemned and fiercely resisted. It is the duty – and the right – of citizens to seek out the truth for themselves and, where necessary, exercise healthy and reasoned skepticism. Information only becomes misinformation when it is used for nefarious ends – and, on that score, the federal government appears to be far outpacing the general public.