US House Panel Says Disinformation ‘Pseudo-Experts’ Targeted Political Speech Online

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US government officials used a government-linked group of disinformation pseudo-experts to launder the censorship of political speech online, the US House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government said in an interim report.

The Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) - a group of purported disinformation academics led by the Stanford Internet Observatory - worked with US government officials to monitor and censor online speech ahead of the 2020 presidential election, the report, released Monday, said.

"This interim staff report details the federal government’s heavy-handed involvement in the creation and operation of the EIP, which facilitated the censorship of Americans’ political speech in the weeks and months leading up to the 2020 election," the report said. "This pressure was largely directed in a way that benefited one side of the political aisle: true information posted by Republicans and conservatives was labeled as ‘misinformation’ while false information posted by Democrats and liberals was largely unreported and untouched by the censors."

The House Weaponization Subcommittee released the report in conjunction with the House Judiciary Committee.

The EIP worked with the US Department of Homeland Security and other US government agencies to bypass First Amendment protections for speech through the consortium of disinformation "pseudo-experts," the report said.

The EIP was created at the request of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the report said. US government officials would submit misinformation reports to EIP analysts, who would then recommend censorship actions to tech companies, the report added.

An "untold number" of US citizens across the political spectrum were impacted by the censorship of true information, jokes and opinions, the report said.

The House committees’ investigations into the weaponization of the federal government and violations of civil liberties remain ongoing, the report said. There is "more to come," Judiciary and Weaponization panel chair Jim Jordan also said in a statement via social media platform X.

The American people deserve to know whether they were targeted by the US government and affiliated disinformation pseudo-experts, Jordan added.