The House Judiciary Committee's Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released findings this week that it says show the National Science Foundation is funding artificial intelligence-powered censorship and propaganda tools. The primary objective is to avoid political and media scrutiny, committee members said.
The NSF was established by Congress in 1950 to promote the progress of science, secure the national defense, and advance the nation's health, prosperity and welfare. The Biden administration has added spying on U.S. citizens to the NSF's job description, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) said on Washington Watch Wednesday.
"The new revelation that we just learned this week is that they're actually replacing some of the humans who do that occasionally or periodically with robots who can then censor at scale and can really limit the ability for normal rational discourse to occur," Gaetz (pictured below) told show host Tony Perkins.
Sometimes you need a little help from humans. The committee also released this week email messages detailing how the administration pushed for book bans through Amazon, the online retail giant.
Biden staffers sent emails in 2021 citing its concerns over reading material available on Amazon that the administration called "propaganda" and "misinformation," Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the committee chair, showed.
Take a look at 'The Amazon Files'
Writing on X, Jordan called the documents "The Amazon Files" and said they were obtained by subpoena. He showed photos of the documents in a lengthy thread.
"The difference between the Right and the Left on this is that the Right embraces the opportunity for knowledge and exploration and different viewpoints and comparing them to one another – and the Left wants to control the very nature of truth itself," Gaetz, a subcommittee member, said.
"Part of how they control that nature of truth is to try to infect young minds with all of this nonsense that really has no place in adolescence or the public education system. They're trying to shape a particular viewpoint there that deviates from the traditional family and really from traditional life and society," Gaetz continued.
And they're pressuring private business to get it done. In Amazon it found a hesitant though ultimately willing partner.
The company admitted to "feeling pressure from the White House" on the subject of available COVID-19 vaccine books. One email from Amazon stated, "As a reminder, we did enable Do Not Promote for anti-vax books whose primary purpose is to persuade readers vaccines are unsafe or ineffective on 3/9, and will review additional handling options for these books," according to a New York Post report.
Rep. Gaetz reacted to that: "You've got scientific data or analysis that you want to publish, that talks about vaccine injuries or herd immunity, and you had people literally in the White House, people at the Department of Homeland Security, people who were senior advisors to the President of the United States, using the awesome power of government to try to manipulate and cajole companies like Amazon and others to proliferating a political stance, not an exploration for knowledge."
The Amazon revelation takes government censorship to a different level. Administration censorship efforts on social media had already been uncovered by several state attorneys general. It's detailed in the case Missouri v. Biden which continues in litigation.
A big partner for censorship scam
By involving the National Science Foundation in its censorship efforts, the administration extends its reach – in a massive way – beyond social media and retail and into academia.
With an annual budget of more than $8 billion, the NSF is the funding source for approximately 20% of all federally supported basic research conducted by America's colleges and universities. It awards roughly 11,000 grants per year.
"NSF transforms the world with science and engineering, from 3D printing to black holes," the agency writes on its website.
If the plan continues, said Gaetz, conservative-leaning groups – whether they're aware or not – can expect to be targeted.
"[NSF takes] public money, taxpayer money, and then they put out grant opportunities for entities like MIT or the University of Wisconsin-Madison or the University of Michigan to come and apply. In those applications, you saw the universities competing for the new capabilities that they could bring to a censorship regime, to the censorship industrial complex.
"So, the slideshows would be MIT saying, 'Don't worry. We've assessed the people in rural areas, the military families, the people who are devout Christians. We know that they are real gullible and susceptible to disinformation, so we can use AI tools to specifically target those folks and to create this government-enacted resilience around them – a barrier to truth, exploration and discovery," Gaetz said.
