UW will continue disinformation research as Stanford program falters

Soundside

An influential research team with a focus on fighting false and misleading election information online has reportedly collapsed under pressure from conservative critics.

The Stanford Internet Observatory’s future is uncertain now that the team has lost most of its staff. While Stanford told reporters in a statement that the Observatory’s work will continue under new leadership, it appears the rapid analysis work identifying election misinformation that researchers conducted during the 2020 election will not continue.

The announcement comes as disinformation work has come under fire in recent years.

Some Republicans in congress, conservative groups and influencers have said academic research designed to track and better understand rumors online amounts to a censorship campaign and a violation of their First Amendment rights. Stanford's Internet Observatory (SIO) and University of Washington researchers have also been the subject of a lawsuit from a conservative pundit and a vaccine skeptic, represented by former Trump Administration advisor Stephen Miller’s group America First Legal.

That’s a troubling development for those who are continuing the work of studying our online information ecosystem, including researchers at the University of Washington.

Soundside spoke with Kate Starbird, the co-founder of the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington, about what the cracks in the SIO's foundation say about the field at large.

Guests:

• Kate Starbird, co-founder of the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington. Starbird's work focuses on misinformation and disinformation.

Links:

• The Washington Post: Stanford’s top disinformation research group collapses under pressure
• Politico: Challenge to Biden hectoring of social media firms appears doomed at Supreme Court
• Platformer: The Stanford Internet Observatory is being dismantled

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