New Revelation Confirms What the Right Has Been Saying About Big Tech Censorship

Katie Pavlich reporting for Townhall 

Last week, "60 Minutes" introduced us to Kate Starbird, a university professor who worked as a "fact-checker" to flag "misinformation" on the internet for censorship. It just so happens that most of the information flagged was right-leaning and from conservative news outlets or social media accounts. 

Now, the House Judiciary Committee – which has jurisdiction over the House Weaponization Committee – has released the transcript of a voluntary closed-door interview with Starbird last summer, exposing the government's violations of the First Amendment by using Big Tech as a surrogate. It was first reported by the Washington Examiner. 

"Chairman Jordan has requested this interview as part of the committee's investigation of how and the extent to which the executive branch has coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech," the transcript states. 

Starbird insists she didn't advise Big Tech companies or the government about what to censor or take down, but simply gave guidance on what is classified as misinformation or rumor. 

"I teach experimental methods to master's students. I've taught classes, a couple special topics classes on the methods of analyzing social media data and on online rumors and misinformation.  rumor means sort of information that's not verified, that's traveling through informal channels. And rumors can turn out to be true. Rumors can turn out to be false," Starbird explained about her process. "So rumor is just sort of, like, uncertain information. They often occur during crisis times. And my original research at the University of Colorado was on the use of social media during crisis events. So rumors are common during crisis events. Misinformation is information that's false. So a false rumor, you could categorize that as misinformation. And misinformation is not intentionally false. And then disinformation is a variation of misinformation that's intentional, so someone is intentionally spreading false or misleading information for some sort of objective."

America First Legal has issued a lawsuit against Starbird and others, saying they violated the civil rights of Americans.