The Stanford Web Observatory (SIO), which for the previous 5 years has been finding out and reporting on social media disinformation, is being reimagined with new administration and fewer employees following the current departure of analysis director Renee DiResta.
The adjustments coincide with conservative authorized challenges to the US college group’s on-line speech moderation efforts, notably round elections. A Stanford spokesperson responded in an announcement that insists SIO isn’t being dismantled and that the group will proceed to pursue its mission below new management.
Stanford’s spokesperson informed The Register, noting that SIO will proceed engaged on baby security and different on-line risks. Simply not election misinformation it appears, which is odd contemplating the yr. There’s a presidential race within the USA, for one factor, in addition to a normal election within the UK.
“Stanford stays deeply involved about efforts, together with lawsuits and congressional investigations, that chill freedom of inquiry and undermine respectable and far wanted tutorial analysis – each at Stanford and throughout academia,” the spokesperson informed us.
The Register requested whether or not a brand new chief has been named, whether or not election integrity work will proceed, and whether or not SIO will function below the identical identify. We had been referred to Jeff Hancock, director of the Stanford Social Media Lab and the Cyber Coverage Middle, below which the SIO operates. Hancock, nevertheless, had no remark.
Alex Stamos, the previous chief safety officer at Yahoo and Fb who based SIO, moved to an advisory function final November.
In keeping with The Washington Put up, solely three staffers stay with SIO, which at the moment lists 9 workers.
SIO got here below hearth final yr from the Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Authorities, overseen by Home Judiciary chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH). Final summer season the panel demanded paperwork from SIO associated to its on-line speech moderation efforts and threatened authorized motion for non-compliance. Stanford is alleged to have partially complied.
SIO participated within the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) and the Virality Mission (VP), together with different organizations, in an effort to restrict on-line misinformation. These efforts made it the goal of authorized teams like America First Authorized, which sued SIO and people concerned final November claiming [PDF] that the EIP, as a public-private partnership, violates First Modification free speech rights.
A November 2023 report [PDF] from the subcommittee claimed, EIP was created on the request of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company (CISA) and that “EIP offered a method for the federal authorities to launder its censorship actions in hopes of bypassing each the First Modification and public scrutiny.” Below the First Modification, the federal government is prohibited from policing speech, with restricted exceptions.
Two lawsuits and two ongoing Congressional investigations, in keeping with the Put up, have saddled Stanford with hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in authorized charges. Therefore Stanford’s concern about lawsuits and congressional investigations “that chill freedom of inquiry and undermine respectable and far wanted tutorial analysis.” ®
