Donald Trump’s vow to dismantle the censorship cartel of “misinformation” researchers, media blacklisters like NewsGuard, and Big Tech has sent shivers through the academic community that has dedicated itself to censoring conservatives.
The Financial Times reports that since Donald Trump’s election victory, researchers and academics who study alleged digital “misinformation” are growing increasingly worried that the new administration will follow through on campaign threats to crack down on their work. During the campaign, Trump said he would seek to curb federal funding to universities found to have engaged in censorship activities like flagging conservative social media content for removal.
The seriousness of Trump’s intentions has been underscored by his pick of Brendan Carr, a Republican FCC commissioner and vocal critic of Big Tech censorship, to chair the agency. Trump’s anti-censorship crusade has also garnered public support from Silicon Valley figures like venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and Twitter owner Elon Musk.
