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Speaking in the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government hearing on Tuesday, Republican Rep. Greg Steube of Florida addressed concerns he has with government collaboration with outside businesses that are intended to use AI to censor online information and users' free speech. He spoke to liberal investigative journalist Lee Fang who worked on the Twitter Files. The two agreed about the dangers of policing speech online.
In speaking about online "misinformation" agency NewsGuard, Steube said it was "like a psyop mission that they're doing using taxpayer dollars to psyop American citizens."
"We know that the National Science Foundation spent millions of taxpayer dollars on artificial intelligence research conducted at elite universities, like the University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin and MIT," Steube began. "Although AI has the potential to be a powerful tool, it can also be used for many nefarious purposes that infringes upon the liberty of American citizens."
"Unfortunately," Steube continued, "it seems the recipients of these NSF grants were doing just that by developing AI tools to censor disfavored speech, effectively, the American people are being forced to subsidize their own censorship."
"Researchers at the University of Michigan are even so brazen to market their Wise Decks technology as a way for social media companies to 'externalize the difficult responsibility of censorship.' The fact that they believe censorship is a responsibility is extremely concerning, especially when the government is the entity funding such censorship," he went on.
"MIT's team of researchers were even more candid when they stated in a project proposal that certain segments of the population, including military veterans and military families, are particularly susceptible to 'misinformation campaigns.' Thus, they argue that it is necessary to have a proactive suite of human technologies to counteract the supposed misinformation because reactive content moderation is too slow and ineffective," Steube said.
"In other words," Steube continued, "the elites at MIT think that my fellow veterans and I are too dumb to think for ourselves. These efforts to use AI to censor the thoughts of American citizens is truly disturbing. There are a small group of elites who believe they alone can discern objective truth and alternative viewpoints they deem misinformation and must be suppressed."
"Now they seek to use the powerful tool that is artificial intelligence to help them censor disfavored opinions and the American taxpayer is being forced to foot the bill," he said.
Steube addressed witness Lee Fang, asking about Newguard, a company that gives ratings to news outlets based on their own metric of 9 categories.
"You've recently written about NewsGuard," Steube asked Fang, "which is a company that works closely with the government and major corporate advertisers by scoring news websites as a sort of misinformation meter. As you reported NewsGuard has received a $749,000 contract from the DOD. Can you describe some of the free speech concerns that you've seen regarding NewsGuard?"
"Well, NewsGuard is one of the many kind of firms in this cottage industry of anti-misinformation," Fang said. "They provide tools to rank websites on their kind of truthiness and they have their own sliding scale. The problem here is that they've been caught over and over again getting the facts wrong."
"They claim that any website or news outlet that reported on the COVID lab leak as the origin of COVID-19 was spreading conspiracy theory," Fang said. "They've also gone after left-leaning websites that are simply reporting on the Ukraine-Russia war in a critical way saying that Ukraine is a client state of the US."
"Perhaps you disagree with this point of view but this isn't a conspiracy theory. This is a legitimate area of public debate. NewsGuard in particular is another company that, as you mentioned, receives military contracts. If they're working for the military, and shaping public opinion and journalism, around issues of foreign policy, for me that raises inherent conflicts of interest."
"It's basically like I was in the military," Steube said. "It's basically like a psyop mission that they're doing using taxpayer dollars to psyop American citizens."
In speaking about online "misinformation" agency NewsGuard, Steube said it was "like a psyop mission that they're doing using taxpayer dollars to psyop American citizens."
"We know that the National Science Foundation spent millions of taxpayer dollars on artificial intelligence research conducted at elite universities, like the University of Michigan, University of Wisconsin and MIT," Steube began. "Although AI has the potential to be a powerful tool, it can also be used for many nefarious purposes that infringes upon the liberty of American citizens."
"Unfortunately," Steube continued, "it seems the recipients of these NSF grants were doing just that by developing AI tools to censor disfavored speech, effectively, the American people are being forced to subsidize their own censorship."
"Researchers at the University of Michigan are even so brazen to market their Wise Decks technology as a way for social media companies to 'externalize the difficult responsibility of censorship.' The fact that they believe censorship is a responsibility is extremely concerning, especially when the government is the entity funding such censorship," he went on.
"MIT's team of researchers were even more candid when they stated in a project proposal that certain segments of the population, including military veterans and military families, are particularly susceptible to 'misinformation campaigns.' Thus, they argue that it is necessary to have a proactive suite of human technologies to counteract the supposed misinformation because reactive content moderation is too slow and ineffective," Steube said.
"In other words," Steube continued, "the elites at MIT think that my fellow veterans and I are too dumb to think for ourselves. These efforts to use AI to censor the thoughts of American citizens is truly disturbing. There are a small group of elites who believe they alone can discern objective truth and alternative viewpoints they deem misinformation and must be suppressed."
"Now they seek to use the powerful tool that is artificial intelligence to help them censor disfavored opinions and the American taxpayer is being forced to foot the bill," he said.
Steube addressed witness Lee Fang, asking about Newguard, a company that gives ratings to news outlets based on their own metric of 9 categories.
"You've recently written about NewsGuard," Steube asked Fang, "which is a company that works closely with the government and major corporate advertisers by scoring news websites as a sort of misinformation meter. As you reported NewsGuard has received a $749,000 contract from the DOD. Can you describe some of the free speech concerns that you've seen regarding NewsGuard?"
"Well, NewsGuard is one of the many kind of firms in this cottage industry of anti-misinformation," Fang said. "They provide tools to rank websites on their kind of truthiness and they have their own sliding scale. The problem here is that they've been caught over and over again getting the facts wrong."
"They claim that any website or news outlet that reported on the COVID lab leak as the origin of COVID-19 was spreading conspiracy theory," Fang said. "They've also gone after left-leaning websites that are simply reporting on the Ukraine-Russia war in a critical way saying that Ukraine is a client state of the US."
"Perhaps you disagree with this point of view but this isn't a conspiracy theory. This is a legitimate area of public debate. NewsGuard in particular is another company that, as you mentioned, receives military contracts. If they're working for the military, and shaping public opinion and journalism, around issues of foreign policy, for me that raises inherent conflicts of interest."
"It's basically like I was in the military," Steube said. "It's basically like a psyop mission that they're doing using taxpayer dollars to psyop American citizens."
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