The release of the Twitter Files, and especially the analysis undertaken by Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger, has brought new attention to what they call the “censorship industrial complex” - the tangled web of government agencies, big tech and academia that enable various forms of censorship. However, our look at recent government-funded grant proposals indicates the existence of what might be called the Misinformation Grant Complex - enormous piles of Federal and private-sector money going to fund research analyzing “misinformation” (often true information that undercuts official narratives) or research on how to combat such “misinformation” (typically by means of improved propaganda techniques).
Nonetheless, some key findings include the following:
“Misinformation” typically means anything contrary establishment narratives. Grant-funding agencies, such as NIH, are willing and eager to support research efforts that undergird the agencies’ own preferred narratives and those of the establishment more generally. (In these proposals, if people aren’t excited about a particular vaccine, that’s always a problem of “misinformation,” never a problem with the vaccine. If you’re a researcher, be a team player and get yourself an NIH grant!)
Federal funds support what is essentially propaganda. For many of these projects, the problem of “misinformation” is ultimately an excuse to conduct research on how to better manipulate public opinion or better manipulate people’s behavior (e.g. to test for Covid or take more vaccines). Some of these projects conduct A/B testing to figure out which forms of manipulation work best.
Funding creates perverse financial incentives for universities to go along with government definitions of “misinformation.” Grants such as these from the NIH funnel enormous sums of money into university budgets through what are called “indirects” - the percentage of money that researchers take out of their grants and hand over to their institution to pay for electricity, lab space, administrative overhead, etc.
Many academic researchers believe that information and speech must be managed and controlled. The notion is now deeply ingrained within academia that information, speech, and, indeed, people - must be managed and controlled. This development is clear just from the handful of grants highlighted here, and the concept of “misinformation” in these grant proposals is almost completely untheorized. Instead, the only questions raised are about how to better manage, control and manipulate what people say and think.
You can search the NIH database of current and past funded research projects here:
Targeting Blacks and Hispanics
A significant number of these NIH “misinformation” grants were awarded under funding programs, such as Community-engaged COVID-19 Testing Interventions among Underserved and Vulnerable Populations and COVID-19 and Health Equity, meant to support research specific to minority groups. Ironically, for that reason, many of these grants target blacks and hispanics with what amounts to propaganda and manipulation.
For instance, Mitigating the Spread of Misinformation and Disinformation about COVID-19 Prevention and Treatment Initiatives among Hispanics, a research project funded May 2023-April 2024 at Texas Woman’s University, assumes that vaccine hesitancy is largely fueled by “misinformation” on social media, rather than, say, lackluster efficacy or a terrible side-effect profile. The project’s scattershot research objectives include developing “a social network analysis model to estimate degree of COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation consumed by the Hispanic community,” conducting some focus groups, and developing “a longitudinal misinformation/disinformation index, which will allow estimating degrees of misinformation and disinformation impact over time and between ethnic groups” (LOL). Ultimately, this project seeks to come up with “appropriate, culturally sensitive, strategies” to make sure Hispanics believe in The Science.
Total funding for Mitigating the Spread of Misinformation and Disinformation about COVID-19 Prevention and Treatment Initiatives among Hispanics tops out at $500,000, with $62,901 of that total defined as “indirect costs,” which goes into the coffers of Texas Woman’s University. A half-million dollar grant is headline-worthy at an institution like Texas Woman’s University. And while $62,901 won’t cover an assistant dean’s annual salary, it’s not chump change, either. Both the total award, and the direct award in indirects, create perverse incentives for the university to support the narrative that vaccine hesitancy is a product of “misinformation” or “disinformation.”
At the University of Texas, meanwhile, researchers were awarded $1,096,924 in total funding for Addressing COVID-19 Testing Disparities in Vulnerable Populations Using a Community JITAI (Just in Time Adaptive Intervention) Approach: RADxUP Phase III. Of that total, the University of Texas took a respectable $349,973 in indirects.
This project proposes to combat “misinformation” (again, undefined and untheorized) by monitoring social media using “machine learning.” This monitoring will then allow the researchers to develop better, more effective ways to manipulate the target population - blacks and Hispanics in Texas:
It will also include a broader focus on addressing the social determinants of health (SDOH) and an emphasis on combating misinformation. Innovative elements of the proposed study include testing a novel approach to optimize community engagement that uses real-time data to inform intervention adaptation and implementation, using advances in social computing and machine learning to better understand patterns of misinformation in social media, and using multilevel social network analysis techniques to increase intervention agility, intensity, and reach.
In March of this year, researchers at Florida State received $748,462 for A multidimensional Digital Approach to Address Vaccine Hesitancy and Increase COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake among African American Young Adults in the South. This total includes over $500,000 in direct funding for the research, with the university taking in a whopping $219,836 in indirects. As with all the grants highlighted in this post, these awards - and in particular the indirects going to support university budgets, constitute strong institutional incentives to avoid asking tough questions so that the gravy and accolades keep flowing.
The first line of the abstract is a perfect example of how researchers and funding agencies work symbiotically to support establishment narratives:
PROJECT SUMMARY Young Adults (YA) are a key “super-spreader” population transmitting SARS-Co-V2, the causative agent of COVID-19 (COVID). Given their high rate of asymptomatic infection compounded by transmission rates that are being fueled by behaviors that run contrary to physical distancing and face covering regulations, YA represent a priority population upon which to focus efforts to ensure high levels of COVID vaccine uptake.
Not only is the project premised on the idea that young people are “super spreaders” (close the schools!), but it also assumes that masks and six-foot “social distancing” would have stopped the pandemic, if only people had followed the guidelines more carefully. No bother, the NIH gave these researchers three quarters of a million dollars to figure out how to better manipulate black youth into taking COVID vaccines - which is another official measure that failed to live up to its promises.
Of course, the researchers are unconcerned with the question of whether young black adults will receive any measurable clinical benefit from taking a COVID vaccine in the Year of Our Lord 2023 (or in 2024 when the project is completed). Indeed, the vaccine could kill them, as it did these two Connecticut teenagers. Moreover, most of this population will have already been infected and recovered from COVID, and there is no evidence that even the COVID-naive would receive clinical benefit. Undeterred, the researchers nonetheless propose coming up with better ways to convince young black adults to get a COVID vaccine:
In aim 1, we will conduct multi-method formative research to elicit the behavioral, cognitive, and environmental determinants influencing COVID VH [vaccine hesitancy] among AA-YA [African-American Young Adults] (ages 18-29) in three southern states. We combine validated survey measures, with novel CBPR [Community-Based Participatory Research] methods including choose-your-own adventure journeys and digital storytelling to better understand vaccine decision-making in AA-YA.
Note that none of the proposed activities are geared toward actual education around viruses or vaccines - instead, the project will use “choose-your-own adventure journeys and digital storytelling” (patronizing!) as a means of developing better propaganda and behavior modification techniques. Indeed, this is laid out clearly in the abstract, which notes that the effectiveness of the project will be assessed on how well the researchers are able to 1) manipulate behavior and 2) influence “attitudes and beliefs”:
Primary effectiveness outcomes are COVID vaccine uptake and series completion. Secondary effectiveness outcomes are VH, confidence, and knowledge, attitudes and beliefs.
Let’s call this what it is - it’s government-funded propaganda, albeit with a thin veneer of scientific respectability. Not only that, but the agency funding the propaganda, NIH, will be one of the primary beneficiaries of these efforts.
Hey, Let’s Use Artificial Intelligence!
Leveraging artificial intelligence and social innovation to reduce disparities in COVID-19 testing among African Americans takes a similar tack, but also proposes to use AI (innovative!). For this project, researchers from Duke University were awarded $555,475 to develop better messaging on the failed policies recommended by Fauci’s NIH:
ABSTRACT Pandemic fatigue—a phenomenon characterized by a demotivation to follow recommended protective behaviors that emerges over time and is affected by one’s emotions, experiences and perceptions—threatens our ability to end the COVID-19 pandemic. Waning vaccine-induced immunity, breakthrough infections, new variants, and uncertainty all contribute to pandemic fatigue. These ongoing challenges highlight the importance of sustaining COVID-19 mitigation strategies, including COVID-19 testing, over the long run to achieve pandemic control.
As with other studies highlighted here, the proposed research assumes that things like masking and testing - the particular focus of this project - will somehow “end the COVID-19 pandemic.” Never mind the lack of evidence supporting these assertions, the main goal here is to blame “misinformation” and figure out better ways to manipulate behaviors and beliefs through “communication science interventions” and targeted “messages”:
Moreover, we must advance communication science interventions that enable us to determine how variations in the presentation of messages targeting perceived risk for COVID-19 can be leveraged to increase motivation for COVID-19 testing behaviors, and employ effective communication strategies to mitigate the impact of exposure to misinformation on testing acceptance and uptake. …
Study results will identify effective COVID-19 testing promotion messages for African Americans with the potential for generalization to other key populations.
The AI component of the proposed research is unclear, but it sounds like the researchers plan to use digital cartoons (“deep learning computer animation”) as their primary intervention. For this, they’ve received over half a million dollars, with Duke University receiving $205,483 in indirects. Again, this funding creates enormous incentives for universities to look the other way, or even applaud, efforts to produce more effective propaganda.
Combating Misinformation About Vaccines That Don’t Even Exist
The funding environment for “misinformation” research is so rich, that NIH is throwing out hundreds of thousands of dollars to combat “misinformation” about vaccines that don’t even exist! Researchers at Northwestern University (Chicago campus) recently received $656,693 for Reducing HIV vaccine and prevention hesitancy among sexual and gender minority adolescents. You may be asking yourself, “What HIV vaccine?” In fact, no such vaccine exists, but NIH has determined to stop “misinformation” about them. HIV vaccines are in trials, but work on HIV vaccines have been going on, unsuccessfully, for decades. These researchers could be developing a messaging campaign to support vaccines that ultimately don’t even work.
The researchers are no fools, however, and have richly seeded their abstract (and probably the full proposal) with references to the dreaded “misinformation.” Ironically, the researchers cite the “lessons learned from the rollout of the HPV and COVID-19 vaccines” as reason to get a head start in gearing up the propaganda machine for HIV vaccines.
Northwestern’s share in the funding amounts to $215,309 in “indirect costs.”
Computerized Avatars to Manipulate Black Christians
Researchers, how would you like to receive $705,630 to create digital avatars to encourage black Christians to get vaccinated for Jesus? That’s the amount a white Northeastern University computer scientist and his colleagues were awarded this year by NIH for Community-based Design and Evaluation of a Conversational Agent to Promote SARS-COV2 Vaccination in Black Churches. Is this money well spent? Maybe not, but these researchers boast of having a decade of experience creating talking cartoons - excuse me, “embodied conversational agents,” designed to manipulate “populations with low health literacy.” And now they’re gearing up to apply this experience to COVID vaccines:
Over the past decade we have developed and tested embodied conversational agents (ECA) — computer characters that simulate face-to-face counseling using voice, hand gesture, gaze cues and other nonverbal behavior, and successfully used them in health behavior interventions for populations with low health literacy. We have developed ECA-based interventions to address a wide range of health problems among low literacy populations, including physical activity, diet, and medication adherence promotion, providing access to and explanation of healthcare documents, and collection of family health histories. In this project, we propose to create an effective and sustainable smartphone-based ECA intervention designed to deliver personalized and tailored education about SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza vaccination.
It sounds benign when they say their app will “incorporate spiritual tailoring,” but let’s be clear about what’s being proposed. White academic researchers (and one black researcher) will perform psychological experiments on black churchgoers, taking advantage of the subjects’ deeply-held religious beliefs, in order to better manipulate them into accepting pharmaceutical products that may or may not provide clinical benefit. Said plainly, it sounds insane. No matter, the researchers receive almost three quarters of a million dollars, and Northeastern takes $144,440 in indirects.
Conclusion
The projects highlighted here are just a sampling of results, using a simple search term (“misinformation”) in one database (RePORTER) associated with a single Federal agency (NIH). Even so, it is clear that tens of millions of dollars are readily available to researchers who want to study or combat “misinformation.” It is also clear that “misinformation” typically means anything contrary to official or quasi-official narratives, even where the “misinformation” is factually correct and the official narrative is wrong.
Further, based on the activities described in these proposals, it emerges that Federal funds are supporting what amounts to propaganda and behavioral manipulation. When it comes to “misinformation,” questions of fact and scientific truth take a back seat to questions of how to enforce a particular viewpoint or how to get people to act in a way that serves government or corporate interests.
Additionally, the enormous sums of money going to universities, both to directly fund the proposed research, and to support university budgets more generally through “indirects,” create strong incentives to ignore the ethical and intellectual drawbacks of having university researchers aid and abet a propaganda regime around science and medicine.
Finally, these proposals show beyond a shadow of a doubt that much of the academic community now believes that information and speech must be managed and controlled by an ostensible expert class. This development is not entirely new - freedom of thought and speech have for several years been contentious issues within the academy. One might think that the recent failures of the “experts” and “The Science” with respect to COVID and COVID vaccines would be cause for some reflection, but the Misinformation Grant Complex doesn’t run on good will and intellectual integrity - the spice must flow.
The tax-exempt foundations are funding these projects left, right and centre too. There really is no daylight between government and corporate interests on this topic. I wrote about this in https://robynchuter.substack.com/p/funding-better-covid-propaganda-the, https://robynchuter.substack.com/p/funding-better-covid-propaganda-the-c1f and https://robynchuter.substack.com/p/funding-better-covid-propaganda-the-d29.