Waging war on truth

Hi from London. Efforts by academics, nonprofits and government officials to control misinformation are facing a counterattack that’s gather [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( [by Daniel Zuidijk]( Hi from London. Efforts by academics, nonprofits and government officials to control misinformation are facing a counterattack that’s gathering momentum. But first... Three things you need to know today: • Microsoft is moving all staff in China to [iPhones for better security]( • Boeing will plead guilty to fraud for [violating deal over 737 Max crashes]( • Paramount and Skydance finally [agreed to a multibillion-dollar merger]( Fighting the fact-checkers These are trying times for people engaged in the yeoman’s work of combating the spread of falsehood. Just ask Nina Jankowicz, who had just started working for the US government when she received her first death threat. Jankowicz, an expert in the spread of propaganda, was named executive director of the Disinformation Governance Board in early 2022, a body created to advise the US Department of Homeland Security on misinformation. The work of the DGB, which was supposed to aid national security, was paused after a matter of weeks in the face of criticism and exaggerations by Republican lawmakers and right-wing media — distortions which the Biden administration failed to counter. Within months, the board was disbanded. Jankowicz went on to co-found the [American Sunlight Project](, a non-governmental organization dedicated to “increasing the cost of lies that threaten our democracy.” But the loose-knit coalition of conspiracy theorists, hard-right politicians and anti-establishment types who oppose her work have not let up. “They are making people believe that those they are writing about have committed treason,” she said. The assault on DGB was but an early salvo in an ongoing campaign against just about anyone involved in the fight against mis- and disinformation — an effort all the more essential as the [already contentious]( 2024 US presidential election approaches. The Stanford Internet Observatory, a target of rebuke for its work in monitoring falsehoods during the 2020 presidential election, is scaling back operations — just months after founding director Alex Stamos, formerly chief security officer at Facebook, stepped down for personal reasons. A [statement]( on the SIO website denied that the effort was shut down or dismantled as a result of outside pressure, countering an earlier [report]( by Casey Newton at Platformer. Even so, SIO does “face funding challenges as its founding grants will soon be exhausted.” And, the statement went on, SIO and Stanford University “remain deeply concerned about efforts, including lawsuits and congressional investigations, that chill freedom of inquiry and undermine legitimate and much needed academic research.” The team at Stanford is one of several bodies that have been the subject of lawsuits and legislative investigations from Republican lawmakers. Among the critics’ central complaints is the issue that teams engaged in online fact-checking pose a threat to free speech norms. There’s also the allegation that many of them are working on behalf of the US government to censor disfavored viewpoints. Elon Musk, the billionaire boss of Tesla Inc., helped popularize this thinking through the release of a slew of documents, unearthed after his acquisition of Twitter. According to Musk, those emails, memos and other communications — commonly referred to as the Twitter Files — showed that the company’s prior management deliberately sought to suppress conservative viewpoints, often in cahoots with the government. Musk himself has picked multiple legal fights against organizations that research misinformation, often on the social media site he renamed to X. In April 2023, he [filed]( a lawsuit against the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, alleging that the group used “unlawful acts” to “improperly gain access” to data from X. That November, [he filed]( a similar suit against Media Matters for America. “X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company,” Musk wrote in an X post days before the filing; it was later deleted. As ferocious as the legal attacks are, courts don’t always look kindly on cases against content moderation. Earlier this year, a judge tossed out Musk’s case against the CCDH. In his judgment, Senior District Court Judge Charles Breyer said Musk was "punishing the defendants for their speech.” The US Supreme Court [handed down]( a decision in June that arguably amounted to a bigger victory against misinformation foes. Fronted by three prominent anti-vaxxers and two states, the issue on the docket in Murthy v. Missouri was the Biden administration’s ability to communicate with social networks. The nation’s top court ruled that, yes, it is legitimate for authorities to work with social networks to stamp out lies online. Even as courts push back, the notion that checking facts means curtailing free speech is becoming rooted in contemporary conservatism. A Heritage Foundation-led initiative known as Project 2025, widely viewed as a set of policy proposals for a second Trump administration, advocates barring the Federal Bureau of Investigation from curbing the spread of misinformation. “The United States government and, by extension, the FBI, have absolutely no business policing speech,” a passage in the almost 1,000-page document reads. The chapter where it can be found was written by Gene Hamilton, the deputy head of America First Legal, which has helped lead many of the legal efforts against content moderation. We can’t know if Trump, should he be elected, will follow through on Project 2025 prescriptions. Even so, the lawsuits, investigations and other opposition have a chilling effect on the work of analyzing the spread of misinformation, according to all the researchers who spoke to me. Fighting lawsuits and responding to lawmakers’ inquiries and requests for reams of documents costs money and diverts time and attention, these people said. Ultimately, it’s causing many to question whether the work is worth the hassle, Jankowicz said. “I’ve spoken to many people who are evaluating whether to continue in this field because of the risks it now involves,” she told me. “That should worry everyone who cares about free expression.”—[Daniel Zuidijk](mailto:dzuidijk@bloomberg.net) The big story Peter Thiel’s pro-doping Olympics alternative wants [to raise $300 million](. The Enhanced Games, a planned Olympics-style event that welcomes athletes using performance-enhancing drugs, held initial talks with several potential investors, including sovereign wealth funds, ahead of its first competition next year. The Games will feature track and field, swimming and weightlifting among other sports. One to watch [Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson joins Bloomberg’s Caroline Hyde on Bloomberg Technology to discuss how AI is affecting biopharma.]( Get fully charged The global EV slowdown hammered the profit of [battery maker LG Energy.]( Samsung’s chip manufacturing workers staged [a historic strike in the rain on Monday.]( Crypto thievery is on the rise, [surging to $1.4 billion this year.]( Apple is preparing for a big hardware upgrade to mark [the Apple Watch’s 10th anniversary.]( More from Bloomberg Get Bloomberg Tech weeklies in your inbox: - [Cyber Bulletin]( for coverage of the shadow world of hackers and cyber-espionage - [Game On]( for reporting on the video game business - [Power On]( for Apple scoops, consumer tech news and more - [Screentime]( for a front-row seat to the collision of Hollywood and Silicon Valley - [Soundbite]( for reporting on podcasting, the music industry and audio trends - [Q&AI]( for answers to all your questions about AI Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? 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