Despite the big and open push that came in with the new US administration to end the practice of the government funding third-party groups to effectively act as its censorship proxies – some of these arrangements continue to be operational.
Most appear to be working to strengthen previously established “preferred” narratives around health issues – as ever, with “combating misinformation” given as the declarative, overarching purpose behind the effort.
But critics say, that was/remains a smokescreen meant to manipulate public opinion.
The Federalist reports that the National Science Foundation (NSF) – one of the US government’s “independent agencies” designed to channel federal funds – had a number of programs under its “anti-misinformation” umbrella, the Convergence Accelerator.
Among the ones who continue to this day are Chime In, Analysis and Response Toolkit for Trust (ARTT), and Expert Voices Together (EVT).
Chime In’s original name was Course Correct. It was set up at the University of Wisconsin-Madison – with $5 million coming from NSF in 2022 – to provide “anti-misinformation” resources for journalists.
True to the era, its original “mission” was to persuade (Covid) vaccine skeptics to take the jab; and then it went into advocating (“misinformation detecting”) in favor of persuading people there was no reason to be skeptical about genetically modified (GMO) foods, Covid narratives, and vaccines in general, as well as issues like sunscreen product and raw milk safety.
ARTT, meanwhile, came up with its own “AI” chatbot, that focused on political discourse, but according to the Federalist, once again, heavily tied to vaccine hesitancy.
From 2021, ARTT received close to $750,000 from the NSF, and a further $5 million, “to develop practical interventions to build trust and address vaccine hesitancy.”
Hellbound and Down 