Staff Reports
A newly released report has shed light on the staggering costs of silencing American citizens in the name of fighting “misinformation,” and the tab has grown to a jaw-dropping $300 million. While most Americans may be numbed to large numbers by the Biden administration’s spending spree, this figure raises eyebrows and a few laughs when recognizing that free speech comes at a hefty price tag these days.
Since 2021, the Biden administration has been busy throwing piles of cash at research grants that focus on “misinformation,” as documented by Open the Books. All that money hasn’t even factored in the countless hours spent grappling with the consequences of censorship in courts, congressional hearings, or even just a casual chat at the local diner about the absurdity of it all. The human toll is incalculable, with Americans caught in the crossfire of being ridiculed, coerced, and bullied for daring to express an opinion that strays from the party line. If silence is golden, it appears Americans are left with a pocketful of pennies.
NEW: Mollie Hemingway rips the Biden administration for spending nearly $300 million to suppress speech.
"The Biden administration collectively spent $267 million to combat misinformation."
"Look at the increase in spending from 2017, when just $316,000 was spent on it. It… pic.twitter.com/YvkDpQxUGH
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) December 11, 2024
One of the most silenced voices during the COVID hysteria was Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who had his fair share of run-ins with the censorship machine. He proposed that the dangerous clampdown on free speech directly correlated to lives lost during the pandemic. The irony is rich here, as it seems that the only thing public health officials were actually promoting was the state-sponsored narrative, treating genuine scientific discussion as if it posed a national security threat. The government’s decision to target dissenters as if they were terrorists showcases a complete misunderstanding of democratic principles in the name of public safety.
The chaos didn’t stop there. Because of this uninhibited censorship, the fallout was catastrophic. People lost jobs over vaccine mandates, and schools remained shuttered longer than they needed to. Had the First Amendment been upheld the way it was intended, lives could have been saved, and perhaps anxiety and depression from excessive lockdowns could have been mitigated. The bottom line is clear: government meddling in free speech created a smokescreen of panic and chaos that yielded nothing but destruction.
A House Committee report provides a further look into how this censorship racket operated, specifically zeroing in on the National Science Foundation for funding initiatives that promoted online censorship. Big tech behemoths like Meta, Amazon, and Alphabet (the parent company of YouTube) were all willing accomplices, adjusting their content moderation policies in response to Biden administration demands. As social media became an unwitting arm of government censorship, the public square transformed from a lively debate to a platform for enforced silence.
Funding aimed specifically at obfuscating messages from political adversaries has also raised eyebrows. Open the Books asserts that the Biden administration poured $200,000 into a program designed to undermine President Trump. Such maneuvers only serve to highlight the troubling intersection of government funding and a chilling atmosphere where legitimate discourse is stifled, and the very essence of the First Amendment becomes an afterthought. The question looms large: why did this not raise alarms with the Supreme Court?
With initial funding for this censorship crusade tracing back to 2017, the Biden administration’s operation evolved into an almost tangible, sprawling bureaucracy costing around $76 million annually by 2021 alone. Considering that this is just the tip of the iceberg regarding observable spending on such initiatives, it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that the total price tag is significantly higher. The censorship culture is evidently on the rise, suggesting that this $300 million statistic might just be a fraction of the true cost of silencing the American voice in a land supposedly dedicated to free expression.
