Stanford University is under congressional investigation over allegations that its Cyber Policy Center has been working with foreign governments and NGOs to censor Americans’ speech.
The censorship effort was revealed in a report from investigative journalist Michael Shellenberger.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is leading the probe, seeking answers on whether the university coordinated with overseas officials to pressure U.S. platforms into removing content protected under the First Amendment.
In an October 22 letter, Jordan demanded documents from Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center relating to what he described as a “foreign censorship scheme” and a roundtable held last month that “brought together foreign officials who have directly targeted American speech.”
Secret Meeting with Foreign Censorship Officials
According to Jordan, the event’s keynote speaker was Julie Inman-Grant, “the Australian eSafety Commissioner who has explicitly argued that governments have the authority to demand and enforce global takedowns of content.”
The roundtable, which Stanford did not publicly announce, was “secret and only discovered thanks to a whistleblower who provided Jordan’s investigators with the agenda,” Shellenberger reported.
Attendees reportedly included representatives from the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Brazil.
“By hosting this event, designed to encourage and facilitate censorship compliance with regulators from Australia, Brazil, the EU, and the UK, Stanford is working with foreign censorship officials to vitiate the First Amendment,” Jordan wrote in his letter.
History of Collusion Claims
Shellenberger noted that in 2023, Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center was “caught covering up and lying” about its collaboration with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) during the Biden administration to censor online speech.
Documents released in the Twitter Files revealed that the Stanford Internet Observatory, part of the same center, worked with DHS and Big Tech companies to suppress online posts questioning the government’s pandemic narrative.
Jordan’s letter said the new inquiry is part of a broader effort to determine “how and to what extent foreign laws, regulations, and judicial orders compel, coerce, or influence companies to censor speech in the United States.”
He gave Stanford director Jeff Hancock, Ph.D., until November 5 to comply.
“Weaponizing Foreign Laws” to Bypass U.S. Free Speech
California attorney Greg Glaser warned that the situation represents “a dangerous fusion of academia, government, and corporate power to circumvent constitutional protections.”
Stanford’s prior involvement in content moderation during the COVID-19 era, Glaser said, amounted to a bypass of the First Amendment, using private platforms to do what the government could not legally do itself.
Jordan agreed that a “new threat” is emerging: foreign laws requiring U.S. companies to remove content accessible to Americans.
“The Committee is concerned that Stanford, and specifically its Cyber Policy Center, may be one of the third parties engaged in assisting foreign governments attempting to suppress American speech,” Jordan wrote.
Global Push for Censorship
The European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and the UK’s Online Safety Act have been cited as examples of international laws with far-reaching censorship implications.
In June, a House Judiciary Committee staff report found that the EU “weaponizes the DSA as a censorship tool that requires the world’s largest social media platforms to engage in censorship of core political discourse.”
Data from X’s 2024 DSA Transparency Report showed that Germany accounted for nearly 90% of all EU requests to identify or censor users accused of posting “illegal or harmful speech.”
The UK, which enacted its own Online Safety Act in October 2023, reportedly made over 12,000 arrests for online speech that year.
The number is higher than arrests in Germany, China, Turkey, and Belarus combined, according to The Times of London.
Australia’s Online Safety Act, enforced by Inman-Grant’s eSafety Commission, carries similar provisions.
Inman-Grant told the World Economic Forum she aims to “coordinate, build capacity… use the tools that we have.”
She added that globalists must “work together with other like-minded independent statutory authorities around the globe.”
Inman-Grant is listed as one of the WEF’s “Agenda Contributors.”
Glaser said such coordination represents “an end-run around Americans’ fundamental rights”, using foreign partnerships to suppress protected speech.
“Stanford’s Internet Observatory Didn’t Die — It Went Global”
Jordan’s letter accused Stanford of once again “attempting to covertly undermine the First Amendment rights of Americans by collaborating with foreign government officials.”
Shellenberger reported that while the Stanford Internet Observatory was widely believed to be dismantled amid prior scrutiny, it was revived under new funding.
The roundtable in question was financed by Frank McCourt, a major donor to the Cyber Policy Center, through his Project Liberty Institute, which promotes “digital governance” and “democratic values.”
“Stanford’s Internet Observatory didn’t die, it went global,” said Seamus Bruner, author of Controligarchs and research director at the Government Accountability Institute.
“The same censorship cartel that policed Americans’ speech during Covid is now hiding behind foreign flags.
“They’re trying to do overseas what the Constitution forbids them to do at home. Congress should treat this as a national sovereignty issue, not just a speech issue,” Bruner said.
Targeting “True Stories”
The Virality Project, housed within the Stanford Internet Observatory, was a key player in monitoring social media content during the pandemic.
According to the Twitter Files, the project tracked and flagged “true stories” as “disinformation.”
Those flagged included posts by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Kennedy was described as producing “a large volume of content that is almost always reportable.”
The documents showed the project worked “in partnership with the CDC” and promoted pro-vaccine narratives, influencing Twitter’s content moderation policies.
In 2022, the Virality Project proposed a “rumor-control mechanism” to manage trending narratives, an idea later mirrored by the FDA’s “Rumor Control” initiative launched the same year.
Taxpayer-Funded “Censorship-Industrial Complex”
Shellenberger told Congress last year that “taxpayers are unwittingly financing the growth and power of a censorship-industrial complex run by America’s scientific and technological elite, which endangers our liberties and democracy.”
The revelations have played a key role in the ongoing Missouri v. Biden lawsuit, which accuses federal agencies of working with private companies to silence protected speech online.
The case remains active in federal court after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to uphold prior injunctions against the defendants earlier this year.
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