A grant from the National Science Foundation went to George Washington University to police so-called misinformation and harassment online.
The grant, which began in September 2022, allocated $5 million to GWU to address “the links between two significant problems impacting trust in contemporary communications systems: (1) The broad and rapid spread of misinformation and (2) abuse and harassment directed at members of expert communities,” the grant summary says.
“Misinformation-driven harassment campaigns have particularly large impacts on those at the forefront of efforts to accurately inform the public, including journalists, scientists, and public health officials,” the grant continues. “As a result, this harassment undermines confidence in pivotal sources of knowledge and reduces expert participation in the information ecosystem.”
The grant provides no examples of what…
