In today’s political climate, many people are claiming that efforts to counter disinformation are a form of censorship. As these discussions continue to gain traction, it's important to address this topic head-on.

Let’s be clear: Disinformation research is not censorship.

Censorship involves the government suppression of information or ideas. In contrast, disinformation researchers are fighting to expose content that is deliberately created to mislead or manipulate the public, often undermining public safety, public health, or people’s access to the ballot box.

It goes back to the fundamental difference between disinformation and lies: Lies are merely false information, whereas disinformation involves lies told with malign intent.

That intent – whether to cause mass hysteria with a deepfake video during a crisis, steal an election by falsely claiming it was rigged, or destroy a life through deepfake porn – is what we’re working to counter.

As I recently wrote on Threads: “Fighting disinformation isn’t about silencing the liar. It’s about empowering the listener.”

Consider the false narrative claiming that Democratic donors funded pro-Palestinian campus protests, which was the basis for one of our recent research reports. Those claims originated on anonymous chat boards (we watched them be born) and were quickly weaponized by bad actors and validated by mainstream media, becoming the subject of a proposed congressional hearing involving Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and the centerpiece of two major political fundraising campaigns.

From anonymous Internet chat boards to Congress. In a month.

That claim, like so many others, layered a false narrative on top of a kernel of truth, and was fueled by its connection to long-standing antisemitic conspiracy theories. It wasn’t just false, it had the strategic intent of connecting the campus protests to broader false narratives and using a complicated geopolitical situation for domestic political gain.

Other efforts, like those led by Chairman Jim Jordan and a network of fringe bloggers (colloquially known as the “Twitter files crowd”), have successfully leveraged government power – through subpoenas, document requests, lawsuits, etc. – to pressure institutions like the Stanford Internet Observatory into shutting down, undermining critical disinformation research. These actions are part of a coordinated campaign to intimidate and silence those who work to expose disinformation networks and campaigns, effectively threatening the health of our information ecosystem.

We can’t sustain a democracy without a trusted public square, and those pushing disinformation know that. If they can delegitimize all information, they can effectively turn reality into a spam folder where most people can’t tell the difference between the truth and the lies.

The stakes are incredibly high. The current environment is ripe for exploitation by those seeking to spread disinformation for strategic gain, and artificial intelligence is making things remarkably easier. Pretty soon, it’ll be impossible to distinguish between fake and real multimedia content, and that will create very challenging conditions for Americans trying to base their daily decisions on good information.

The efforts to undermine the truth and those working to protect it are real and formidable. By standing against these threats, we are working to safeguard our democratic bedrock. The American Sunlight Project is about ensuring that factual information is readily available, not about suppressing diverse viewpoints or censoring falsehoods.

Empowering the listeners. Not silencing the liars.

We must recognize that the claims of censorship coming from those who seek to weaponize our liberties against us are a central part of their strategy: If they get society to accept the premise that disinformation research is censorship, they will be empowered to flood our information ecosystem with lies told with malign intent, and face no consequence for doing so. That would likely mark the functional end of our democracy.

We can’t allow that to happen.

– Carlos Álvarez-Aranyos, Co-founder and Chief Communications Officer of The American Sunlight Project

Disinformation is deliberately misleading. For example: Donald Trump supporters sharing AI-generated images of him with Black Americans, created to appeal to those voters. Misinformation is spreading, too. That’s false information spread by people who may think it’s true. Something like rumors of widespread election fraud even though after dozens of court cases, statewide audits, and innumerable investigations there’s no evidence for it.

Misogynistic tactics, including deepfake pornography, are being weaponized in elections to discredit women in power and create discord, according to global disinformation expert Nina Jankowicz.

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Nina Jankowicz, the former head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s short-lived disinformation governance board, said the Russian government was using artificial intelligence to improve its tactics in spreading disinformation in the 2024 presidential election.

US presidential candidate Donald Trump messed with fans of pop star Taylor Swift on Tuesday by advertising for their votes with obviously fake images. Presidential candidate Kamala Harris is also faced with disinformation on social networks.

Disinformation and intentional fakes have been deployed to influence the election, spark violence in England and muddy the waters of international conflicts.

The Department of Justice has begun a broad criminal investigation into Americans who have worked with Russia’s state television networks, signaling an aggressive effort to combat the Kremlin’s influence operations leading up to the presidential election in November, according to American officials briefed on the inquiry.