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Blaze News Investigates: Congress poised to give new life to 'worst offender in US government censorship'
The Global Engagement Center is a multi-agency entity housed within the U.S. State Department that grew out of a purported effort to identify and counter propaganda produced abroad that threatened the interests of the United States. The GEC has since mutated into an outfit apparently keen also to help identify and counter constitutionally protected speech produced domestically that threatens the interests of the Washington establishment.
The GEC — dubbed the "worst offender in U.S. government censorship & media manipulation" by Elon Musk in the wake of the Twitter Files and found to be internally dysfunctional in a 2022 State Department Office of Inspector General report — was slated for extinction; however, congressional cheerleaders in both parties might get their way and an extension of the agency's mandate beyond 2024.
Blaze News has reviewed the GEC's questionable history as well multiple accusations raised against it concerning the agency's backing of organizations that have a reputation for suppressing Americans' speech online. It is clear that at the very least, the agency Congress is poised to keep alive with its short-term funding bill succumbed to mission creep and developed ties with organizations with censorial reflexes antipathetic to outspoken conservatives.
Closing up shop
The State Department filed a notice on Dec. 9 informing the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, that the GEC is slated for termination on Dec. 23, 2024, which will likely impact Daily Wire v. U.S. Department of State — a lawsuit filed December 2023 by Texas, the Daily Wire, and the Federalist in hopes of halting "one of the most egregious government operations to censor the American press in the history of the nation."
"GEC's statutory authority contains a sunset provision by which, absent further action from Congress, it will terminate two weeks from today — on Dec. 23, 2024," said the notice. "Congress has not extended the termination of the GEC thus far, and it is Defendants' understanding that reauthorization is unlikely to occur."
There was no mention of an extension for the agency in a recent draft of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act; however, Democratic Sen. Christopher Murphy (Conn.) has pushed an amendment, co-sponsored by Republican Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), to get the GEC extended through 2034.
Murphy told the Washington Post last week, "I'm pursuing every avenue to ensure the GEC authorization does not expire and their critical work can continue."
'One less way for unelected bureaucrats to violate Americans' First Amendment rights.'
Cornyn's office did not respond to Blaze News' request for comment by deadline.
A State Department spokesman said in a statement to Blaze News that while disappointed that the recently released NDAA text did not initially include mention of a multiyear extension of the GEC, "the Department remains hopeful that Congress extends this important mandate through other means before the ... termination date."
"The bottom line is we need to ensure that the capability to identify and counter foreign disinformation overseas is maintained," continued the spokesman. "As our adversaries continue to ramp up their efforts globally, it's counterintuitive — and dangerous — to weaken or, worse yet, dismantle the United States' leadership in this critical mission."
Matt Taibbi, the investigative reporter who helped expose some of the GEC's more controversial initiatives and tactics in the Twitter Files, told Blaze News, "The GEC was turned into a key actor in the narrative-control bureaucracy, and I was pleasantly surprised to hear rumors that it might shutter."
"It seemed possible, especially since the State Department has no domestic mandate and a lot of what it did involved domestic speech; its role in the Election Integrity Partnership a good example," continued Taibbi. "But political parties rarely give up power voluntarily, and the GEC is a powerful actor. I hope Republicans don't give in to the temptation to create their own version."
The House Committee on Small Business, which detailed some of the GEC's more questionable initiatives earlier this year, called the agency's potential extinction "a win for free speech and Main Street America!"
"The shuttering of the State Department's Global Engagement Center means there is one less way for unelected bureaucrats to violate Americans' First Amendment rights," added the committee.
Life support
Facing a Friday deadline to avoid a government shutdown and to keep federal agencies flush with cash, congressional lawmakers revealed their Frankenstein monster of a stopgap spending bill Tuesday evening. It appears that lawmakers managed to weasel in an extension for the GEC.
A copy of the bill obtained by Reclaim the Net shows that the legislation would amend Section 1287(j) of the 2017 NDAA by striking "on the date that is 8 years after the date of the enactment of this Act" and inserting "on the date that is 9 years after the date of the enactment of this Act." In other words, the GEC would survive the year.
There was a palpable sense of betrayal among conservatives who apparently expected lawmakers to understand that the GEC's track record was disqualifying in the way of an extension and additional funding.
Matthew Peterson, editor in chief of Blaze News, which was among the publications targeted by a GEC-backed censorship outfit, stated, "Oh, hell no. Unconscionable."
"Bad," said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas).
"This CR funds the censorship of conservative speech for the entire first year of the Trump administration. Unacceptable!" tweeted Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.).
Normalcy advocate Robby Starbuck noted, "This is inexcusable. No Republican should vote for this bill as it's currently written. If you're thinking of voting for it, answer this: Aside from you getting home for Christmas on time, why would you vote for it? Our side just won the election, stop letting Dems run you over."
Sean Davis, CEO of the Federalist — an organization that sued the GEC over alleged censorship — stated, "In their abominable omnibus, Republicans are set to fund the illegal government censorship cartel that is attempting to shut down and destroy conservative news outlets like @FDRLST and @realDailyWire. This is unforgivable insanity. What on earth is going on?"
Inception
President Barack Obama issued an executive order in September 2011 establishing a new Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications within the State Department with the goal of "using communication tools to reduce radicalization by terrorists and extremist violence and terrorism that threaten the interests and national security of the United States."
Months ahead of the 2016 election, Obama issued another EO, this time changing the name of the agency to the "Global Engagement Center" and expanding its mission, tasking it not only with coordinating with "a range of communications-related actors and entities" at home and abroad to counter potentially radicalizing content but also to advance favorable "alternative narratives and to diminish the influence of such international terrorist organizations and other violent extremists abroad."
'It's an incubator for the domestic disinformation complex.'
Growth
The GEC, overseen by a steering committee of deep state officials, was codified into law in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act with the objective to "lead, synchronize, and coordinate efforts of the Federal Government to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining United States national security interests."
Whereas before the GEC was focused on countering violent extremism, the NDAA expanded the agency's focus to also look at undesirable content generated by state actors like China and Russia.
A special report by the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy noted that the NDAA also provided the agency with the capacity to "leverage expertise from outside the federal government to create more adaptive and responsive U.S. strategy options. This included grant-making authorities as well as the establishment of a fund to build a decentralized network of private sector actors and allow the integration of capabilities and expertise available outside the U.S. government into the strategy-making process."
While the wording of the GEC's strategic framework still suggested an outward focus whereby the GEC would work with a "global network of partners" to counter foreign propaganda and so-called disinformation, it appears that the agency may have directly and indirectly assigned some energy — at the height of the Russian collusion narrative — to counter-information efforts at home.
"It's an incubator for the domestic disinformation complex," a former intelligence source previously told Taibbi. "All the s*** we pulled in other countries since the Cold War, some morons decided to bring home."
'Its execution entails risks of potential censorship and other restrictions on freedom of speech.'
In 2018, then-Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Steve Goldstein reportedly made the GEC a top priority and helped finalize the funding for the GEC's broadened mandate, signing a memorandum of agreement on Feb. 23, 2018, that managed the transfer of taxpayer funds from the Pentagon to the GEC for supposed counter-propaganda initiatives.
Among these initiatives was a fund to support eligible efforts by "civil society groups, media content providers, nongovernmental organizations, federally funded research and development centers, private companies, and academic institutions."
The GEC was juiced up once again under the 2019 NDAA, which amended its purpose to "direct, lead, synchronize, integrate, and coordinate efforts of the Federal Government to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and foreign non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States and United States allies and partner nations."
The Small Business Committee indicated in a September report that around the time the GEC ditched its "whole-of-government" approach and embraced "whole-of-society" support, "its methodologies changed from using social media platforms to create and spread counterpropaganda materials, to directing public opinion by trying to get social media platforms to suppress content."
Mutation
The leviathan resulting from these expansionary efforts has since been credibly accused of being complicit in efforts to censor Americans — efforts the State Department previously told Blaze News the agency has not undertaken.
Republican Reps. Michael McCaul (Texas) and Darrell Issa (Calif.) penned a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken in July noting that while the role assigned to the GEC is important, "its execution entails risks of potential censorship and other restrictions on freedom of speech. For that reason, we had hoped the GEC could carry out its responsibilities while unimpeachably observing the First Amendment, which gives Americans the right to receive foreign propaganda."
The lawmakers' concerns were informed by multiple congressional investigations into the GEC as well as by the allegations raised in two GEC-related federal lawsuits: Missouri v. Biden, where it initially appeared as a defendant, and Daily Wire, LLC v. U.S. Department of State.
Missouri — the case that became known as Murthy v. Missouri before the U.S. Supreme Court and, while unsuccessful, paved the way for other government censorship-focused legal actions — helped shine a spotlight on the routine meetings GEC officials had with social media platforms such as then-Twitter, Facebook, and Google.
The plaintiffs alleged early on that the GEC "has worked directly with the [Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency] and FBI to procure the censorship of specific content on social media" and suggested that when "addressing disinformation," the agency may have also censored and suppressed protected private speech.
Taibbi suggested in the Twitter Files that when flagging "foreign" disinformation for Twitter to review, the GEC apparently did so haphazardly. In one instance, it rolled up numerous accounts "for reasons that include using Signal to communicate and tweeting the hashtag #IraniansDebateWithBiden."
In another instance, the GEC allegedly flagged thousands of social media accounts it suspected of being Chinese actors engaged in "state-backed coordinated manipulation." Among the flagged accounts were those belonging to at least three CNN employees working abroad along with numerous Western government accounts.
Extra to apparently engaging in friendly fire online, the agency reportedly also had a "general engagement" with Stanford University's narrative curation outfit, the Stanford Internet Observatory, the so-called Election Integrity Partnership, and the Virality Project.
Blaze News previously reported that the SIO took the lead on the censorious EIP, created in July 2020 to tackle perceived wrongthink on the right in the lead-up to the presidential election, and subsequently launched the Virality Project, an initiative to tackle "the dynamics specific to the COVID-19 crisis."
A November 2023 House report from the Committee on the Judiciary noted that the GEC submitted tickets to the EIP, flagging content to social media platforms that included the protected speech of American citizens.
The plaintiffs in Daily Wire accused the State Department of actively intervening in the news media market through the GEC "to render disfavored press outlets unprofitable by funding the infrastructure, development, and marketing and promotion of censorship technology and private censorship enterprises to covertly suppress speech of a segment of the American press."
The complaint noted that while much was still unknown about the GEC's alleged censorship scheme, it had at a minimum backed two American censorship enterprises: the Disinformation Index Inc., the American component of the British think tank Global Disinformation Index, and NewsGuard Technologies.
Both entities generated blacklists of supposedly risky or misleading news outfits with the aim of getting them demonetized and directing funds to news organizations that parrot approved narratives.
The GDI's fall 2022 report, for instance, labeled NPR, the Washington Post, HuffPost, and a number of other liberal news outfits as the "least risky sites." Meanwhile, Blaze News, Reason, the Federalist, the Daily Wire, the New York Post, and other conservative publications made the top-10 list of "riskiest sites" and were smeared as having the "greatest level of disinformation risk."
Gabe Kaminsky of the Washington Examiner, a publication that also appeared on the GDI blacklist, reported last year that the State Department-funded group would compile a "dynamic exclusion list," then provide that list to corporate entities, such as the advertising company Xandr. Xandr and other recipients subsequently declined to place ads on websites flagged by the GDI.
Clare Melford, the CEO of the GDI, boasted in 2022 that the exclusion list "had a significant impact on the advertising revenue that has gone to those sites."
'It weaponized itself to serve a partisan progressive political interest.'
The GDI, which received $100,000 from the GEC between October 2021 and March 2022, did not respond to Blaze News' request for comment.
Besides backing the GDI and NewsGuard — a New York-based self-described "Internet Trust Tool" — the lawsuit highlighted other problematic initiatives, alleging, for instance, that the GEC funded a private entity called Park Capital Investment Group LLC to launch and maintain the open-source platform Disinformation Cloud, supposedly a "repository to catalog an ever-growing list of CPD [Countering Propaganda and Disinformation] tools and technologies" to counter perceived adversarial propaganda.
The State Department's OIG confirmed in a September 2022 report that the GEC "funded and supported the Disinformation Cloud website." The Disinformation Cloud also happened to fund the GDI.
These powerful tools were allegedly made available and marketed by the GEC at arm's length to would-be censors of the American free press.
The House Committee on Small Business hammered on this theme in its September report, noting that the GEC "circumvented its strict international mandate by funding, developing, then promoting tech start-ups and other small business in the disinformation detection space to private sector entities with domestic censorship abilities."
The Daily Wire lawsuit, which raised some of the evidence produced in Missouri v. Biden, stressed that while the GEC's governing statute prohibited it from using funds for purposes other than for countering foreign propaganda, "many of GEC's activities and initiatives targeted speech spoken in America among Americans."
For these and other reasons, there was some jubilation over the premature suggestion that the GEC was headed for the bureaucracy graveyard.
"The GEC didn't just fundamentally fail in its mission to correct the record on behalf of America’s interest around the world," Rep. Issa told the Washington Post last week. "Even worse, it weaponized itself to serve a partisan progressive political interest, targeted the free speech rights of the American people, and contracted out the censorship of mainstream conservative media. Good riddance. It will not be missed."
Issa has long hoped for this outcome. In October, he told Blaze News,
There truly is a censorship industrial complex at home and abroad, and our opposition to it must be no less comprehensive. Congress can’t look away from this continuing scandal that grows worse with every revelation. We need to be committed and creative if we’re going to win the fight for free speech, and a future without the GEC is a step in that right direction.
While Issa and other critics prematurely celebrated the news of the GEC's likely demise, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) made clear on Dec. 13 that the agency's controversies won't soon be forgotten or forgiven, particularly not by the incoming Senate majority.
Paul noted in a letter to Blinken that the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is "investigating whether Global Engagement Center funding and activities violated the First Amendment" and requests that State Department employees preserve all documents and information pertaining to the agency.
Blaze News reached out to Paul's office for comment but did not receive a response by deadline.
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Can 'cryptocredits' replace Stanford? Bitcoin pioneer launches Network School
Unless you've been living under a rock on some distant planet, you’re probably aware of the ideological capture that's taken root in U.S. universities — and, more broadly, across the Western education system.
Once considered places where minds were expanded and intellectual growth was fostered, these institutions now resemble echo chambers where perspectives are narrowed and critical thinking is sacrificed at the altar of ideology. Graduates don’t just emerge with distorted mindsets; they impose their problematic perspectives on broader society.
The school’s mission is to unearth what Srinivasan calls 'dark talent' — no, not criminal masterminds capable of taking down a nation's power grid. Rather, these are individuals brimming with potential, many of whom are often overlooked by the conventional education system.
So what can be done? How do we reclaim education from this downward spiral? Enter Balaji S. Srinivasan, a man with a radical plan to shake things up.
A doer, not a dreamer
Srinivasan, a 44-year-old American entrepreneur and investor, is no stranger to innovation. He served as the chief technology officer of Coinbase and was a general partner at the renowned venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. With a résumé like that, it’s clear that Srinivasan isn’t just a dreamer — he’s a doer.
Raised on Long Island, Srinivasan is a Stanford graduate through and through, holding bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering, plus a master's in chemical engineering, all from the prestigious university. But despite his deep roots in traditional academia, he’s recognized the flaws in the current system.
He's also come to grips with the downfall of his alma mater. The very institution that gave Srinivasan his academic credentials is one of those universities that has fallen prey to the ideological capture he’s rallying against.
In response, he has launched a controversial new initiative: the Network School
'Dark talent' wanted
To say the Network School is unconventional is an understatement.
It's an online-first school designed to provide continuous learning, fitness, and community, especially for those who don’t have access to traditional elite pathways.
The school’s mission is to unearth what Srinivasan calls 'dark talent' — no, not criminal masterminds capable of taking down a nation's power grid. Rather, these are individuals brimming with potential, many of whom are often overlooked by the conventional education system.
The school, set to open its doors on September 23 with a physical campus in Singapore, blends structured and unstructured learning. Every day, according to its founder, students will tackle problem-solving tasks that earn them “cryptocredentials” — non-transferable NFTs that serve as proof of their skills. These credentials will form part of a larger “cryptoresume,” a portfolio that verifies expertise across both technology and the humanities.
It's certainly a fresh, digital twist on education, but is it more snake oil than substance?
Strange bedfellows?
Speaking of snake oil, one notable figure contributing to the school’s ambitious approach is Bryan Johnson, a man I have written about before. Best described as a mash-up between Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Michael Jackson, the 47-year-old Johnson is by far the best-known biohacker on the planet.
A tech entrepreneur who now wants to live forever, Johnson will bring his Blueprint fitness and nutrition program into the educational mix. In plain English, Blueprint consists of a carefully managed plant-based diet paired with a demanding exercise routine that covers strength training, cardio, and flexibility.
But I ask, why is Bryan Johnson involved? His role in the Network School seems more like a flashy add-on than a substantive contribution to education.
Cryptocred credulity
Graham Hillard of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, a nonprofit dedicated to enhancing higher education in the U.S., told Align that while "traditional academia needs to be challenged, we should remain cautious about institutions offering cryptocredentials." Hillard, who frequently writes on the troubling state of U.S. universities, is absolutely right.
While the traditional system certainly needs to be challenged and “dark talent” should be given the opportunity to flourish, we must carefully analyze the alternatives being offered.
Is the Network School really that different from Andrew Tate’s Hustlers University or Patrick Bet-David’s "university"? I ask this because the similarities are striking, particularly when it comes to the lack of accreditation.
Where will these graduates go once they emerge from the Network School?
Yes, they’ll have “cryptocredentials” and a shiny “cryptoresume,” but will these carry any weight in the real world? Absolutely not. Try landing a role at Costco, Chevron, Citibank, or the local construction site with a cryptoresume, and there's a good chance that security will either laugh you out of the place or show you the door.
This isn’t to dismiss the Network School’s potential or suggest that it is an outright scam; rather, it’s to highlight that while the school is designed to tackle a genuine problem, its proposed solution raises more questions than it answers.
Align contacted the Network School for comment but did not recieve a response.
Terrorists declare support for anti-Israel student protesters while the Associated Press gives them nominal cover
Anti-Israel radicals across America have taken over several college campuses where they have erected pro-Hamas encampments, attacked police, made foreign policy demands, and parroted genocidal rhetoric. Their efforts to signal solidarity with the Islamic terrorists who massacred thousands of Israelis and dozens of Americans in October — the same terror organization that has since plotted attacks on Western nations — have not gone unnoticed overseas.
Two Palestinian terrorist groups announced their support this week for the student protesters, even referring to them as their own.
Endorsed by terrorists
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Gaza-based terrorist group that combines Marxist-Leninist ideology with Arab nationalism, released a statement Tuesday condemning Israel and celebrating the students who have condemned the Jewish state's self-defense.
"At a time when all peace-lovers in the world stand by the Palestinian people in their just struggle to regain their usurped rights, the ugly face of Zionist racism is clearly visible," said the terror group, according to an online English translation tool. "While our students at American universities were looking forward to the support and solidarity of the administration of universities whose interests, profits and investments prevailed over noble human values."
The PFLP decried the "punitive measures" taken against students, alleging that professors and school administrators have threatened and blackmailed students "simply because they stand by the Palestinian people and support their just struggle for freedom and human dignity."
The PFLP extended the ACLU's November complaint against Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida education officials to other officials who have ordered the breakup of pro-terror student organizations.
According to the terrorists, those who have taken action against fellow travelers on campus operate "under the illusion that they are capable of suppressing the struggle of our students in universities in the United States."
"We ... affirm our unwavering support for the student struggle," said the terror group, singling out the George Soros-funded "Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) at Columbia, Rutgers, Yale, Stanford universities, and others."
Extra to championing the student groups and underscoring their value to the terrorist cause, the PFLP gave them marching orders: "We call for strengthening the unity of students and their struggle to withdraw the investments of American universities from the Zionist entity, and to sever all forms of relations with them," emphasizing the need for the "escalation of their struggle."
Izzat Al-Rishq, reportedly a Hamas Political Bureau official, issued a statement Wednesday similarly signaling support for the student radicals on American soil, reported the New York Sun.
"The American administration, led by President Biden, violates individual rights and the right to expression, and arrests university students and faculty members because of their rejection of the genocide that our Palestinian people are subjected to in the Gaza Strip at the hands of the neo-Nazi Zionists, without the slightest sense of shame about the legal value represented by the students and university professors," said the terrorist.
Perhaps recognizing the resonance of the anti-Israeli rhetoric with elements of the Democratic Party, Hamas added, "Today's students are the leaders of the future, and their suppression today means an expensive electoral bill that the Biden administration will pay sooner or later."
Pro-Hamas radicals by any other name
Palestinian terrorists clearly understand what the student radicals mean to accomplish, but the Associated Press appears keen to pretend students' intentions are alternatively benign.
The liberal media outfit has begun referring to the pro-Hamas protests as "antiwar protests" despite their participants' genocidal slogans — such as "long live intifada" or "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" — and the violent verve that animates them.
This rhetorical switch aligns the publication with Progressive Democrats, such as anti-Israel Rep. Cori Bush (Mo.), who similarly refer to the pro-Hamas students as "anti-war protesters."
Natalie Sanandaji, a New Yorker who survived the Nova music festival massacre, expressed disgust this week over the Associated Press' strategic wordplay, telling "Just the News, No Noise," "When people are chanting in their protests, 'intifada now,' simply look up the definition of 'intifada' — that is not anti war."
"To downplay it is to make these people feel like what they're doing is okay," continued Sanandaji. "We need to talk about how serious it is. Downplaying it is just putting more people at risk."
"Nobody is pro-war. To call this an anti-war protest is absurd," Dan Schneider, vice president of Media Research Center's Free Speech America told Just the News. "This is not about war. This is about the extermination of Jews and the elimination of Israel as a legal state."
Human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali suggested on X that it would even be deceitful to refer to the protesters as pro-Palestinian, noting, "They are not pro Palestinian. They are anti-Jewish and anti-American. They are flexing their Islamist muscles. Incompetent and weak university students who allowed this problem to get out of hand will not stop them."
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Scientists deal another blow to gender ideology, confirming the obvious: Men's and women's brains work differently
Radical feminist theorists such as Judith Butler and various exponents of trangenderism have suggested that sex — or at the very least gender, assuming there is a difference — is socially constructed.
A group of Stanford Medicine researchers rained on the gender ideologues' parade this week with a new study indicating that no amount of social construction or cosmetic surgery can hide the fact of one's actual sex on a brain scan.
The study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, identified "highly replicable, generalizable, and behaviorally relevant sex differences in human functional brain organization localized to the default mode network, striatum, and limbic network."
Simply put: men's and women's brains not only are physically distinct, but they operate differently.
Differences between the sexes in behavior, performance, and physiology have been observed and understood since time immemorial. While various studies have substantiated this common sense in esteemed academic journals — highlighting in 2017, for instance, the volumetric and structural differences between male and female brains — the Stanford scientists suggested that previous scientific work demonstrating differences in brain organization between the sexes remained inconclusive.
Accordingly, they set out to "uncover latent functional brain dynamics that distinguish male and female brains."
Lead authors Srikanth Ryali and Yuan Zhang, along with senior author Vinod Menon, director of the Stanford Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience Laboratory, fed a new artificial intelligence model various brain scans, telling it whether it was digesting images of male or female brains. Over time it began to "notice" subtle patterns that could help it differentiate between the two types.
The researchers then tested their spatiotemporal deep neural network model on the brain scans of 1,500 young adults, ages 20 to 35. The AI model proved incredibly effective at determining whether the scans came from men or women, getting it right over 90% of the time.
"Our results demonstrate that sex differences in functional brain dynamics are not only highly replicable and generalizable but also behaviorally relevant, challenging the notion of a continuum in male-female brain organization," said the study.
"This is a very strong piece of evidence that sex is a robust determinant of human brain organization," Menon said in a release.
The researchers also created sex-specific models of cognitive abilities. According to Stanford Medicine, one AI model was able to predict cognitive performance in men but not in women. The other model was effective in predicting cognitive performance but with the sexes reversed.
"These models worked really well because we successfully separated brain patterns between sexes," Menon noted. "That tells me that overlooking sex differences in brain organization could lead us to miss key factors underlying neuropsychiatric disorders."
The "hot spots" that were most helpful in distinguishing between male and female brains were the so-called default mode network, the corpus striatum, and the limbic system.
The Telegraph noted that the "default mode network" is the area of the brain believed to be the neurological seat for the "self," critical for contemplative thought, daydreaming, and processing autobiographic memories.
The striatum is a cluster of neurons in the forebrain that plays a general role in skill learning, apparently optimizing behavior by "refining action selection and in shaping habits and skills as a modulator of motor repertoires."
The limbic system is a group of structures deep inside the brain that performs various functions — from governing emotions, motivation, smell, and behavior to playing a role in the formation of long-term memory and dealing with sexual stimulation. It's also reportedly important in habit forming and rewards.
"A key motivation for this study is that sex plays a crucial role in human brain development, in aging, and in the manifestation of psychiatric and neurological disorders," continued Menon. "Identifying consistent and replicable sex differences in the healthy adult brain is a critical step toward a deeper understanding of sex-specific vulnerabilities in psychiatric and neurological disorders."
Gina Rippon, a leftist professor emeritus of cognitive neuroimaging at the Aston Brain Center, scrambled to account for the study's conclusions, claiming that society is to blame for the physical neurological differences between men and women, reported the Telegraph.
"The really intriguing issue is that those areas of the brain which are most reliably distinguishing the sexes are key parts of the social brain," said Rippon. "The key issue is whether these differences are a product of sex-specific, biological influences or of brain-changing gendered experiences. Or both. Are we really looking at sex differences? Or gender differences?"
Rippon has spent many years downplaying the role of biology in creating sex differences in the brain, going so far as to pen a controversial book in 2019 called "Gendered Brain: The New Neuroscience that Shatters the Myth of the Female Brain."
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Secret reports show Homeland Security worked with universities to 'censor Americans' online speech' before 2020 election
The Department of Homeland Security, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the State Department all worked with American universities to stem what they viewed as disinformation ahead of the 2020 presidential election, a new report claims.
The Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, led by Republican Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), produced a document detailing a series of reports that claimed government entities worked in tandem with Stanford University and others to "censor Americans before the 2020 election, including true information, jokes, and opinions."
"The federal government, disinformation 'experts' at universities, Big Tech, and others worked together through the Election Integrity Partnership to monitor & censor Americans’ speech," Jordan wrote on his X account.
According to the House report, the Election Integrity Partnership was formed to "monitor and censor Americans’ online speech in advance of the 2020 presidential election." The group was reportedly created in the summer of 2020 "at the request" of CISA and allowed the federal government to bypass First Amendment restrictions by passing on oversight to the new "disinformation" experts.
"The federal government and universities pressured social media companies to censor true information, jokes, and political opinions," the report stated. The censorship was allegedly bipartisan, labeling social media posts by Republicans and conservatives as "misinformation."
According to writer Benjamin Weingarten, the evidence showed the "[Election Integrity Partnership] – sometimes alongside DHS sub-agency CISA – pressuring platforms to target speech that included statements by then-President Trump; opinions about election integrity rooted in government records and even think-tank white papers; and speculative tweets from statesmen and everyday citizens alike."
The evidence shows EIP – sometimes alongside DHS sub-agency CISA – pressuring platforms to target speech that included statements by then-President Trump; opinions about election integrity rooted in government records and even think-tank white papers; and speculative tweets from…
— Benjamin Weingarten (@bhweingarten) November 6, 2023
The report listed that the following politicians were censored: President Donald J. Trump, Senator Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R), Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
In addition, pundits such as Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens, and BlazeTV host Dave Rubin were also reportedly censored. Journalists James O'Keefe, Tom Fitton, and Sean Hannity were as well.
Rep. Jordan provided examples of censored posts, which included President Trump linking to a 2020 Breitbart article titled "Georgia Counties Using Same Software as Michigan Counties also Encounter 'Glitch.'"
What speech was targeted for censorship?
-True information
-Jokes
-Political opinions
Here are a few examples: pic.twitter.com/j5l6pf5kMF
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) November 6, 2023
Another allegedly censored post, from Speaker Gingrich, included text stating, "Pennsylvania democrats are methodically changing the rules so they can steal the election."
The shocking report also included information from Stanford University that revealed the Election Integrity Partnership and staff made "explicit recommendations to social media platforms for specific enforcement measures" at least 75 times in a four-month period leading up to and during the 2020 election.
Examples of the requests included the following:
- “Hello Google. ... We recommend this ad be removed.”
- “Recommended actions: Ban sharing links to the following sites.”
- “This has circulated in pro-Trump conservative groups and sub-communities. ... We recommend that you all flag as false, or remove the posts below.”
- “This video narration claims to show evidence of voter fraud in Maryland, but the video itself (footage of an election worker) does not show anything that we interpret as voter fraud. We recommend that this video be removed or labeled.”
- “Hi Twitter team – there are a number of high-profile individuals, including the President, making accusations of voter fraud. ... Given the large audiences and Pennsylvania’s swing state status, we’d recommend this content be actioned.”
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‘The View’ hosts defend students’ atrocious heckling of Trump-appointed judge even after Stanford’s president apologizes
On Monday, hosts of "The View" defended Stanford students who heckled and shouted down a visiting judge who was delivering an invited lecture.
"Maybe all the snowflakes in the world need to get over the fact that people are going to disagree with them. ... It's your right to stand up and say, 'Hey, I don't agree,'" said host Whoopi Goldberg.
Goldberg and her fellow panelists were discussing an incident at Stanford that took place during an invited address on March 9. Students heckled and shouted down Fifth Circuit Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan to such an extent that he could not continue, as TheBlaze reported.
The heckling students allegedly worked with Tirien Steinbach, the university's diversity, equity, and inclusion associate dean. When the judge requested intervention of an administrator, Steinbach delivered a prepared speech of her own in which she verbally attacked the judge in a six-minute rant.
In the heavily edited footage aired by "The View," the dean is seen encouraging students to allow the judge to speak after she completed her diatribe. Predictably, the students read between the lines and did no such thing.
"When civility dies, learning stops and only agendas and approved narratives remain," Brett Tolman, former United States attorney for the District of Utah told TheBlaze.
Duncan requested and received an apology from Stanford's president, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, and Stanford Law School dean Jenny Martinez, as TheBlaze reported. The administrators acknowledged the students and DEI dean's behavior was "inconsistent with our policies on free speech."
The apology apparently failed to convince hosts of "The View" that heckling visiting lecturers and engaging in a true exchange of ideas are quite different.
Ana Navarro mentioned that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) had sent a letter to the Texas Bar Association asking them to investigate any of the students who were part of the "protest."
Navarro suggested instead that the Texas Bar Association should investigate Cruz, whom she says spread a "conspiracy theory" that lead to the January 6 Capitol riots.
"It you don't want to get challenged, if you don't want to get heckled, go to a Republican convention, don't go to a college," Navarro also said.
"What's so offensive is that one of the first classes you take in law school ... teaches you about the freedom of speech," said host Sunny Hostin, who is an attorney. "College and law school is a wonderful place to have this exchange of ideas. It gets heated sometimes."
"I like the Q and A," Hostin said. "Come at me. Let's have those discussions ... that's what the free exchange of ideas is about."
Host Alyssa Farah Griffin, who served as White House Director of Strategic Communications during the Trump administration and also lectures at Georgetown, offered a slightly more measured perspective.
"Academia is the place to be challenged by ideas, not to be shut down," Griffin said.
"We've stopped having productive disagreements where you win on ideas. The rest of it's just noise, and you feed the other side's narrative of 'they don't let me talk,'" said host Sara Haines.
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