Saturday, October 31, 2026Every claim sourced. Every source linked.
The record of what the American press got wrong, and who it helped
The Censorship Bureau
Partly confirmed

The Virality Project and COVID-19 vaccine content

The Stanford-led Virality Project applied the EIP model to COVID-19 vaccine content in 2021, using the same Jira ticketing system and briefing platforms and government agencies. Emails released in the 'Twitter Files' show it described some true content as reportable; Stanford says it never asked platforms to remove side-effect content.

Feb 22, 2021
Screenshot of the source
Screenshot of the source page. Tap to open it.
Whose side it served: Neither party

A private university-led project operating during the Biden administration.

What the record shows

Emails published by Matt Taibbi in March 2023 show Stanford onboarding Twitter staff to the project's Jira system on Feb. 22, 2021 and stating that 'the same JIRA system from the EIP is up and running.' Per those emails, the project told platforms that 'true stories that could fuel hesitancy' and 'stories of true vaccine side effects' could be treated as standard vaccine misinformation, and flagged content on vaccine passports and natural immunity. The July 4, 2023 Missouri v. Biden ruling said the EIP partners formed the Virality Project to do for COVID-19 what the EIP did for elections. Judge Doughty's preliminary injunction named the Virality Project among entities officials could not work with to suppress protected speech, a provision later narrowed on appeal and vacated by the Supreme Court's standing ruling.

In their words

“stories of true vaccine side effects”— Virality Project email to Twitter, as published in the Twitter Files · source
“did not censor or ask social media platforms to remove any”— Stanford Internet Observatory · source
The other side

The Stanford Internet Observatory says the Virality Project studied vaccine narratives, briefed agencies, and 'did not censor or ask social media platforms to remove any' content on vaccine side effects; platforms made their own calls. The Twitter Files are a selection of internal records chosen by the reporters who published them.

Sources

Get the daily file.