Trump administration ends funding for science programs that study misinformation and disinformation

The Trump administration directed federal agencies to end support for research programs that studied misinformation, disinformation, and online influence operations, framing such research as ideological censorship of conservative speech. NSF's Trust and Authenticity in Communication Systems program and related efforts at NIH and the Department of Homeland Security were wound down. Researchers who had been studying foreign influence operations, social media manipulation, and health misinformation found their grants canceled or their programs administratively shuttered. The terminations generated concern in the national security community as well as the academic community, because disinformation research had informed both election security efforts and public health responses to vaccine hesitancy and pandemic-related misinformation. The elimination of a field of scholarly inquiry because it had political implications for the ruling party represented one of the clearest structural examples of anti-intellectualism operating as executive policy.