VIRALITY PROJECT

Institutional Archetype

THE CATEGORY THAT INCLUDED TRUE THINGS — The Virality Project took the Election Integrity Partnership’s ticket model and pointed it at COVID-19 vaccines for seven months in 2021. Most of its output was public weekly briefings. The part that made it a case study is one line in a category list: true stories of vaccine side effects, filed as possible “malinformation” and offered to a platform for tagging. Whether that amounts to censorship is disputed on the same document. That a monitoring project built a category for true content is not.

Mandate & Origin

A coalition of, in a July 2021 health-sector briefing’s words, “analysts across six of the nation’s leading institutions”: “the Stanford Internet Observatory, the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, New York University’s Center for Social Media and Politics and Tandon School of Engineering, Graphika, and the National Conference on Citizenship” (H-ISAC Virality Project briefing, July 9 2021). Its primary output, per co-lead Renée DiResta, was weekly briefings “posted publicly and sent to a mailing list that anyone could sign up for”; “in about 19% of cases, VP engaged with platforms on the content it was following within what it called ’tickets’” (DiResta). Its final report, Memes, Magnets, and Microchips, covers “seven months of work” (Virality Project).

Funding & Backers

Run out of the Stanford Internet Observatory with its partner institutions; partners included the commercial firm Graphika. The project’s funding is not itemized in the sources above, and this file does not assert a figure.

Actions & Leadership Choices

The March 17, 2021 email. A Virality Project researcher wrote to Twitter listing the categories of content the project was tagging and asked “which of the following types of content you would like to be tagged on going forward.” One category: “True content which might promote vaccine hesitancy. Viral posts of individuals expressing vaccine hesitancy, or stories of true vaccine side effects. This content is not clearly mis or disinformation, but it may be malinformation (exaggerated or misleading).” The examples included a central New York school district closing after staff fell sick with vaccine side effects. In the screenshot as DiResta published it, only “Standard vaccine misinformation on your platform” is bolded as currently received. Twitter’s reply named “known repeat offenders” and “notable content that is not on the Twitter platform” as the categories it wanted (full email and reply).

The two readings. Matt Taibbi published the email in Twitter Files #19 (March 17, 2023) as the project “recommending against ‘stories of true vaccine side effects’ and ’true posts that could fuel hesitancy’” (Taibbi on X). DiResta says Taibbi and Andrew Lowenthal “cut it in half” and that the email asked a question Twitter answered by choosing other categories (DiResta; DiResta Substack).

The suit, decided. Its partners were defendants in Hines v. Stamos; on July 1, 2026 the court dismissed the case without prejudice for lack of jurisdiction, finding that “discovery has confirmed the absence of any factual basis to conclude the EIP or VP, let alone any particular Defendant, coerced any social media platform to censor Plaintiffs’ posts or accounts”; the plaintiffs appealed (ruling).

CONDUCT verdict: CATEGORY CREEP — TRUE CONTENT FILED AS MALINFORMATION. On the project’s own document, true reports of side effects were a tracked category, labelled possible malinformation, and offered to a platform for tagging. The document does not show the platform asking for that category, and a court that looked at discovery found no coercion. The finding is the category: a monitoring apparatus that files true information as a threat type has already decided that accuracy is not the test.

Reach Assessment

Institutional: The weekly briefings went to public-health officials and anyone on the list; the ticket channel reached the platforms. Memetic: The single cropped email became the most-quoted document of the censorship debate, in both directions.

Sources: H-ISAC TLP:White Virality Project weekly briefing, July 9 2021 — American Hospital Association; Virality Project — final report page; Virality Project — March 17, 2021 email exchange with Twitter, full text — Renée DiResta; The Many Lies of Andrew Lowenthal — Renée DiResta; Matt Taibbi, Twitter Files #19 post; Hines v. Stamos, Memorandum Ruling, Doc. 222 — W.D. La..