James Baker, the former top lawyer at the FBI during the Russiagate investigation and later a key figure in Twitter’s pre-Musk censorship system, now serves on the board of a newly formed “counter-disinformation” group. The Knight-Georgetown Institute (KGI), launched in 2024 by the Knight Foundation and Georgetown University, is advancing policy strategies aimed at regulating online speech through direct influence on state legislatures.
KGI has begun promoting a legislative “toolkit” for state lawmakers. This toolkit provides guidance on how to reshape social media algorithms and regulate content feeds under the pretense of improving “quality” and reducing “toxicity.” Baker’s presence on the board represents a continuation of government-aligned efforts to control digital speech through institutional partnerships.
Other board members include Alondra Nelson, who directed the Biden administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy and oversaw a wide-reaching federal disinformation program involving 26 federal agencies and numerous universities and nonprofits. Also on the board is Nahiba Syed, an attorney who defended the Steele Dossier, a discredited document central to the Russia collusion narrative.
In March 2025, KGI released its flagship policy document, Better Feeds. The proposal outlines three strategies for reshaping social media platforms: “Bridging,” which prioritizes so-called positive dialogue over high-engagement content; “Surveys,” in which platforms regularly poll users to steer preferences; and “Quality Metrics,” a system to downgrade content flagged as “toxic” while boosting content from establishment-approved sources.
The metrics for evaluating “quality” are deliberately subjective, allowing those in control to suppress disfavored content. KGI endorses tools like NewsGuard and Google Jigsaw’s Perspective AI, which have been used to blacklist conservative news outlets including Breitbart News, Newsmax, and The Federalist.
These mechanisms allow censorship to be enacted quietly, without direct bans, using algorithmic downgrading and reputational smears. Under the guise of fighting disinformation, KGI is building a framework to institutionalize digital censorship, leveraging government influence, academic partnerships, and nonprofit funding.
Baker’s involvement marks a strategic link between past federal surveillance efforts and future content regulation schemes. His role indicates the long-term goal of transforming online speech governance into a permanent institutional enterprise backed by legislative power.
