The Republican House majority has repeatedly accused the executive branch of weaponizing the government against the American people, including by allegedly pressuring social media companies to limit, remove, or block users’ posts that were seen as COVID disinformation or misinformation. The first major documented reports of these tactics came to light in the “Twitter Files,” where independent journalists used internal Twitter communications provided by Elon Musk to reveal repeated government efforts to get the social platform to limit tweets.
Now, new internal Meta communications appear to show the Biden White House pressuring Facebook to censor some posts discussing COVID-19 vaccines and origins.
The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, has been demanding the Facebook documents from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg for months.
Republicans subpoenaed Zuckerberg in February for information about his company’s discussions with the administration over content moderation and had threatened the CEO with contempt of Congress charges if he did not fully comply.
Meta sent three batches of documents July 26 and July 27, leading the committee to postpone a vote on a contempt resolution.
Following Meta’s submission of its communications, Jordan took to Twitter to share some of what he and his committee received. His Twitter thread was followed by a Wall Street Journal report that cited other documents Jordan and his committee had not yet shared with the public.
“The Facebook files, part 1: Smoking-gun docs prove Facebook censored Americans because of Biden White House pressure,” Jordan tweeted .
The chairman stated that, according to documents, Facebook and other companies “faced tremendous pressure from the Biden White House—both publicly and privately—to crack down on alleged ‘misinformation'” during the first half of 2021.
Jordan cited an April 2021 Facebook email to Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg that said, in part, “We are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the White House and the press, to remove more COVID-19 vaccine discouraging content.”
Jordan shared another Meta communication revealing that Biden senior COVID adviser Andy Slavitt was “outraged” over posts poking fun at the vaccines.
In the email, Facebook President for Global Affairs Nick Clegg detailed a call with Slavitt that, Clegg said, included some “serious” issues the company needed to address.
Clegg wrote that Slavitt “was outraged — not too strong a word to describe his reaction — that [Facebook] did not remove” a post containing what was considered a humorous meme about the vaccine.
The meme said “10 years from now you will be watching TV and hear ‘Did you or a loved one take the COVID vaccine? You may be entitled…” — a play on commercials where past medicines or products went wrong.
According to one July 2021 email thread reported by the Wall Street Journal, Clegg and an unnamed Facebook executive were discussing why posts about COVID’s origins were being censored.
“Can someone quickly remind me why we were removing — rather than demoting or labeling — claims that Covid is man made?” Clegg asked.
The Facebook executive replied, “We were under pressure from the administration and others to do more.”
Those same two executives, the Journal said, had a separate discussion about cutting out humorous content, much like the meme Slavitt wanted removed.
“There is likely a significant gap between what the WH would like us to remove and what we are comfortable removing,” the unnamed executive wrote. “The WH has previously indicated that it thinks humor should be removed if it is premised on the vaccine having side effects, so we expect it would similarly want to see humor about vaccine hesitancy removed.”
Clegg responded, “I can’t see Mark [Zuckerberg] in a million years being comfortable with removing that — and I wouldn’t recommend it.”
According to an Aug. 2, 2021, document Jordan posted to Twitter, Facebook did, in fact, change its policies in response to White House pressure.
The company’s leadership asked some policy teams “to brainstorm some additional policy levers we can pull to be more aggressive against Covid and vaccine misinformation,” a request that was “stemming from the continued criticism of our approach from the US administration,” the communication said.
Jordan closed his Twitter thread saying his committee had decided to hold off on contempt of Congress charges for Zuckerberg, but noted that it’s still “on the table and will be used if Facebook fails to cooperate in full.”
“To be continued,” he concluded.
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