Psaki Admits Biden Admin Colluding With Big Tech to Flag ‘Disinformation’
The admin sent a few, um, change “requests” to social media platforms to flag supposed “disinformation.”
Surgeon General Vivek H. Murphy wants Big Tech to “impose clear consequences for accounts that repeatedly violate platform policies.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki confirmed President Joe Biden’s administration will use Murphy’s to collude with the Big Tech companies to flag accounts that spread disinformation:
A reporter requested that Psaki expand a bit more on “the request for tech companies to be more aggressive” as regards “misinformation. Has the administration been in touch with any of these companies and are there any actions that the federal government can take to ensure their cooperation, because we’ve seen from the start there’s not a lot of action on some of these platforms.”
“Sure, well first, we are in regular touch with the social media platforms and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff, but also members of our COVID-19 team. Given as, Dr. Murthy conveyed, this is a big issue of misinformation specifically on the pandemic,” Psaki said.
“In terms of actions… that we have taken or are working to take from the federal government. We’ve increased disinformation research and tracking within the Surgeon General’s office. We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation. We’re working with doctors and medical professionals to connect two connected medical experts who are popular with their audiences with accurate information and boost trusted content.
“So we’re helping get trusted content out there. We also created the COVID Community Corps to get factual information into the hands of local messengers. And we’re also investing in the President’s, the Vice President’s and Dr. Fauci’s time in meeting with influencers who also have large reaches to a lot of these target audiences who can spread and share accurate information.
“We saw an example of that yesterday, I believe that video will be out Friday,” Psaki said.
.@PressSec: "We're flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation." pic.twitter.com/xTCvg3tyFQ
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 15, 2021
Covid Community Corps. Big Tech. Influencers.
Wait. It gets better. The Biden administration has requested social media platforms make changes. Well, we know it is not a request. We know it is a demand:
“1) That they measure and publicly share the impact of misinformation on their platform. Facebook should provide publicly and transparently data on the reach of COVID-19, COVID vaccine misinformation. Not just engagement, but the reach of the misinformation and the audience that it’s reaching. That will make sure we’re getting accurate information to people. This should be provided not just to researchers but to the public so that public knows and understands what is accurate and inaccurate.
“2) We have recommended, proposed, that they create a robust and enforcement strategy that bridges their properties and provides transparency about the rules. So… there’s about 12 people who are producing 65 percent of anti-vaccination misinformation on social media platforms. All of them remain active on Facebook despite some even being banned on other platforms, including ones that Facebook owns.
“3) It’s important to take faster action against harmful posts. As you all know, information travels quite quickly on social media platforms. Sometimes it’s not accurate, and Facebook needs to move more quickly to remove harmful, violative posts, posts that are within their policies for removal often remain up for days. That’s too long. The information spreads to quickly.
“Finally,” Psaki said, “we have proposed they promote quality information sources in their feed algorithm. Facebook has repeatedly shown that they have the leverage to promote quality information, we’ve seen them effectively do this in their algorithm over low-quality information and they’ve chosen not to use it in this case. That’s certainly an area where we have an impact.”
She said that Facebook “certainly understands what our asks are.”
I’m old enough to remember when it was a ‘conspiracy theory’ to suggest that Big Tech and Dems in government were conspiring to silence conservatives.
Now they just come out and say it. https://t.co/bYOTDfVmXw
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) July 15, 2021
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Comments
I start in on the National GOP and my State delegation already. What have you donte?
Don’t give a dime to the national GOP. Give to Trump’s PAC instead.
Join your county GOP. There are 200k empty precinct chairs in this country. Chances are you can become one just by contacting and volunteering. It costs nothing.
If we fill those 200K positions with level headed, America first patriots, we take over the GOP. It is a bottom up organization. We vote to set the agenda.
Or directly to candidates you support. You can’t always count on county or state parties to support conservative candidates. My local county GOP was more than willing to let the incumbent first term D congresscritter win than back the conservative candidate running against her.
Along with this type collusion, government contracts with big tech should make them subject to civil rights and anti-discrimination laws no less than universities.
“So we’re helping get trusted content out there.”
Working hand in hand to subvert democracy Racketeering to steal elections..
Little Red Lyinghood hard a work.
That means that Trump wins his lawsuit. It’s collusion with government to limit his speech.
And not just his speech. Every American whose speech isn’t approved of by our Big Government and Big Tech Overlords.
This is enraging.
It’s not particularly enraging beyond the mistake in the civil rights law that screwed everything up in the first place. There ought to have been freedom of association except in (de jure or de facto) monopoly markets. That solves the gay wedding cake problem: anybody can refuse without having to claim religious exemptions, provided there’s no conspiracy to limit cake sales in the city to non-gays.
Establishing the non-monopoly market exception would simply translate into private companies censoring speech when they’re in a monopoly market, and that’s that. First amendment, like freedom of association, applies except in monopoly markets.
I’m comfortable telling people they can’t refuse to do business with people due to the innate characteristics of those people.
I’m also comfortable with a baker saying ‘I will sell you any cake I would make for anybody else, but I will not fulfil your custom order’, especially when that custom order would be refused to any customer.
The difference is bigoted rejection of a customer versus personal choice of the work you do.
So, can we finally dispense with the polite fiction that “it’s not a violation of free speech cuz muh private business”?
No. I’m sure the idiot apologists will be along shortly to assure you that since the government isn’t actually FORCING them to censor the posts, that everything is just perfectly TOTES LEGIT.
They’re just complimenting the social media companies on their robust business model, and remarking that it would be a shame if it
burned downgot BitBleached.Milhouse hardest hit….
Okay, I’ll bite.
It certainly muddies the waters an awful lot. The First Amendment only binds government entities, and Facebook et. al. are not that. If the government were to strongarm Facebook, then Facebook would certainly have a First and Fifth Amendment-based cause of action, but it’s not clear to me that their users would.
In the case where the government says “we want you to do x”, and Facebook says “sure, okay”, and x is within Facebooks’ legal right to do anyway again I don’t see anywhere Facebook’s users have a cause of action. The most obvious analogy is the US government asking Hollywood to make a bunch of patriotic war movies as domestic propaganda during WWII. Does a pacifist moviegoer who objects to the war have the right to sue MGM et al because there are no movies at the Bijou that cater to their beliefs?
If the government says to the New York Times, “we’d like you not to print any letters to the editor that criticize the war effort”, and the New York Times says “we agree, that would be unpatriotic” does a prospective writer (or reader) of such letters have a cause of action?
As I’ve said repeatedly, Facebook no longer giving you your Free Shit isn’t a terrible infringement of your “rights”, you greedy, grasping Communist. All of the big social media companies and hosting providers and credit card processors collaborating to make it impossible for any competitor to exist is a very real problem and may be a violation of antitrust law, but such law is a tangled, inconsistent mess that’s mostly been used to crush political targets by the federal government. Using it comes with Unintended Consequences that will likely make things worse.
It’s not just FB, and it’s not just that poor Aunt Sally can’t share a few “covid” memes without getting thrown into FB jail. There are citizen journalists (for example) who use FB, YouTube, et al as part of their marketing strategy and information sharing platform. Getting thrown into FB jail or having videos taken down by YouTube is interference because such actions by these Big Tech have the effect of depriving them of business.
It really is the equivalent of getting cut off by the phone company or the electric company simply because they disagree with the raison d’etre of your business, and furthermore they have the blessing of the State to engage in strongarm tactics, regardless of whether they are willing actors or not. This is a direct strike at the heart of the 1A.
When the government directs a company to do something that the government itself is not allowed to do, the company can then be considered to be a part of government and subject to Constitutional limitations.
Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai is further along in his lawsuit against Massachusetts and now Twitter, where he ran for office and found that the voting machine “weighted race” feature was used against him. He started asking for ballot images, and the response was that this feature was turned off so there was no actual record of the votes. He started talking about it on Twitter and his posts were deleted (maybe he was also kicked off, I don’t recall). He came into possession of e-mails between the goverment official and Twitter that talked about him as well as the “Trusted Partner Portal” that Twitter set up for some government officials to report people to delete. He also uncovered their election influence operations playbook and other materials, now in evidence in the case.
Suppose it was not a company but a militia that the government was asking to limit your speech. Would that make a difference?
Doesn’t that also assume that Facebook is the content creator, rather than the neutral carrier?
Sure MGM can make what it likes, but does that give it the authority to suppress already made and printed films that don’t agree with its official party line?
The same people who raise the “private business” argument to defend Big Tech didn’t raise that argument in defense of the businesses shut down during the pandemic by many state governors. In the latter situation, they thought it was perfectly fine for government to tell “private businesses” what they could and couldn’t do.
So is the shoe on the other foot now for both sides? Hardly. We argue that shut downs of the economy were beyond the governments’ constitutional authority, while in the case of Big Tech, it (Big Tech) comes under the regime of the Constitution because it has become a partner of government, and therefore must similarly conform its behavior to that allowed under the Constitution. (That and there’s the user/Big Tech contract of the “terms of service”, that implies fairness in any censorship of the platform’s users, fairness that is not in evidence. I’ve mentioned before that Big Tech itself never defends its actions with the “we’re a private company” argument, they argue that they apply the same standards to everyone. And we argue that they don’t.)
This Biden/Psaki/tech giant platform vision is the same one attributed to Mao in the 2019 book by Nicholas Christakis called Blueprint where he stated (my bolding) that “A notable aspect of Mao’s philosophy was an analogous confidence in the malleability of human behavior on both individual and collective levels. Mao felt that the state must directly intervene to shape the belief and actions of human beings because the transformation of society ‘depends entirely on the consciousness, the wills, and the activities of men’. ”
Come to think of it that Mao quote also explains the Biden/NEA/AFT etc fascination with using Critical Race Theory in K-12 education.
Puh-saki and the SG have put the lapdogs in a tough spot. They’re already trying to spin inflation into a positive. Now, they’ll have to spin torching the 1A too.
Spin inflation into a positive? You’d have better luck getting Fauci to take a position, ONE POSITION, on anything without checking his bank account first!! (or, like Joe, getting permission to speak)
The administration is treading in dangerous waters here.
Prior to this development, the tech oligarchs could seek cover from liability for their efforts to censor users of their platforms, by pointing out that the First Amendment only applies to governmental entitiesn not privately held business such as Youtube, Twitter, or Facebook.
At the point where the administration is actively participating in these efforts, as admitted by Psaki, the entire process becomes “state action” within the meaning of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.
Arguably, this course of action opens up both the government and the tech platforms to civil liability for engaging in censorship in violation of the First Amendment.
No industry deserves it more. All their smug bullshit about community standards will hopefully be very painful and costly.
good luck hoping for the court system to do anything about it, especially the supreme court
The Supreme Court will shortly have the opportunity to prove to us whether they live up to their oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution or if they just want to shuck it in favor of the Communist Manifesto. Fourth Amendment rights mean nothing to them! At least they are about to have a chance to prove whether we have a justice system or a JUST-US system!
Maybe this time.
This should come as now surprise, just look at how many from that industry now are working for the admin.
She said out loud what everyone already knew — Facebook, Twitter, and Google are acting as agents of the state. For the purpose of censoring political opposition and disseminating Democrat/socialist/Marxist political propaganda.
That is, when the ‘state’ is run by Democrat/socialist/Marxist fascists.
When it is not they are agents of ‘The Resistance’.
Remove their extraordinary legal protections and break them up.
Not just agents of the state, agents if the Dems.
If social media companies are conspiring with the government to censor people’s speech, then they constitute state actors, subject to the 1st Amendment.
The curtain is getting frayed from this constant pulling back. It’s as if the d/progressive are on an Alex Jones style scavenger hunt where they get points for publicly fulfilling what were conspiracy theories.
Your rights are being taken away by the Government’s cronies and they are setting that up.
Wonder how many government employees work on monitoring social media? We know the USPS set up a special intelligence operation under Obama for that purpose and it continued until Trump left office and may not have shut down. There was neither an appropriation nor legislation to allow this, and we were never told who authorized it , who mans the office and who was in charge, because Trump’s Director was never even informed of the office.
..
Then there is the question if the social media companies gave the government the tools to snoop.
Related
More evidence of FBI corruption and the two tiered justice system.
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/07/15/the-fbi-further-proves-its-an-irredeemable-dumpster-fire-of-corruption-n411357
“posts that are within their policies for removal often remain up for days. That’s too long. The information spreads to quickly.”
Right. Information has to be carefully simmered to bring out the desired flavor. Like the
Russian disinformationcriminal evidence on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Or the final report on the cause of Officer Sicknick’sbrutal fire-extinguishernatural-causes death.I do love that photo of Psaki though. She’s starting to look just one onion short of a bunny-boil.
That sounds an awful lot like what President Trump has asserted in his lawsuit. It’s also textbook fascism.
The left calls the right Fascist in order to gaslight the population into ignoring the fact that the left IS fascist.
Gaslighting. Psychological projection. Ignorance of history.
Call it whatever you think fits — it could be any or all, depending on who you’re referring to — but the fact remains, the American Left are, by any reasonable definition, every bit (and more) the fascists they accuse the Right of being.
(To be fair, a few on the Right are just as guilty, but are so blinded by the urge to “stick it right back to ’em” that they don’t see it. Point of advice: Never give yourself a political tool you’re not willing to have one-upped and used against you.)
I was reminded that actual, mid-20th-century fascism was a government/corporate alliance. The government exerted whatever control it could, and contracted/coerced corporations to control what it couldn’t.
We’re seeing that unfold right before our eyes, in real time, by the very people who scream “Fascist!” at everyone who disagrees with them.
I know there was a recent upgrade to the comments section. How about one more upgrade with an ignore feature?
They’ll claim this is a health issue and that lives are at stake and that’s why it’s okay.
Actually, it’s a proof of concept pilot run to see if they can get away with it.
If all goes well they’ll start targeting other allegedly ‘dangerous’ ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’. Like about climate change. And private gun ownership and use. And ‘systemic racism’. And election fraud. And questions about really happened on Jan 6. And so on and so forth.
Once precedent is set the fascists will use and abuse it to the max. Just as they are now using and abusing the power the Patriot Act gave government enabling them to spy on American citizens.
At one time I though Snowden and Assange were traitors. Now I’m not so sure.
Bingo. This sets a new precedent. New precedents are hard to set, which is why they’re pushing so hard for it.
Expanding existing precedents is much easier.
The Patriot Act was passed by Republicans. They used it in line with its intent and within its limits, but when the Left took charge they pushed it further. The Right then took power back and used it within its new, expanded limits, and then the Left took power again and pushed it further again. It has grown well beyond its limits and intent, and will continue to grow with every change in leadership.
Like I keep saying, both parties suffer from the same flaw — they both assume that because they are in power, they will always be in power. However, the pendulum doesn’t stop swinging, and sooner or later the other party will be in charge. Ergo, you should never give yourself a political tool you’re not willing to have one-upped and used against you.
Because history shows, the Left is VERY good at expanding the Right’s tools and turning them back on us.
Romney: “I do trust the president.”
It is hard to imagine the extent of the arrogance of the Biden Administration. “We know better than you. We will take care of everything.”
It’s as if not one of them was ever taught humility. They most certainly never learned a thing about history (any history–like what happened a week ago or 10 years ago, or 100 years ago).
I hope this new information helps Trump in his lawsuit against Big Tech. However, I assume that this information was intentionally “leaked” by Psaki to get out in front of the story. There could be much more to come. (I am going to guess that Obama advised Facebook on “Russian collusion.” Maybe William Brennan was advising Jack Dorsey.)
There seems to be an important element missing from this article. How much pressure has the White House exerted on facebook etc? The communications have been framed as requests so on that basis it seems to be a storm in a tea cup. It would be quite different if the White House was forcing Facebook etc to comply with specific messaging requests. At the end of the day Facebook etc need to sort the unconscioubly bad from the rest.
It seems fair to say that anti Vax stories would fall in the earlier category.
Bookmark your post and refer back to it whenever you whine about LI posters that see through your transparent purpose here, marx.
You mean asking legitimate questions that would separate whether the actions carried out are either responsible or an over reach.
Substantive responses don’t appear to be your strong point.
No, marx. I mean carrying water for what Biden and the rest of the left do or say on any given day. I’m sure you’d have been fine had Trump done the same with the Russian collusion lie, right? You don’t actually need to answer that. We all know the answer.
How am I carrying water when I’m asking a question in order to determine whether or not the articles premise is correct.
Except there was tonnes of evidence for Trumps crimes so try again.
Unlike you i try and make claims based on facts and logic. Something you don’t seem to be bothered about.
So, mere requests from the President of the United States, where the government is looking into your business, are not coercive. Right mark311? You’re ok with the POTUS making requests–mere requests–of foreign governments, too. Right? Please be consistent.
Its not necessarily coercive, the US is after all a constitutional republic.
You are going to have to provide context for POTUS making requests of a foreign gov. What kid of requests?
Get real, Mark311…. The DC ruling elite and Big Tech are on the same team. There is no “pressure” on FB/Twit/UTube/ect…from the gov.
I would say it’s more likely the tech nerds suggested a course of action…
This is a good example of how dependent society has become on social media for info. How did people share their thoughts before FB ???? Maybe there should a movement to get back to low tech info sharing…
Not really given the current Administration is looking at Anti Trust laws potentially.
“This is a good example of how dependent society has become on social media for info” True, hence not using it, cant stand face book or twitter
At the end of the day Facebook etc need to sort the unconscioubly [sic] bad from the rest.
It seems fair to say that anti Vax stories would fall in the earlier category.
I’m assuming you meant to say, “unconscionably bad”? As in, “so bad, it defies one’s conscience”?
Why would an anti-vax story automatically fall into that category? Have you not read any that raise legitimate concerns over the lack of testing, lack of safety and dosage protocols, lack of knowledge of potential side-effects over the long-term, and impenetrable immunity from liability for the companies that make them?
There’s a reason pharmaceuticals normally take years of testing before they’re approved for market. This COVID one took three months. It’s safe to say we have no idea what the effects will be 2-3 years down the road, and I don’t believe it’s unreasonable to be concerned about that.
What’s unconscionable is shutting down the conversation any time someone asks those questions.
Forget for a moment whether you agree or disagree with the “anti-vaxxer” and ask yourself this: Is unilaterally shutting down an inconvenient or difficult conversation the way we do things in a free-speech exchange of ideas?
They aren’t even allowed to ask or make any sort of efforts to shut down American citizens speech….geesh….you love you some Facism huh
As a “provider” of an “interactive computer service”, they are allowed to censor or remove obscene, lewd, excessively-violent, harassing, or other questionable content (47 U.S. Code 230 — a.k.a. “Section 230” — has a list of a few other adjectives), and are protected from liability for “Good Samaritan” efforts to do so. That’s in federal law and has been for 25 years.
So it’s not a question of whether or not they’re allowed to censor content — they are.
The question is whether they’re allowed to remove “disinformation” at the behest of the federal government; or censor conservative voices asking inconvenient questions about controversial issues while they allow Antifa to scream “Kill the pigs!”, the Mullahs of Iran to shout “Death to America!”, and the Taliban to live-stream dissidents’ beheadings. IOW, are they allowed to selectively apply or violate their own standards and user contracts based on the political bent of the content?
Also, are they allowed to be the propaganda enforcers of a partisan government administration — by taking actions said administration is prohibited by the Constitution from taking itself — and then hide behind their “private business” status?
Or should they lose their “private business” liability protections for doing either of those things?
How is this not an “in kind” contribution of incalculable value to the democrat party? Will the Federal Election Commission act?
Meanwhile, His Fraudulency is spreading the message by cautioning US businesses about the “deteriorating” situation in Hong Kong. Thanks creep but that news is at least five years old. What about the deteriorating situation in Vietnam? Should we be concerned about that too?
Link: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/16/5-things-to-know-before-the-stock-market-opens-friday.html
Isn’t this the very definition of Censorship? Isn’t this a blatant disregard for the 1st Amendment rights.
How can a U.S. president do this to U.S. Citizens?
I understand who is president, no worries. I just cannot find a place within me that can conceive of a U.S. president doing something like this to U.S. Citizens unless they are about to implement a Stasi-like force among us.
Oh, but the President and his Administration aren’t doing anything! It’s the privately-owned businesses that are “doing their part” to “stop the spread” of dangerous ideas! [/sarcasm]
In all seriousness, as soon as “Big Tech” starts acting as a government proxy — especially if they are taking blatantly-partisan actions at the behest of a blatantly-partisan administration, in violation of their written “community standards” and their EULAs — they should lose their “private business” protections.
How many steps are left in their commie playbook until we are truly a communist country? Perhaps one or two only but I can’t imagine anything lower than our “government leaders) joining with social media to report conservatives for our 1st amendment rights. When will they break down our doors and drag us off to the train station? Getting real scary!