Facebook Removed COVID Posts, Memes Due to Pressure From Biden Admin
“We were under pressure from the administration and others to do more.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that the Biden administration pressured Facebook to remove some posts about COVID:
The emails show Facebook executives discussing how they managed users’ posts about the origins of a pandemic that the administration was seeking to control. “Can someone quickly remind me why we were removing—rather than demoting/labeling—claims that Covid is man made,” asked Nick Clegg, the company’s president of global affairs, in a July 2021 email to colleagues.
“We were under pressure from the administration and others to do more,” responded a Facebook vice president in charge of content policy, speaking of the Biden administration. “We shouldn’t have done it.”
The pressure and removal happened three months after Facebook stopped banning posts that promoted humans made and manufactured COVID.
The White House didn’t deny the discussions took place. But they only told them to promote “the adoption of vaccines and other public-health goods.” Of course, they didn’t tell them to censor speech because that would totes never happen:
“We have consistently made it clear that we believe social-media companies have a critical responsibility to take account of the effects of their platforms that they have on the American people, while making independent decisions about the content of their platforms,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a Thursday press briefing. Asked to comment for this article later Thursday, a White House spokesperson pointed to those comments.
In another April 2021 email, Nick Clegg, Facebook’s president for global affairs, informed his team at Facebook that Andy Slavitt, a Senior Advisor to President Biden, was “outraged . . . that [Facebook] did not remove” a particular post. pic.twitter.com/5muflAQjcx
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 27, 2023
When Clegg “countered that removing content like that would represent a significant incursion into traditional boundaries of free expression in the US,”
Slavitt disregarded the warning and the First Amendment. pic.twitter.com/CaVm2AsTrg
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 27, 2023
But Facebook wanted to repair its relationship with the White House to avoid adverse action:
“Given what is at stake here, it would also be a good idea if we could regroup and take stock of where we are in our relations with the [White House], and our internal methods too.” pic.twitter.com/nLbYkf2quy
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 27, 2023
To appease the Biden White House, talking points were drafted for Clegg.
Facebook was ready to tell the White House that it had demoted a video posted by Tucker Carlson by 50% in response to the White House’s demands, even though the post didn’t violate any policies. pic.twitter.com/RPIBmivviM
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 27, 2023
Public pressure mounted as well.
In July 2021, President Biden publicly denounced Facebook and other social media platforms, claiming they were “killing people” by not censoring alleged “misinformation.”https://t.co/fv8843rkAD
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 27, 2023
August 2, 2021:
“[Facebook’s] Leadership asked Misinfo Policy . . . to brainstorm some additional policy levers we can pull to be more aggressive against . . . misinformation. This is stemming from the continued criticism of our approach from the [Biden] administration.” pic.twitter.com/bfNSeujQI7
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 27, 2023
These documents, AND OTHERS that were just produced to the Committee, prove that the Biden Admin abused its powers to coerce Facebook into censoring Americans, preventing free and open discourse on issues of critical public importance.
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 27, 2023
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Comments
It’s past time to break up FB into separate competing entities. In addition, every govt employee who sought to infringe upon the 1st amendment rights of Citizens to speak freely about unpopular topics AND/OR sought to interfere with or diminish the right of Citizens to hear/view that speech about an unpopular topic should be removed from govt service and face a Sec 1983 Civil Rights violation.
I’d settle for just seeing a few Caucasians on TV commercials.
Free Speech, Democrat Style
Tyrants gonna tyrant.
Easier solution- treat them as a common carrier. If illegal or unlawful conduct is suspected- report it to the appropriate authorities.
Problem with breaking it up is- it’s not useful unless it has a critical mass or people who can all communicate with each other. We can (most of us can) all name Facebook competitors- none of which are any real competition as general communication platforms because the people we want to communicate with aren’t there.
‘Report it to the appropriate authorities’ would seem to have the significant drawback that those same authorities are knee deep in the same violations of Civil Rights.
The breakup would spawn competitive entities, say three of them. I suspect that whichever one’s management was first to adopt policies more in line with Twitter’s under Musk would soon gain dominance. It isn’t as if Truth Social or Threads are really taking any business away from Twitter.
18 U.S.C. 241 – Conspiracy against rights
18 U.S.C. 242 – Deprivation of rights under color of law
Each carries up to 10 years in federal prison and up to a $250,000 fine. Each also disqualifies a person convicted under those statutes from holding any office under the United States or its political subdivisions, for life.
I can think of a lot of people who can and probably should be charged under those two statutes (among others), but in my knowledge nobody ever has.
Historically, suits brought by citizens against officials under these laws have never succeeded.
However, the government brings suits against state actors (like Derrick Chauvin and Stacey Koons) under these laws all the time, to get “two bites at the apple” against a defendant already exonerated (like Koons) or even convicted (like Chauvin).
This revelation bolsters the findings made by Judge Doughty in his injunction grant (since lifted by a 3-judge Circuit Court panel) as to the Biden Administration’s outrageous, brazen and lawless stifling of First Amendment-protected speech.
The factual record is getting more and more voluminous as to the appalling, indefensible and contemptible government coercion in suppression of free speech.
How would we ever survive if we did not have these guardians of our well-being against that enemy known as the First Amendment.
Isn’t this an impeachable offense?
We can add it to that lengthy and growing list.
Um, no. Violation of constitutional provisions, including the citizens’ bill of rights, is not spelled out as an impeachable offense, other than insofar as being shoehorn-able into the vague classification of “high crimes and misdemeanors” by Congress. A dereliction on the part of the Founders, I’ve always thought.
Well.
Section 3
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
I think violating the Constitution by an elected official can be shoehorned into levying war against the United States. Which is an impeachable offense.
Any statute that ascribes a 10 year sentence for a violation would certainly be considered a “high crime.” The Constitution defines only one crime (treason), and its authors understood that Congress would populate a constellation of crimes, all of which are either “high crimes” (felonies) or “misdemeanors.” This possibly means that if Congress hasn’t defined a particular act a “crime” that a government official can’t be impeached for that act. But if that official commits an act that Congress has defined as a crime, impeachment applies.
The impeachment clause also says that after removal from office, a former official can still be prosecuted for the crimes for which he was impeached. This informs of us of two points. 1.) Impeachment and removal from office are political acts, not judicial acts (so there’s no objection of “double jeopardy”). 2.) That impeachable acts are also (or at least can be) statutory violations, meaning that statutory violations (at least) are impeachable offenses.
Goebbels would be so proud.
Come to Portland, the current home to mask wearing millenials. On a plus note, it does provide free entertainment to us senior citizens to watch them voluntarily make their lives unpleasant with no actual benefit.