In a lengthy and unexpected release directly to Twitter, Republican Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, let loose with a damning account of the censorious collaboration between the Biden White House and Facebook parent company Meta's leadership to silence American's First Amendment protected free speech.
The Twitter thread which as of this writing has over 3.4 million views and is rapidly trending, begins with the heading from Jordan,
"THE FACEBOOK FILES, PART 1: SMOKING-GUN DOCS PROVE FACEBOOK CENSORED AMERICANS BECAUSE OF BIDEN WHITE HOUSE PRESSURE Never-before-released internal documents subpoenaed by the Judiciary Committee PROVE that Facebook and Instagram censored posts and changed their content moderation policies because of unconstitutional pressure from the Biden White House." (emphasis added)He wrote, "During the first half of 2021, social media companies like Facebook faced tremendous pressure from the Biden White House—both publicly and privately—to crack down on alleged 'misinformation.' In April 2021, a Facebook employee circulated an email for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg, writing: “We are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the [Biden] White House” to remove posts."
Jordan continued, "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."
Jordan's reveal was explosive: "What did the Biden White House want removed? A meme. That’s right, even memes weren’t spared from the Biden White House’s censorship efforts."
Despite protestations from Clegg who "countered that removing content like that would represent a significant incursion into traditional boundaries of free expression in the US,” according to the documentation, the White House's Andy Slavitt was insistent and "replied that the post was directly comparing COVID Vaccines to asbestos poisoning in a way which demonstrably inhibits confidence in COVID vaccines amongst those the Biden Administration is trying to reach."
The response from Facebook was predictable as Jordan explained, "What happened next? Facebook panicked. In another April 2021 email, Brian Rice, Facebook’s VP of public policy, raised the concern that Slavitt's challenge felt 'very much like a crossroads for us with the [Biden] White House in these early days.'"
Documentation Jordan provided stated that Facebook then attempted to repair its relations with the Biden administration in order to avoid potential retribution. Clegg wrote in an email,
“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.”
Jordan then provided an additional example of the censorship and direct collusion at work between the White House and Meta with an account of Facebook's forced de-boosting of a Tucker Carlson segment that violated none of the platform's policies that left the White House "angry that Facebook didn’t censor more."
This in full context was shortly before President Joe Biden publicly denounced Facebook claiming in the press that the social network was "killing people," by failing to censor what he called "misinformation."
He further provided documentation that Facebook caved to the massive pressure applied by Biden on August 2nd, 2021, stating in documents provided to the committee “[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.” Jordan added that the White House wasn't the only government office in play either, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy opened up another front in the pressure campaign to censor the so-called "disinformation dozen"
The Judicial Committee Chair concluded,
While resolving to not hold Mark Zuckerberg and Meta in contempt for now, as previously reported by the DC Enquirer, Jordan did leave them with a warning: "To be clear, contempt is still on the table and WILL be used if Facebook fails to cooperate in FULL""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.
Only after the Committee announced its intention to hold Mark Zuckerberg in contempt did Facebook produce ANY internal documents to the Committee, including these documents, which PROVE that government pressure was directly responsible for censorship on Facebook.
Based on Facebook’s newfound commitment to fully cooperate with the Committee’s investigation, the Committee has decided to hold contempt in abeyance. For now."
You can follow Matt Holloway on Facebook, Twitter, TruthSocial, Gettr, Gab & Parler.
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