Jim Jordan Drops Receipts On Biden-Facebook Censorship Scheme

Update (1253ET): Shortly after publication, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) dropped a Twitter thread full of receipts showing the Biden administration’s collusion with Facebook to suppress conservative speech.

“Since it’s a global pandemic, can we give agencies access to targeting parameters that they normally wouldn’t be able to?” said President Biden’s digital director, Rob Flaherty, according to internal company communications.

Rob Flaherty, President Biden’s then-Director of Digital Strategy, repeatedly put pressure on Facebook to explain its content decisions.

“We have to explain to President, Ron, people, why there is misinfo on the internet…” pic.twitter.com/zUZYbKHfA9

— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) August 3, 2023

Continued…

But that wasn’t enough for the Biden White House. Flaherty wanted Facebook to go a step further. He wanted Facebook to kick people off its site.

The Biden White House’s effort to censor opposing viewpoints only grew. So, they upped the pressure. Flaherty demanded that Facebook “play ball” and work with the Biden White House on censorship. He called it his “dream.”

But that’s not all. The Biden White House wanted to control what you saw on Facebook. They questioned whether Facebook could change its algorithm so users saw more posts from the New York Times and less from the @realDailyWire and @TomiLahren.

 

Why did they do that? Because they didn’t think you were smart enough to decide for yourself. President Biden’s head of strategic communications and public engagement for the #COVID19 response, Courtney Rowe, mocked Real America’s ability to determine what’s true and what isn’t.

Facebook knew it had to act. One employee tried to explain to the White House that if the company couldn’t “remove” content, it could at least “contain it.”

But Flaherty continued to press for more content moderation and CONTROL on so-called “bad” content.

 

And of course, Facebook caved. The company ADMITTED to the White House that it reduced content of certain posts – even if the posts didn’t violate the company’s terms and contained TRUE information.

 

Just read this from a Facebook employee.

 

These newly subpoenaed meeting notes continue to show the Biden White House’s desire to direct and control content on Facebook. More evidence of the censorship-industrial complex.

 

To be continued…

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Authored by Eric Lundrum via American Greatness,

In new memos recently released by Facebook, the social media giant was pressured by the Biden White House into altering its algorithms so that mainstream news sources would be elevated over conservative sites.

As Just The News reports, the documents over to the House Judiciary Committee following a subpoena detail a series of meetings between Facebook executives and White House Digital Director Rob Flaherty in the spring of 2021. The demands from the White House focused on posts related to the Chinese coronavirus and the efficiency of the COVID vaccines.

In one meeting on April 14th, 2021, Flaherty asked Facebook if it was possible to artificially promote outlets such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, instead the Daily Wire and Fox News, particularly commentator Tomi Lahren.

“If you were to change the algorithm so that people were more likely to see NYT, WSJ, any authoritative news source over Daily Wire, Tomi Lahren, polarizing people,” Flaherty asked.

“You wouldn’t have a mechanism to check the material impact?”

“We have to explain to President, Ron [Klain], people, why there is misinfo on the internet, bigger problem than FB,” said Flaherty, according to the typed notes from Facebook executives.

“Where issues are, what interventions are, how well they are working, for products, want to engage in things that you know to be effective. I don’t even care about specific methodology, you have better, richer data than we’ll ever have.”

Tomi Lahren, who boasted a large following on Facebook, had recently announced that she would refuse to get the COVID vaccine. Meanwhile, Daily Wire had filed a lawsuit against the Biden Administration’s mandate for private workplaces to force its employees to take the vaccine. The Supreme Court eventually struck down Biden’s workplace mandate, while upholding his vaccine mandate for facilities that are funded by Medicare and Medicaid.

“What are the things driving hesitancy on your platform? What is it? How big is the problem? When you are intervening, how are you measuring success?” Flaherty repeatedly grilled the Facebook executives in one meeting.

“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,” said Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, on Twitter.

Constitutional scholars have also raised the alarm over the revelations, with George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley saying that he has “asked Congress to pass a law barring federal employees from engaging in censorship and targeting of citizens.”

“Agencies have a right to speak in their own voices,” Turley added.

“Instead, the Biden Administration sought to engage in what I have called ‘censorship through surrogate.’ This is part of that pattern.”

Turley’s take is reiterated by University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds told Just the News on Wednesday that the First Amendment issue is when the “government is asking people to censor speech, their action is attributable to the government, so both they and the government can be sued.”x

“By working with the government, Facebook exposed themselves to liability,” Reynolds said, noting that they do not “share sovereign immunity” with the government and will “probably very much regret it.”