Facebook is being criticized for violating the First Amendment after allegedly suppressing a video posted by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson at the request of the Biden White House.
Judge Terry Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana Monroe Division issued an injunction over the White House’s efforts to censor Americans’ right to free speech by coordinating with big tech companies to shadow-ban posts that do not violate its content policy.
On April 14, 2021, Carlson posted a video warning about the possible side effects of vaccines.
That same day, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty emailed Facebook demanding the video of Carlson and then-Fox News host Tomi Lahren be removed. He claimed the video was “Tucker Carlson saying vaccines don’t work and Tomi Lahren stating she won’t take a vaccine.”
Then-White House advisor Andy Slavitt reportedly emailed Facebook executive Nick Clegg about Carlson’s “anti-vax message,” complaining about Facebook’s lack of action.
According to court filings, Slavitt said, “Not for nothing but the last time we did this dance, it ended in an insurrection.”
Doughty wrote that Facebook decided to censor the video by 50 percent for seven days and would continue to demote it despite Carlson’s video not violating the platform’s content policy on COVID-19 vaccines. It also attached a COVID information label to the post, saying it did not recommend it to users.
“Facebook also informed Flaherty that it was working to censor content that does not violate Facebook’s policy in other ways by ‘preventing posts discouraging vaccines from going viral on our platform’ and by using information labels and preventing recommendations for Groups, Pages, and Instagram accounts pushing content discouraging vaccines,” Doughty concluded.
Flaherty demanded Facebook execute a plan that would further suppress content about “vaccine hesitancy” and replace it with posts that would entice people to get the authoritarian Covid-19 vaccine.
The judges’ injection will prevent the Biden Administration from coordinating with social media platforms to censor individual posts they disagree with.