While Thursday was the day that the House Judiciary Committee could have held Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt, Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) announced through a Twitter thread that it is not moving forward with such action, at least not at this time as the social media giant has cooperated with a subpoena. In that same thread, though, Jordan revealed how Facebook caved to the Biden administration and censored Americans, citing "SMOKING-GUN DOCS," which Jordan notes were "[n]ever-before-released internal documents" that had been subpoenaed.
As the thread explains, the documents proved that not only had "Facebook and Instagram censored posts," they "changed their content moderation policies because of unconstitutional pressure from the Biden White House."
Jordan explains in the thread how this "tremendous pressure" came "both publicly and privately."
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.
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 27, 2023
Included is an April 2021 email that a Facebook employee sent to Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg "seeking [their] guidance on whether to take more aggressive action against certain vaccine discouraging content."
The highlighted portion shows the employee indicating that they, with original emphasis, "are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the White House and the press, to remove more COVID-19 vaccine discouraging content."
The email also notes that the employee shared with the White House "a list of the top 100 vaccine-related posts on FB" over the course of a week. Regarding the #3 post, the White House was "concerned" and "called on us to delete the meme," according to the employee's email.
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. pic.twitter.com/iDRV3Kk2oO
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 27, 2023
Another email around that time came from Nick Clegg, Facebook's president for global affairs, regarding what sounded like a particularly tense meeting with a senior advisor to President Joe Biden, Andy Slavitt.
According to Clegg, the call lasted an hour and resulted in Clegg alerting his team about "some pretty serious -- and sensitive (see last point) -- issues we need to address."
Interestingly, Slavitt is described as "appreciative of [Facebook's] emphasis on authoritative vaccine." Yet, it still did not seem to be enough since Slavitt indicated the Biden administration wanted to get to the "'hardest to reach' people who have a propensity to consume vaccine hesitant related content and who are not swayed by official/authoritative sources of content."
"Our systems," Clegg's email continued, speaking still about Slavitt, "he believes -- as confirmed by the researchers -- feed vaccine hesitant related content to pockets of the population and that's the problem he wants our help to resolve."
The highlighted part of the email touches further upon how Clegg emphasized Slavitt was actually "outraged -- not too strong a word to describe his reaction -- that we did not remove this post which was third most highly ranked post in the data set we sent to him."
Jordan's thread includes the meme in question, which suggested that television commercials in 10 years from April 2021 would suggest people who took the COVID vaccine "could be entitled to." The meme's text cuts off before indicating any specific kind of harm.
What did the Biden White House want removed?
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 27, 2023
A meme.
That’s right, even memes weren’t spared from the Biden White House’s censorship efforts. pic.twitter.com/6BhDxTHsUi
Clegg revealed that he did mention First Amendment concerns, saying, "I countered that removing content like that would represent a significant incursion into traditional boundaries of free expression in the US." Slavitt blew right past that pesky First Amendment, though, since "he 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."
Slavitt's assumption was also that YouTube "would never accept something like this."
Another email in April 2021 from Brian Rice, the Facebook vice president of public policy, indicated, "Andy's challenge feels very much like a crossroads for us with the White House in these early dates." At this point, Biden had only been in office for about three months.
What happened next? Facebook panicked.
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 27, 2023
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.” pic.twitter.com/9WafdltXuS
Another email indicated that Facebook still wanted to cooperate. "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 WH, and our internal methods too."
It wasn't just a meme that the White House wanted censored, far from it. They "demanded" to know why a video from Tucker Carlson wasn't censored either.
This wasn’t the first time that the Biden White House was angry that Facebook didn’t censor more.
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 27, 2023
According to these documents, the Biden White House demanded to know why Facebook had not censored a video from @TuckerCarlson.
So, Facebook prepped its response.
In a move that Jordan's tweet said was "[t]o appease the Biden White House," Facebook drafted talking points for Clegg.
An email noted that the video from Tucker was "receiving 50% demotion for seven days as it is in the queue to be fact checked." All this happened despite that same email noting that the content had been reviewed "in detail" and did "not violate" Facebook's policies.
Public pressure mounted as well.
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 27, 2023
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
Sharing an article from Reuters, Jordan reminded how the president himself wildly claimed to reporters outside the White House in July 2021 that social media platforms were "killing people" by not censoring what he claimed was "misinformation."
Facebook fought back at the time, and the president clarified days later that it was not Facebook but Facebook users spreading "outrageous misinformation" who were "responsible for killing people."
On August 2, 2021, Facebook revealed it would change its policy. A document Jordan shared mentioned how "Leadership asked Misinfo Policy... to brainstorm some additional policy levers we can pull to be more aggressive against Covid and vaccine misinformation," which is "stemming from the continued criticism of our approach from the [Biden] administration..."
August 2, 2021:
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 27, 2023
“[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
It wasn't just the White House, though, since another email in the thread pointed to "a follow-up from our August 6th discussion regarding our response to the Surgeon General on COVID-19 misinformation." A highlighted portion of the email noted, "[d]uring that discussion, we agreed to further explore four discreet policy options for reducing the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on our platforms."
The options were to be rolled out in the coming weeks.
The options, which looked to act more strongly against such supposed "misinformation," included:
- Option 1: Designate any assets linked to Groups/Pages/Profiles/Accounts, which have been removed for COVID misinfo violations, as non-recommendable to users.
- Option 2: Count COVID Misinformation & Harm (M&H), Vaccine Widely Debunked Hoaxes (WDH), & COVID Repeatedly Fact-Checked Hoaxes (RFH) toward Misinformation Repeat Offender status.
- Option 3: Demote COVID or vaccine misinformation rated Partly False more strongly.
- Option 4: Count COVID or vaccine-related URLs that are rated Partly False or Missing Context towards "domain" Repeat Offender (RO) status (i.e., penalize the URL domains from which the content was shared).
As Jordan noted, it wasn't just such documents, but "OTHERS that were just produced to the Committee," which "prove that the Biden Admin abused its powers to coerce Facebook into censoring Americans."
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
While Meta ultimately did produce the requested documents from a subpoena issued in February, Jordan's thread makes clear that it was only after issuing the threat that Zuckerberg could be held in contempt that "ANY [of these] internal documents" were provided."
Jordan emphasized that "contempt is still on the table and WILL be used if Facebook fails to cooperate in FULL."
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.
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 27, 2023
To be clear, contempt is still on the table and WILL be used if Facebook fails to cooperate in FULL.
Indicating that more information about Facebook will be coming, Jordan concluded his thread with "To be continued..."
To be continued…
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 27, 2023
Since Jordan tweeted his thread, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre held her daily press briefing in which a reporter referenced the Missouri v. Biden case regarding social media censorship from the Executive branch. "How much is the White House now working with social media companies [on censorship]?" the reporter asked.
Jean-Pierre's response was less than encouraging. As is often a habit, she noted she had to refer it to the Department of Justice (DOJ) since it's an ongoing case. What she could say when asked if the White House was communicating with platforms was less than encouraging.
"We have promoted responsible actions to protect public health, safety, and security," she stated. "We believe social media companies have a critical responsibility to take account of, uh, the effects of their platforms that they have on the American people, while making independent decisions on the content of their platforms," Jean-Pierre went on to claim, which "continues to be the case" and supposedly "has not changed."
"How much is the White House now working with social media companies [on censorship]?"
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 27, 2023
KJP: "We have promoted responsible actions to protect public health, safety, and security...That continues to be the case. That has not changed." pic.twitter.com/4LtScBztk3
