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These Emails Show How the Biden Administration's Crusade Against
'Misinformation' Imposes Censorship by Proxy
Social media companies are eager to appease the government by
suppressing disfavored speech.
JACOB SULLUM | 9.1.2022 5:35 PM
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Surgeon General Vivek Murthy
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy (Ron Sachs/CNP/SplashNews/Newscom)
On July 16, 2021, the day that Joe Biden accused Facebook of "killing
people" by failing to suppress misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, a
senior executive at the social media platform's parent company emailed
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in an effort to assuage the president's
anger. "Reaching out after what has transpired over the past few days
following the publication of the misinformation advisory, and
culminating today in the President's remarks about us," the Meta
executive wrote. "I know our teams met today to better understand the
scope of what the White House expects from us on misinformation going
forward."
Murthy had just published an advisory in which he urged a
"whole-of-society" effort to combat the "urgent threat to public health"
posed by "health misinformation," possibly including "appropriate legal
and regulatory measures." Biden's homicide charge came the next day, and
Meta was keen to address the president's concerns by cracking down on
speech that offended him.
The email, which was recently disclosed during discovery in a federal
lawsuit that Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and Missouri
Attorney General Eric Schmitt filed in May, vividly illustrates how the
Biden administration engages in censorship by proxy, pressuring social
media platforms to implement speech restrictions that would be
flagrantly unconstitutional if the government tried to impose them
directly. Landry and Schmitt, both Republicans, argue that such pressure
violates the First Amendment.
"Having threatened and cajoled social-media platforms for years to
censor viewpoints and speakers disfavored by the Left," the lawsuit
says, "senior government officials in the Executive Branch have moved
into a phase of open collusion with social-media companies to suppress
disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content on social media platforms
under the Orwellian guise of halting so-called 'disinformation,'
'misinformation,' and 'malinformation.'…As a direct result of these
actions, there has been an unprecedented rise in censorship and
suppression of free speech—including core political speech—on
social-media platforms."
Landry and Schmitt reiterate that point in a "joint statement of
discovery disputes" they filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for
the Western District of Louisiana. "Under the First Amendment, the
federal Government should have no role in policing private speech or
picking winners and losers in the marketplace of ideas," they say. "But
that is what federal officials are doing, on a massive scale—a scale
whose full scope and impact [are] yet to be determined."
So far, Schmitt reports, documents produced by the government in
response to a court order have identified 45 federal officials who
"communicate with social media platforms about 'misinformation' and
censorship." Schmitt and Landry think many other officials are involved
in "a vast 'Censorship Enterprise' across a multitude of federal
agencies," and they are seeking additional documents to confirm that
suspicion.
In response to inquiries, Landry and Schmitt say, "Facebook and
Instagram identified 32 federal officials, including eight current and
former White House officials," who have contacted them regarding
"misinformation and censorship of social-media content." YouTube
"identified 11 federal officials, including five current and former
White House officials," while Twitter "identified nine federal
officials, including at least one White House official."
Judging from the examples that Schmitt cites, the tenor of these
communications has been cordial and collaborative. The social media
companies are at pains to show that they share the government's goals,
which is precisely the problem. Given the broad powers that the federal
government has to make life difficult for these businesses through
public criticism, litigation, regulation, and legislation, the Biden
administration's "asks" for stricter moderation are tantamount to
commands. The administration expects obsequious compliance, and that is
what it gets.
Shortly after sending the July 16 email to Murthy, according to Landry
and Schmitt's joint statement, the same Meta executive sent the surgeon
general a text message. "It's not great to be accused of killing
people," he said, adding that he was "keen to find a way to deescalate
and work together collaboratively."
And so he did. "Thanks again for taking the time to meet earlier today,"
the Meta executive says in a July 23, 2021, email to Murthy. "I wanted
to make sure you saw the steps we took just this past week to adjust
policies on what we are removing with respect to misinformation, as well
as steps taken to further address the 'disinfo dozen.'" He brags that
Meta has removed objectionable pages, groups, and Instagram accounts;
taken steps to make several pages and profiles "more difficult to find
on our platform"; and "expanded the group of false claims that we remove
to keep up with recent trends."
Twitter also was eager to fall in line. "I'm looking forward to setting
up regular chats," says an April 8, 2021, message from Twitter to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). "My team has asked for
examples of problematic content so we can examine trends. All examples
of misinformation are helpful, but in particular, if you have any
examples of fraud—such as fraudulent covid cures, fraudulent vaccine
cards, etc, that would be very helpful."
Twitter responded swiftly to the government's censorship suggestions.
"Thanks so much for this," a Twitter official says in an April 16, 2021,
email to the CDC. "We actioned (by labeling or removing) the Tweets in
violation of our Rules." The message, which is headed "Request for
problem accounts," is signed with "warmest" regards.
The government also got fast service from Instagram. In a July 20, 2021,
email, Clarke Humphrey, digital director for the White House COVID-19
Response Team, requests the deletion of an Instagram parody of Anthony
Fauci, Biden's top medical adviser. "Any way we can get this pulled
down?" Humphrey asks. "It is not actually one of ours." Less than a
minute later, he gets his answer: "Yep, on it!"
Twitter's desperation to please the Biden administration likewise went
beyond deleting specific messages. Landry and Schmitt note "internal
Twitter communications" indicating that senior White House officials
"specifically pressured Twitter to deplatform" anti-vaccine writer Alex
Berenson, "which Twitter did." In an April 16, 2021, email about a
"Twitter VaccineMisinfo Briefing" on Zoom, Deputy Assistant to the
President Rob Flaherty tells colleagues that Twitter will inform "White
House staff" about "the tangible effects seen from recent policy
changes, what interventions are currently being implemented in addition
to previous policy changes, and ways the White House (and our COVID
experts) can partner in product work."
Like Twitter, Facebook was thirsty for government guidance. In a July
28, 2021, email to the CDC headed "FB Misinformation Claims_Help
Debunking," a Facebook official says, "I have been talking about in
addition to our weekly meetings, doing a monthly disinfo/debunking
meeting, with maybe claim topics communicated a few days prior so that
you can bring in the matching experts and chat casually for 30 minutes
or so. Is that something you'd be interested in?" The CDC's response is
enthusiastic: "Yes, we would love to do that."
The communications uncovered so far mainly involved anti-vaccine
messages, many of which are verifiably false. But Americans have a First
Amendment right to express their opinions, no matter how misguided or
ill-informed. That does not mean social media platforms are obligated to
host those opinions. To the contrary, they have a First Amendment right
to exercise editorial discretion. But that's not what is really
happening when their decisions are shaped by implicit or explicit
threats from the government. Notwithstanding all the friendly words,
Facebook et al. have strong incentives to cooperate with a government
that otherwise might punish them in various ways.
Ostensibly, the Biden administration is merely asking social media
companies to enforce their own rules. But those rules are open to
interpretation, and the government is encouraging the companies to read
them more broadly than they otherwise might.
Maybe Twitter would have banished Alex Berenson even if White House
officials had not intervened, but maybe not. Multiply that question
across the myriad moderation decisions that social media platforms make
every day, and you have a situation where it is increasingly difficult
to tell whether they are exercising independent judgment or taking
orders from the government.
"Although a 'private entity is not ordinarily constrained by the First
Amendment,'" Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas noted in a 2021
concurrence, "it is if the government coerces or induces it to take
action the government itself would not be permitted to do, such as
censor expression of a lawful viewpoint….The government cannot
accomplish through threats of adverse government action what the
Constitution prohibits it from doing directly." That is the gist of the
argument that Landry and Schmitt are making in their lawsuit.
The danger posed by the Biden administration's creepy crusade against
"misinformation" is magnified by its broad definition of that concept,
which encompasses speech that the government deems "misleading," even
when it is arguably or demonstrably true. "Claims can be highly
misleading and harmful even if the science on an issue isn't yet
settled," Murthy says, and "what counts as misinformation can change
over time with new evidence and scientific consensus."
In other words, the "scientific consensus," however Murthy defines it,
can be wrong, as illustrated by the federal government's ever-evolving
advice about the utility of face masks in preventing COVID-19
transmission. The CDC initially dismissed the value of general masking,
then embraced it as "the most important, powerful public health tool we
have." More recently, it has conceded that commonly used cloth masks do
little, if anything, to stop coronavirus transmission.
"Twitter's 'COVID-19 misleading information policy,' as of December
2021, noted that Twitter will censor (label or remove) speech claiming
that 'face masks…do not work to reduce transmission or to protect
against COVID-19,'" Schmitt says. "Other platforms had similar policies.
Both Senator Rand Paul and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis were censored
by Youtube for questioning the efficacy of masks." Twitter even removed
a mask-skeptical tweet by Scott Atlas, a member of the Trump
administration's coronavirus task force. But "now," Schmitt says, "a
growing body of science shows that masks, especially cloth masks, are
ineffective at stopping the spread of COVID-19, and can impose negative
impacts on children."
Landry and Schmitt's lawsuit also notes Twitter's blocking of the New
York Post's story about Hunter Biden's laptop, which was deemed
"disinformation" prior to the 2020 presidential election but turned out
to be accurate. Social media companies have made similarly questionable
decisions regarding discussion of the COVID-19 "lab leak" theory, which
remains contested but has not been disproven.
Even acting on their own, social media platforms are bound to make bad
calls. But when the government demands that they all hew to an
officially recognized "consensus," the threat to free inquiry and open
debate is far graver.
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