Censorship Enterprise’: Emails show ‘incestuous’ White House-Big Tech collusion

Shocking documents released Thursday by the Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general reveal a “Censorship Enterprise” between the federal government and social media platforms, who have been working closely together to censor unapproved speech. 

In a joint statement Thursday, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry asked the Louisiana district court to compel the Justice Department to disclose all communications between “high-ranking Biden administration officials” and social media companies. The attorneys general note that while they successfully forced the DOJ to hand over some communications between Biden officials and Big Tech actors in July, the Justice Department is refusing to release those involving top-ranking officials, citing executive privilege. 

“We have already received a number of documents that clearly prove that the federal government has an incestuous relationship with social media companies and clearly coordinate to censor freedom of speech, but we’re not done,” reads the statement. “The Department of Justice is cowering behind executive privilege and has refused to turn over communications between the highest-ranking Biden Administration officials and social media companies. That’s why, yesterday, we asked the Court to compel the Department of Justice to produce those records. We’re just getting started – stay tuned.” 

The attorneys general explain that the documents already provided reveal a “Censorship Enterprise across a multitude of federal agencies.” 

“In response to Missouri and Louisiana’s interrogatories, defendants identified 45 federal officials at DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, and the Office of the Surgeon General (all of which are contained in either DHS or HHS) that communicate with social media platforms about ‘misinformation’ and censorship.” 

Beyond the communications produced by the DOJ, other revelations have come to light. Facebook’s parent company, Meta, disclosed that at least 32 officials – including senior officials at the FDA, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and the White House were in communication with the social media giant about “content moderation.” Google-owned YouTube made similar disclosures. 

In one email to U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy on July 16, 2022, Facebook officials refer to a meeting between the social media company and Health and Human Services (HHS) Department officials. 

“I know our teams met today to better understand the scope of what the White House expects from us on misinformation going forward.” 

That day, Biden had accused Big Tech of “killing people” for not doing enough to censor “misinformation”. 

In another series of emails, Facebook executives share the steps they’ve taken to make unapproved speech about COVID-19 “harder to find on our platform.” They also note that any content about COVID-19 that fact-checkers declare is “partly false” and “missing context”, Facebook treats as completely false. The company also divulged that any user or “entity” simply connected to an “entity” de-platformed for wrong speech is deemed “non-recommendable". 

The emails also make reference to hunting “the disinfo dozen”. 

Another email shows an invitation to a Zoom meeting between Twitter executives and Rob Flaherty, Andrew Slavitt, and Kelsey Fitzpatrick, officials of the Executive Office of the President/White House Office (EOP/WHO). Flaherty states in the email that Twitter will brief the White House “on vaccine misinfo”. 

Other emails reveal that Twitter and Facebook executives asked CDC officials for help in debunking claims including criticism of injecting infants with the COVID-19 injections. The CDC was happy to oblige, deeming nearly every single claim false, often without explanation except “it is reasonable to assume these statements may lead to vaccine refusal.” 

“Thank you so much again, I can’t reiterate enough how helpful this is for us to remove these misinfo claims ASAP!” a Facebook executive gushed obsequiously. 

In other emails, the CDC and Facebook officials agree to have monthly meetings in addition to their weekly meetings to further help them debunk “misinformation”. 

Another email shows White House COVID-19 Response Team Digital Director Clarke Humphrey asking Facebook to remove a Fauci parody account. 

“Yep, on it!” the Facebook employee replied. 

“The discovery provided so far demonstrates that this Censorship Enterprise is extremely broad, including officials in the White House, HHS, DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, and the Office of the Surgeon General; and evidently other agencies as well, such as the Census Bureau, the FDA, the FBI, the State Department, the Treasury Department, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission,” the attorneys general joint statement added. “And it rises to the highest levels of the U.S. Government, including numerous White House officials. Defendants have objected to producing some of the most relevant and probative information in their possession.”