White House denies involvement in online censorship despite evidence

The White House Friday denied Biden administration involvement in censoring political opponents on social media despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. 

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre made the remarks at a Friday press briefing when a reporter asked her about the Biden administration’s involvement with Jim Baker.  

Baker, a former FBI attorney who played a key role in the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, was also until last week a top lawyer for Twitter who advised the tech company to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 presidential election. After suspicion grew last week that Baker may have hid parts of The Twitter Files, a trove of internal communications showing censorship collusion between the platform and the Biden administration, Elon Musk promptly fired him. 

“Then on Twitter, Elon Musk this week fired the former FBI general counsel, Jim Baker, who was serving as a top Twitter lawyer,” began a reporter in Friday’s press briefing. “Musk alleges that he may have been involved with countermanding his attempts at transparency. And I was wondering if anyone in the Biden administration was in touch with Baker, either regarding moderation decisions that critics call ‘political censorship’ or regarding his transparency efforts recently.” 

Jean-Pierre claimed the Biden administration was not involved. 

“So, it’s up to private companies to make these types of decisions. We were not involved. I can say that. We were not involved,” said the press secretary. 

“You know, of course, it’s up to these companies to make their own decisions about the content on their platform and to ensure content flows their on standards and — on their own standards and policies.  Don’t have anything more to share,” she added. 

The remarks came despite confirmation last year from Jean-Pierre's predecessor, Jen Psaki, that the Biden administration indeed works with social media companies to censor unapproved speech. 

“Well, I would say first, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that we’re in regular touch with social media platforms, just like we’re in regular touch with all of you and your media outlets about areas where we have concern, information that might be useful, information that may or may not be interesting to your viewers,” Psaki told reporters in July 2021. 

“So we are regularly making sure social media platforms are aware of the latest narratives dangerous to public health that we and many other Americans are seeing across all of social and traditional media,” she added. “And we work to engage with them to better understand the enforcement of social media platform policies.” 

A report recently published by The Intercept revealed that tech companies have been meeting monthly with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Justice (DOJ) officials to discuss censoring speech disapproved by the government.  

Before the 2020 election, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, Wikipedia, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Verizon Media met monthly with the FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and other officials.  

Under the pretext of “combating misinformation,” the government has been working with tech companies to restrict speech surrounding “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.” 

Other communications clearly showing collusion between tech giants and the Biden administration have laid the groundwork for an ongoing lawsuit against Biden. 

In September documents obtained by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry revealed a “censorship enterprise” between the two powers, identifying “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 that, 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.  

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.”