Did Facebook censor the American people because of pressure from President Joe Biden and his administration? Like the journalists involved in the Twitter Files exposé of late 2022 and early 2023, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) took to X (nee Twitter) on July 27 and published part one of The Facebook Files, revealing “smoking-gun” documents that prove the social media titan censored posts and altered their content moderation policies “because of unconstitutional pressure from the Biden White House.” What did the “never-before-released” internal documents showcase?
The Facebook Files – Part One
“During the first half of 2021, social media companies like Facebook faced tremendous pressure from the Biden White House—both publicly and privately—to crack down on alleged ‘misinformation,'” declared Rep. Jordan in a multi-tweet Facebook Files thread.
In his first example, a Facebook employee circulated an April 2021 email from CEO Mark Zuckerberg and then-COO Sheryl Sandberg. “We are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the White House and the press, to remove COVID-19 vaccine discouraging content,” the email stated. While the website shared the top 100 vaccine-related Facebook posts featuring authoritative information, the administration was concerned about a particular post containing “a vaccine discouraging humorous meme, and they called on us to delete the meme.”
What was the meme? The popular Leonardo DiCaprio image from the 2019 Quentin Tarantino film, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, with the caption: “Did you or a loved one take the covid vaccine? You may be entitled…”
Nick Clegg, Facebook’s president for global affairs, told the team in a separate April 2021 email that Andy Slavitt, a senior advisor to President Biden, was “outraged” that the social network did not remove this post. Despite Clegg warning that deleting content would signal “a significant incursion into traditional boundaries of free expression” in the US, Slavitt dismissed the warning and the First Amendment because the meme “inhibits confidence” in the administration’s efforts to champion the vaccine.
Facebook attempted to meet the administration halfway since it felt “very much like a crossroads” with the White House. “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 [White House], and our internal methods too,” an apparent Facebook staffer wrote of the incident in another internal document.
This was not the end of it. The White House was perturbed that Facebook failed to expurgate a Tucker Carlson video. A series of talking points were drafted for Clegg to appease the administration, including a response that informed officials the video was demoted by 50%, despite the post not violating any website policies.
After President Biden told the press that Facebook and other social media platforms were “killing people” by allowing “misinformation” to appear on their websites, Facebook announced internally in August 2021 that it would revise its policies.
“Leadership asked Misinfo Policy and a couple of teams on Product Policy to brainstorm some additional policy levers we can pull to be more aggressive against Covid and vaccine misinformation,” Rep. Jordan revealed in another document snippet. “This is stemming from the continued criticism of our approach from the US administration and a desire to kick the tires further internally on creative options.”
The House Judiciary Committee Chair noted on Twitter that these documents “prove” the Biden administration “abused its powers to coerce Facebook into censoring Americans, preventing free and open discourse on issues of critical public importance.”
“To be continued,” he said at the end of the 19-tweet thread.
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
White House: No Comment
The White House refused to comment on these allegations to censor Americans. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre referenced a federal court ruling earlier this month that prevented the administration from communicating with large private tech firms on their content moderation rules. “We’re going to be very careful about speaking about this,” she said during the July 27 press briefing. “As I have repeated many times from here, we have promoted responsible actions to protect public health safety and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our elections.”
How Bad Was the Censorship?
Conservatives and libertarians repeatedly claimed during the coronavirus pandemic that Big Tech was stifling speech and that the government was censoring discourse. Elon Musk opened Pandora’s Box last year when he and a team of journalists launched the Twitter Files. Now that the sequel – the Facebook Files – has been released, what else could be revealed in the social media ecosystem? Could there be Reddit Files? Google Files? YouTube Files? If the executive branch could wield the weapon of the Leviathan over a meme, one can only imagine what steps the government could take to suppress information that exposes any wrongs carried out by the state.
