Unveiling Facebook's Censorship Dashboard Developed in Collaboration with the CDC
On Wednesday, America First Legal (AFL) disclosed documents that provide fresh insight into the joint efforts of Facebook and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to suppress free speech during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The documents, procured through a lawsuit against the CDC, reveal comprehensive onboarding materials used to instruct CDC employees on a specially created Facebook portal. This portal was designed to combat what they termed as "Covid & Vaccine Misinformation."
The AFL's Findings
The documents divulge how Facebook, under intense pressure from the Biden-Harris White House (including from Rob Flaherty, a current senior Harris Campaign staffer) to eliminate specific posts, reacted:
Facebook developed a new “end-to-end workflow” allowing government officials to submit links for removal from Facebook;
Access to the portal was only granted to approved government and law enforcement personnel;
The new portal significantly enhanced the efficiency of the censorship machine by permitting up to twenty links at a time to be referred for censoring;
Transitioning from email chains to a Facebook-hosted portal, the new system also made it more difficult for organizations like AFL to oversee individual censorship requests;
Each censorship request automatically generated a ticket number so that the government could track if Facebook complied with its censorship demands.
The documents further demonstrate how Facebook clarified what content it would remove and what it required from the CDC to censor certain narratives within the confines of its “community standards.”
The documents also underscore the United Kingdom's role in shaping the Biden-Harris Administration's approach to online censorship. Additionally, Mark Zuckerberg's acknowledgment that Facebook only engaged in censorship after extreme pressure from the Biden-Harris White House highlights the external pressures leading to Facebook's mass censorship.
More Details from AFL
Part A: Simplified Censorship
The documents reveal a briefing given by Facebook employees to CDC staff on May 19, 2021. Facebook trained CDC staff on how to use the platform’s “Government Reporting System.” This was a response to expletive-laden demands from senior Biden–Harris White House officials, as revealed by the House Judiciary Committee. As their “End-to-end workflow” described, if “Government requests,” then “Facebook processes.”
These slides illustrate how closely the Biden-Harris Administration’s CDC and Big Tech collaborated to censor speech they disagreed with. The onboarding included a “government user experience” demo. As part of the “End–to–end workflow,” Facebook streamlined the process to make it easy for the government to censor the American people.
Step 1 – Access to Account
Initially, Facebook granted “Access to CRS.” These slides showed CDC employees how to sign up, register, and log in to the new portal.
Only “government-issued or law enforcement email address[es]” were allowed to use this system.
Step 2 – Submit Posts with Links
Before the creation of the portal, the CDC had been sending spreadsheets over email with links for Facebook to remove. However, with this portal, post reporting would be standardized and fed into one system. Additionally, moving the censorship requests to a Facebook-hosted portal created a loophole in government recordkeeping requirements. Using this system allows government actors to evade federal law requiring meticulous keeping of federal records, thereby preventing the public from using existing tools like FOIA to see what the government is doing behind the scenes.
At this stage, CDC employees could select their “Reason for reporting.” These included “COVID Misinformation,” “Vaccine Discouragement,” and “COVID Vaccine Misinformation.”
Facebook’s system allowed users from “authorized government agencies” to refer up to twenty links at a time for Facebook to remove across its platforms. Users could also submit additional comments.
Step 3 – Confirmation and Job Reference Number
The third step for the new portal was called “Final landing page: transparency,” where users would get a confirmation message, a ticket or reference number, and be able to access the “Help Center.”
The confirmation message read that “you should receive a response shortly,” which reaffirms the initial promise on the first slide: “Government requests … Facebook processes.”
Part B: Insights into Facebook’s Community Standards
The briefing also included a summary of Facebook’s “Community Standards.” They stated that they only removed information deemed “false” by “public health authorities.” Despite numerous examples of these “authorities” later being proven wrong, all it took was a government determination by the Biden-Harris administration for Facebook to begin censoring the American people’s speech.
Facebook’s policy was to censor statements that made “false claims about masks” (now shown to have been nearly useless), which discouraged “social distancing” (now known to have been fabricated by Dr. Anthony Fauci). If an individual was a “repeat offender” of the government’s ever-shifting determinations on “misinformation,” their account’s reach would be reduced or removed from their site altogether.
Facebook boasted that since the beginning of the Pandemic, which began only a year before the presentation, they had removed more than “16 million pieces of content.”
Remember — Facebook’s policy was only to remove posts if the government had declared something to be false.
The Constitution prohibits the government from censoring the American people, but Facebook and other social media companies went out of their way to make it easy for the Biden–Harris administration to “flag” posts for censoring. With a custom portal allowing the government to submit up to twenty links at a time, the Biden-Harris Administration and Facebook worked together to violate the First Amendment rights of countless Americans.
Statement from Gene Hamilton, America First Legal Executive Director:
“These documents show–definitively–the architecture behind the systems that political appointees and governmental bureaucrats used to unconstitutionally censor the free speech of Americans online. The right to speak–to even question authority–is so fundamental to our national identity, yet in the name of a public health crisis, Biden Administration officials worked with major companies to silence dissent. The American people need to review these documents and understand just how far our leaders in Washington went to violate the First Amendment to our Constitution,” said Gene Hamilton.
The full slide deck can be viewed here.
Bottom Line
The revelations in these documents paint a worrying picture of the lengths that government and big tech companies are willing to go to control the narrative and suppress free speech. The collaboration between Facebook and the CDC to censor content deemed as misinformation raises serious questions about the violation of First Amendment rights. What are your thoughts on this matter? Do you think this is a justified action in the name of public health, or a gross overstep of authority? Share this article with your friends and let us know your views. Don't forget to sign up for the Daily Briefing, which is delivered every day at 6pm.
Unveiling Facebook's Censorship Dashboard Developed in Collaboration with the CDC
On Wednesday, America First Legal (AFL) disclosed documents that provide fresh insight into the joint efforts of Facebook and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to suppress free speech during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The documents, procured through a lawsuit against the CDC, reveal comprehensive onboarding materials used to instruct CDC employees on a specially created Facebook portal. This portal was designed to combat what they termed as "Covid & Vaccine Misinformation."
The AFL's Findings
The documents divulge how Facebook, under intense pressure from the Biden-Harris White House (including from Rob Flaherty, a current senior Harris Campaign staffer) to eliminate specific posts, reacted:
Facebook developed a new “end-to-end workflow” allowing government officials to submit links for removal from Facebook;
Access to the portal was only granted to approved government and law enforcement personnel;
The new portal significantly enhanced the efficiency of the censorship machine by permitting up to twenty links at a time to be referred for censoring;
Transitioning from email chains to a Facebook-hosted portal, the new system also made it more difficult for organizations like AFL to oversee individual censorship requests;
Each censorship request automatically generated a ticket number so that the government could track if Facebook complied with its censorship demands.
The documents further demonstrate how Facebook clarified what content it would remove and what it required from the CDC to censor certain narratives within the confines of its “community standards.”
The documents also underscore the United Kingdom's role in shaping the Biden-Harris Administration's approach to online censorship. Additionally, Mark Zuckerberg's acknowledgment that Facebook only engaged in censorship after extreme pressure from the Biden-Harris White House highlights the external pressures leading to Facebook's mass censorship.
More Details from AFL
Part A: Simplified Censorship
The documents reveal a briefing given by Facebook employees to CDC staff on May 19, 2021. Facebook trained CDC staff on how to use the platform’s “Government Reporting System.” This was a response to expletive-laden demands from senior Biden–Harris White House officials, as revealed by the House Judiciary Committee. As their “End-to-end workflow” described, if “Government requests,” then “Facebook processes.”
These slides illustrate how closely the Biden-Harris Administration’s CDC and Big Tech collaborated to censor speech they disagreed with. The onboarding included a “government user experience” demo. As part of the “End–to–end workflow,” Facebook streamlined the process to make it easy for the government to censor the American people.
Step 1 – Access to Account
Initially, Facebook granted “Access to CRS.” These slides showed CDC employees how to sign up, register, and log in to the new portal.
Only “government-issued or law enforcement email address[es]” were allowed to use this system.
Step 2 – Submit Posts with Links
Before the creation of the portal, the CDC had been sending spreadsheets over email with links for Facebook to remove. However, with this portal, post reporting would be standardized and fed into one system. Additionally, moving the censorship requests to a Facebook-hosted portal created a loophole in government recordkeeping requirements. Using this system allows government actors to evade federal law requiring meticulous keeping of federal records, thereby preventing the public from using existing tools like FOIA to see what the government is doing behind the scenes.
At this stage, CDC employees could select their “Reason for reporting.” These included “COVID Misinformation,” “Vaccine Discouragement,” and “COVID Vaccine Misinformation.”
Facebook’s system allowed users from “authorized government agencies” to refer up to twenty links at a time for Facebook to remove across its platforms. Users could also submit additional comments.
Step 3 – Confirmation and Job Reference Number
The third step for the new portal was called “Final landing page: transparency,” where users would get a confirmation message, a ticket or reference number, and be able to access the “Help Center.”
The confirmation message read that “you should receive a response shortly,” which reaffirms the initial promise on the first slide: “Government requests … Facebook processes.”
Part B: Insights into Facebook’s Community Standards
The briefing also included a summary of Facebook’s “Community Standards.” They stated that they only removed information deemed “false” by “public health authorities.” Despite numerous examples of these “authorities” later being proven wrong, all it took was a government determination by the Biden-Harris administration for Facebook to begin censoring the American people’s speech.
Facebook’s policy was to censor statements that made “false claims about masks” (now shown to have been nearly useless), which discouraged “social distancing” (now known to have been fabricated by Dr. Anthony Fauci). If an individual was a “repeat offender” of the government’s ever-shifting determinations on “misinformation,” their account’s reach would be reduced or removed from their site altogether.
Facebook boasted that since the beginning of the Pandemic, which began only a year before the presentation, they had removed more than “16 million pieces of content.”
Remember — Facebook’s policy was only to remove posts if the government had declared something to be false.
The Constitution prohibits the government from censoring the American people, but Facebook and other social media companies went out of their way to make it easy for the Biden–Harris administration to “flag” posts for censoring. With a custom portal allowing the government to submit up to twenty links at a time, the Biden-Harris Administration and Facebook worked together to violate the First Amendment rights of countless Americans.
Statement from Gene Hamilton, America First Legal Executive Director:
“These documents show–definitively–the architecture behind the systems that political appointees and governmental bureaucrats used to unconstitutionally censor the free speech of Americans online. The right to speak–to even question authority–is so fundamental to our national identity, yet in the name of a public health crisis, Biden Administration officials worked with major companies to silence dissent. The American people need to review these documents and understand just how far our leaders in Washington went to violate the First Amendment to our Constitution,” said Gene Hamilton.
The full slide deck can be viewed here.
Bottom Line
The revelations in these documents paint a worrying picture of the lengths that government and big tech companies are willing to go to control the narrative and suppress free speech. The collaboration between Facebook and the CDC to censor content deemed as misinformation raises serious questions about the violation of First Amendment rights. What are your thoughts on this matter? Do you think this is a justified action in the name of public health, or a gross overstep of authority? Share this article with your friends and let us know your views. Don't forget to sign up for the Daily Briefing, which is delivered every day at 6pm.
