Following on from the recent exciting drama around the court case Missouri vs. Biden, the government tried to appeal the preliminary injunction (which basically mandated that the entire apparatus of the government stop pressuring social media companies to censor Americans).
Last week, we itemized the receipts about the White House and the Surgeon General trying to gag you on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and even WhatsApp! Now, with the denial of appeal, the federal court narrowed down the “best of” receipts for each targeted entity within the government.
Here they are:
White House Defendants
On January 23, 2021, White House Digital Director for COVID-19 Response Team Clarke Humphrey emailed Twitter and requested the removal of an anti-COVID-19 vaccine tweet by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
On April 14, 2021, White House Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty demanded censorship by Facebook of a video of Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Tomi Lahren.
Surgeon General Defendants
Senior Advisor to the Surgeon General Eric Waldo testified that Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy used his office to advocate for social-media platforms to take stronger actions against “health misinformation."
In addition to public statements, Murthy had meetings with social-media companies, called health misinformation “poison,” and called for social-media companies to do more to control the reach of health disinformation.
CDC Defendants
The CDC Defendants consistently had regular contact with social-media platforms via email, phone, and in-person meetings. The CDC Defendants received CrowdTangle reports from Facebook as to the “top engaged COVID and vaccine related content.
The CDC Defendants provided PowerPoint slide decks to Facebook, which provided examples of misinformation topics and made recommendations to Facebook as to whether claims were true or false.
NIAID Defendants
Dr. Francis Collins sent an email to Dr. Anthony Fauci on October 8, 2020, which stated that the Great Barrington Declaration needed to have a “quick and devastating takedown.”
Dr. Fauci sent back information to “debunk” The Great Barrington Declaration and both Dr. Collins and Dr. Fauci followed up with a series of public media statements attacking the Great Barrington Declaration.
FBI Defendants
The FBI Defendants, along with numerous social-media platforms, CISA, and the Department of Homeland Security, met consistently at Industry Meetings. The Industry Meetings were used by the FBI Defendants and others to discuss election disinformation.
Prior to the 2020 Presidential election, the FBI repeatedly warned social-media companies to be alert for “hack and dump” or “hack and leak” operations. The Hunter Biden laptop story was published by the Washington Post on October 14, 2020. After being asked by Facebook whether the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation, the FBI’s Laura Dehmlow refused to comment, leading Facebook to suppress the story.
CISA Defendants
The CISA Defendants regularly met with social-media platforms at several types of meetings. At those meetings, disinformation was discussed as well as reports about social-media companies’ changes to censorship policies.
The CISA Defendants collaborated with the Election Integrity Partnership, working with them in a “switchboarding” operation which reported alleged election misinformation to social-media companies.
CISA Director Jen Easterly views the word “infrastructure” expressively to include our “cognitive infrastructure,” which deals with the way people acquire knowledge and understanding.
State Department Defendants
The State Department Defendants worked closely and collaborated with the Election Integrity Partnership and the Virality Project, who forwarded alleged election misinformation and COVID-19 misinformation to social-media companies.
The Election Integrity Partnership was designed “to get around unclear legal authorities, including very real First Amendment questions” that would arise if government agencies were to monitor and flag information for censorship on social media.
Which of these two scenarios are more likely: 1. The perpetrators say to themselves, "Golly gee, we were wrong to do that. We respect the ruling and are now fully in support of free speech." OR 2. The perpetrators say to themselves "Oh yeah, nice try. We'll just have to more carefully hide our involvement and work through NGOs, corporate boards, journalists, editors and influencers."
Excellent.