From our friends at Liberty Justice Center!
Newly released documents show that the Department of Homeland Security’s disinformation board and Twitter were meeting to discuss censoring of Americans online.
From the document:
Documents also suggest that the Department has been working on plans to “operationalize” its relationships with private social media companies to implement its public policy goals. For example, we obtained draft briefing notes prepared for a scheduled April 28, 2022, meeting between Robert Silvers and Twitter executives Nick Pickles, Head of Policy, and Yoel Roth, Head of Site Integrity. The notes are marked “TBC,” and it is unclear whether the scheduled meeting actually took place. The briefing notes frame the planned meeting between Silvers and the Twitter executives as “an opportunity to discuss operationalizing public-private partnerships between DHS and Twitter, as well as [to] inform Twitter executives about DHS work on MDM, including the creation of the Disinformation Governance Board and its analytic exchange...” According to whistleblower allegations, Nina Jankowicz may have been hired because of her relationship with executives at Twitter. Consistent with these allegations, Silvers’ briefing notes state that both Pickles and Roth know Jankowicz. A recent DHS strategy document further discusses efforts to “[e]mpower partners to mitigate MDM threats.”
Read the entire release inquiry document here.
This excellent post from LJC spells it all out:
Americans are being canceled for their thoughts.
For over two hundred years the First Amendment has protected Americans’ right to free speech – including their right to hold and express unpopular opinions and to criticize the government.
But recently, “woke-ism” has been weaponized to “cancel” people who hold mainstream opinions and values. Kids are being disciplined at school, people are being censored on social media, and employees are being fired from their jobs, all because they dare to ask critical questions or express unpopular viewpoints.
Facebook and Twitter are shutting down fact-based posts
This censorship is particularly prevalent on social media. Shutting down accounts used to be reserved for internet trolls and bullies, but has now expanded to innocent Americans whose opinions don’t support the preferred narrative.
19-year-old Genevieve Mahoney was attending a rally organized by Women for America First in Washington, DC on January 6, 2022. She posted a picture of the rally flags with the Capitol in the background to her Instagram page. A few hours later, Facebook issued a statement declaring such photos were inciting criminal activity, and as a result, her account was disabled and deleted within the week.
In July 2021, Justin Hart posted a simple, science-based graphic to his Facebook page entitled, “Masking Children is Impractical and Not Backed by Research or Real World Data.” The next day, Facebook suspended his account for three days as a result of this post. Not even all the footnotes to scientific evidence supporting the post’s claim could save Hart from this suspension.
In Justin Hart’s case, Liberty Justice Center attorneys argue in his defense that he is one of many critics who have been shut down for sharing scientifically-backed viewpoints backed by research. However, the pandemic emboldened Facebook and Twitter to unilaterally determine what was fact and fiction about a developing crisis even when science on the matter evolved every day.
The government is actively participating in the suppression of valid speech
And while Facebook and Twitter censorship is a serious concern, every American should be alarmed by our government’s role in suppressing free speech by openly pressuring social media companies to pull down what they deem “misinformation.” As in the example above, misinformation is being defined as any information that does not support the White House’s narrative.
In July 2021, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki revealed that senior White House staff were “in regular touch” with Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms regarding posts about COVID-19. The administration simultaneously released a blacklist of individuals it declared as “super-disseminators” of so-called COVID “disinformation” or “misinformation.”
The Surgeon General’s office has also been involved in persecuting users who challenge the government’s narratives by “flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread” what the administration has declared as “disinformation” and asking Americans to report their experiences with “health misinformation.”
Government participation or even direction in the censorship of Americans’ voices is truly alarming. If the social media companies are working with the government to silence Americans, they stand to face court challenges and potentially the loss of immunity currently provided to them by the federal government. At the Liberty Justice Center, we are swift to act to protect the 1st Amendment rights of those who have had their freedom of speech infringed on by Big Tech and other bad actors.
The latest episode of this occurred YESTERDAY when Twatter shut down a post of a peer reviewed paper from JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) because they did not like its (really incontrovertible) conclusion that spikeshot protection fades away in weeks. This is just something you measure, and it met all the rules: Government "approved" journal and organization (can't get much more woke than AMA, sadly) AND peer reviewed. But the deal with the government (and it's handmaidens Twatter and Buttbook) is that if they do not like it, it shall be suppressed -- truth is of no consequence. This should bother EVERYONE.
Is…this not textbook Fascism?