Biden Admin Told Facebook That Censoring ‘Bad Content’ Was ‘Our Primary Concern’
Jason Cohen on August 3, 2023
Former Biden Director of Digital Strategy Robert Flaherty told Facebook in a June 2021 meeting that suppressing content was the administration’s top priority regarding speech it did not agree with, according to documents reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The White House regularly met with Facebook to discuss content moderation, often having disagreements, according to the memos obtained by the House Judiciary Committee. One point of contention was that President Joe Biden’s administration preferred to censor information while Facebook wanted to combat it with more information.
“You guys are much longer on inform, we’re much longer on reduce,” Flaherty noted at the meeting, according to a transcript of the meeting reviewed by the DCNF.
“What do you mean by that?” asked a Facebook executive, whose name is redacted.
“We’re keen on what platforms are doing to reduce the spread of bad information, that platforms are not funneling people towards bad content,” Flaherty said. “That’s our primary concern.”
The House Judiciary Committee received the memos as part of an investigation into the Biden administration’s social media censorship endeavors.
“If you guys have data that show that inform counteracts the spread of bad information, great,” Flaherty added.
The Biden administration successfully pressured Facebook to suppress content that speculated COVID-19 was man-made, according to internal emails the subcommittee obtained, The Wall Street Journal reported.
A Facebook vice president responsible for content policy expressed regret about it, stating, “We were under pressure from the administration and others to do more. We shouldn’t have done it.”
The White House, Facebook and Meta did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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