Breaking News: Biden White House discovers a “nose bleed” exemption to the First Amendment! A top Biden White House staffer elbowed Facebook to intervene in private conversations anytime someone mentioned COVID vaccine side effects such as nose bleeds.
House Judiciary Committee Ahairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) released another batch of subpoenaed internal documents from Facebook last week on the Joe Biden administration’s COVID censorship campaign. Facebook had balked at disclosing the documents until the House Committee verged on charging Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in contempt.
The Biden administration assumed that the pandemic justified suppressing any information or opinion—including true posts—that might make individuals hesitate to get the COVID vaccine that the Food and Drug Administration rushed to approve on an emergency basis. On March 26, 2021, White House Digital Director Rob Flaherty explained to Facebook officials that “intellectually my bias is to kick people off” of social media—presumably for anything that the administration disapproved.
Biden White House Senior COVID Advisor Andy Slavitt appointed himself as National Joke Czar. Slavitt was “outraged” in April 2021 that Facebook did not speedily delete a humorous meme: “10 years from now you will be watching TV & hear…’Did you or a loved one take the covid vaccine? You may be entitled….” A Facebook Vice President groused that the White House “has previously indicated that it thinks humor should be removed if it is premised on the vaccine having side effects.”
“The Biden White House wanted to control what you saw on Facebook,” Rep. Jordan commented. The Biden White House wanted across-the-board suppression by Facebook of news and commentary from conservative or unapproved sources. Flaherty suggested on April 14, 2021 that Facebook “change the algorithm so that people were more likely to see NYT [New York Times], WSJ [Wall Street Journal], any authoritative news source over Daily Wire, Tomi Lahren, polarizing people.” The Biden White House specifically targeted the New York Post for suppression. The White House made no effort to reconcile that arm-twisting with the First Amendment. Instead, it was simply exploiting its clout.
Biden policymakers presumed that Americans are idiots who believe whatever they see on Facebook. In an April 5, 2021 phone call with Facebook staffers, White House Strategy Communication chief Courtney Rowe said, “If someone in rural Arkansas sees something on FB, it’s the truth.”
In the same call, a Facebook official mentioned nose bleeds as an example of a feared COVID vaccine side effect. Flaherty wanted Facebook to intervene in purportedly private conversations on vaccines and “Direct them to CDC.” A Facebook employee told Flaherty that “an immediate generated message about nose bleeds might give users ‘the Big Brother feel.’” At least the Biden White House didn’t compel Facebook to send form notices every 90 seconds to any private discussion on COVID: “The Department of Homeland Security reminds you that there is no surveillance. Have a nice day.” Flaherty also called for Facebook to crackdown on WhatsApp exchanges (private messages) between individuals.
Flaherty’s push to send wayward Facebook users to the CDC ignored how the feds were Disinformation Central. From May 2021 onwards, the CDC deceived Americans by withholding data on the soaring number of “breakthrough infections” caused by the failure of COVID vaccines. CDC responded to the surging number of COVID fatalities among the fully vaccinated by ceasing to report the national death toll because the data “might be misinterpreted as the vaccines being ineffective,” The New York Times later revealed. The CDC even formally changed the definition of vaccine from “a product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease” to “a preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.” With the new definition, Pfizer injections could still be labeled “vaccines” despite failing to prevent tens of millions of COVID infections.
In mid-April 2021, Flaherty warned Facebook officials: “We have to explain to President…why there is misinfo on the internet.” Was Joe Biden presumably so old and out-of-touch that he didn’t know the Internet is a perpetual geyser of buncombe? Bewailing “misinfo on the internet” sounds like a bad joke from 1997.
Facebook was pathetically craven from the start as last month’s federal court decision detailed. On March 12, 2021, a senior Facebook executive emailed the White House promising that “there is considerably more we can do in ‘partnership’ with you and your team to drive behavior” on COVID. As White House officials openly cussed the company, a Facebook executive whimpered, “We obviously have work to do to gain your trust.” On July 16, 2021, President Biden publicly denounced Facebook for “killing people” by not suppressing more posts. The following day, a Facebook official emailed Senior Biden advisor Anita Dunn “asking for ways to ‘get back into the White House’ good graces.” Zuckerberg later declared that Facebook had deleted 18 million posts with alleged COVID disinformation. As a federal court decision noted last month, Biden administration pressure became so extreme that Facebook warned the White House that “too much censorship might be counterproductive and drive vaccine hesitancy” by “potentially reinforce the notion that there’s a cover-up.” Obviously, the Biden administration needed to do a better job of covering up the cover-up.
There are plenty more jolting revelations of federal suppression of Americans’ words still to come from Rep. Jordan and the Weaponization Committee investigation. Will the mainstream media continue denying any censorship occurred until verified photos of Twitter and Facebook staffers gunned down by FBI agents?
