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(LifeSiteNews) – A trove of documents released last week by America First Legal (AFL) obtained from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit show that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) worked with Big Tech companies to censor what the agency deemed “misinformation” about COVID jabs.
The documents show emails between the CDC and officials from Twitter, Facebook and Google in which the CDC flagged what it deemed as “misinformation,” according to the Daily Caller. The emails also show that the CDC coordinated with the companies for the suppression of any dissent from the mainstream COVID jab narrative and had regular meetings about “misinformation” related to the jabs. The CDC also helped to develop language used to control the narrative around the jabs.
The documents contain alleged emails between officials from Twitter that include a chart the CDC sent to Twitter giving examples of posts that the agency considered to be “misinformation.” The documents also allege that the CDC sent Twitter recommended language dealing with the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), which would state that reports to VAERS did not mean that the jabs were responsible for injury.
The documents also allege that a Twitter official explicitly requested that the CDC identify “misinformation” on the platform dealing with what the official called “fraudulent Covid cures [and] vaccine cards,” and that coordination with the CDC about vaccine “misinformation” would be “tricky” because Twitter’s CEO was expected to give Congressional testimony the day a meeting was suggested by CDC officials.
The same set of emails allege that the CDC was working with the Census Bureau to monitor “vaccine misinformation,” and that Twitter had worked with the Census Bureau in 2020 to monitor “misinformation.”
The documents also allege that the CDC scheduled regular “Be on the Look Out” meetings with Facebook and Twitter, in which the agency would discuss what it considered “misinformation.” The documents also allege that an official from the CDC said that a slide show relating to the meetings were not to be “share[d] outside your trust and safety teams.”
Further, the documents suggest that the CDC forwarded links to Facebook that contained Facebook posts of what it considered “misinformation.” The documents also state that Facebook gave the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) $15 million in advertising credit as a “non-monetary gift” dealing with jabs, social distancing, travel, and priority communications messages, in potential violation of federal law.
The documents further suggest that Facebook requested a COVID-19 Misinformation Reporting Channel by which the CDC and the Census Bureau would make reports of “misinformation” to Facebook, and that Facebook host a “training session” for the channel.
The documents further hold that the CDC asked Facebook not to censor official public health departments. According to one email, a CDC official told Facebook that the “algorithms that Facebook and other social media networks are apparently using to screen out posting by sources of vaccine misinformation are also apparently screening out valid public health messaging, including [Wyoming] Health communications.”
The documents allege that Google agreed to promote the CDC jab page in search results and worked with the agency to coordinate “fact-checking” with Google to correct any “misinformation” about the jab and “infodemiology,” or the mitigation of misinformation to counteract public health problems.
Further, the documents allege that the CDC sought to coordinate with Google regarding a World Health Organization (WHO) infodemiology conference. The same set of emails allege that a Google official was interested in infodemiology but was more focused on the 2020 elections, though maintained that the two issues were “inevitably related.”
The documents further allege that Google allowed the CDC to edit its code with regard to its “Knowledgebase” dealing with COVID-19 treatments and prevention techniques.
“These explosive smoking-gun documents, obtained as a result of America First Legal’s litigation against the Biden Administration, conclusively demonstrate that Big Tech has unlawfully colluded with the federal government to silence, censor, and suppress Americans’ free speech and violate their First Amendment rights,” America First Legal president Stephen Miller said in a statement.
“Government is expressly prohibited from censoring competing or dissenting viewpoints or from silencing its political opponents whether it does so directly or whether it uses an outside corporation to achieve its draconian, totalitarian ends.”
Speaking to the Washington Free Beacon, an official from Facebook said that the company has been transparent about working with public health officials to “address health misinformation,” and that it is currently considering modifying its COVID-19 misinformation policy.
The Biden administration has attempted to use Big Tech companies to suppress what it considers “misinformation” about the COVID-19 pandemic.