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It's now well known that Joe Biden's administration colluded with Big Tech during the COVID pandemic and the 2020 election season in order to censor Americans.
But the details are just now becoming available, as a new congressional report confirms that:
- Big Tech changed their content moderation policies because of the Biden White House
- The Biden White House's censorship targeted true information, satire, and other content that did not violate the platforms' policies
- The Biden White House's censorship campaign had a chilling effect on other speech
- The White House had leverage because the companies had other policy concerns involving the Biden Administration
- The Biden White House pushed censorship of books, not just social media
The House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government by Biden and Democrats released a report called "The Censorship-Industrial Complex: How Top Biden White House Officials Coerced Big Tech to Censor Americas, True Information, and Critics of the Biden Administration."
Among the topics that apparently were targeted – the scandalous behavior of the Biden family in business dealings with foreign interests, including those considered hostile to America, and the millions of dollars the family got in its influence-peddling operations that allegedly sold access to Joe Biden.
Is censoring all opposition a prime weapon of leftists?
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Also, the alternatives that likely could have helped Americans battle COVID-19, alternatives to taking the experimental drugs that the government was pushing, those shots that actually injured and killed some victims.
An announcement from Congress reveals the new report "details the months-long campaign by the Biden White House to coerce large companies, namely Facebook, Google, and Amazon, to censor books, videos, posts, and other content online. By the end of 2021, Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon changed their content moderation policies in ways that were directly responsive to criticism from the Biden administration."
The committee confirmed it reviewed "tens of thousands of emails and nonpublic documents between the Biden White House and Big Tech."
The report found "the Biden White House's pressure campaign largely succeeded" and its results "were devastating."
"By suppressing free speech and intentionally distorting public debate in the modern town square, ideas and policies were no longer fairly tested and debated on their merits," the report found.
"The First Amendment prohibits the government from 'abridging the freedom of speech.' Thus, 'any law or government policy that reduces that freedom on the [social media] platforms . . . violates the First Amendment.' To inform potential legislation, the Committee and Select Subcommittee have been investigating the Executive Branch's collusion with third party intermediaries to censor speech. The Committee and Select Subcommittee have uncovered other serious violations of the First Amendment throughout the Executive Branch during the Biden Administration."
The report reveals, for example, that Sir Nick Clegg, Meta's president of global affairs and former deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, described in writing his encounter with the Biden administration.
He was defending America's First Amendment from an attack by Biden.
He said, "Just got off [an] hour long call with [Senior Advisor to President Biden] Andy Slavitt. . . . [H]e was outraged – not too strong of a word to describe his reaction – that we did not remove this post. . . . I countered that removing content like that would represent a significant incursion into traditional boundaries of free expression in the U.S. but he replied that the post was directly comparing Covid vaccines to asbestos poisoning in a way which demonstrably inhibits confidence in Covid vaccines amongst those the Biden Administration is trying to reach."
The report explains Bidednworked to "coerce" Facebook, YouTube and Amazon "to censor books, videos, posts, and other content online."
The report documents: "From unnecessary extended school closures to unconstitutional vaccine mandates that forced workers to take a newly developed vaccine or risk losing their jobs, the Biden Administration and other officials needlessly imposed harm and suffering on Americans across the country.
"Ongoing litigation and the publication of the Twitter Files following Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company began to provide some insight into the behind-the-scenes efforts of the Biden White House to censor political opponents and disfavored views. For example, on just the third day of the Biden Administration, the White House emailed Twitter (now X) personnel to demand that a tweet by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. be 'removed ASAP.' The directive was not limited to just Kennedy; in the same email, the Biden White House asked Twitter to also 'keep an eye out for tweets that fall in this same genre.' But the most important documents to understanding the Biden White House’s censorship efforts have proven to be internal emails from the companies on the receiving end of White House threats and coercion."
The report said Biden clearly was demanding unconstitutional measures, "The First Amendment prohibits the government from 'abridging the freedom of speech.' Thus, 'any law or government policy that reduces that freedom on the [social media] platforms . . . violates the First Amendment.' To inform potential legislation, the Committee and Select Subcommittee have been investigating the Executive Branch’s collusion with third-party intermediaries to censor speech. The Committee and Select Subcommittee have uncovered other serious violations of the First Amendment throughout the Executive Branch during the Biden Administration."
The report's nearly 900 pages detail multiple instances of unconstitutional actions by Biden and his bureaucrats. It includes hundreds of pages of examples of those violations.
Worringly, the study confirmed that Biden's censorship efforts had a negative impact on speech overall.
The report said, "Facebook increased its censorship of several topics— including those related to the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus—as part of a general response to the Biden White House’s pressure to 'do more.' After a few months it became clear that the Biden White House’s focus was on alleged vaccine misinformation. In May 2021, Facebook stopped removing content about the lab leak theory, which even parts of the Biden Administration consider true today. Zuckerberg privately told top Facebook officials that '[t]his seems like a good reminder that when we compromise our standards due to pressure from an administration in either direction, we’ll often regret it later.'"
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