Posted on 12/16/2022 12:07:52 PM PST by Red Badger
New documents reveal how the United States government used a secret Twitter portal to censor COVID-19 content that contradicted the government’s narrative.
In its ongoing probe into Twitter’s censorship practices, America First Legal has obtained a fourth set of documents (pdf) exposing a secret Twitter portal, which U.S. government officials used to censor dissenting COVID-19 views in violation of the First Amendment. It’s a revelation Elon Musk described as “extremely concerning.”
The documents reveal that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was collaborating with UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and Mafindo to mitigate “disinformation.” Mafindo is a Facebook third-party fact-checking partner based in Indonesia that is funded by Google, known to have censored searches for keywords like Coronavirus, and COVID-19 as well as blocking information regarding adverse reactions and deaths caused by COVID-19 vaccines.
Facebook started its third-party fact-checking program in 2016, working with fact-checkers from around the world who are certified by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at Poynter to rate and review the accuracy of the content on their platform. According to the IFCN website, they believe “nonpartisan and transparent fact-checking can be a powerful instrument of accountability journalism.” However, among their advisory board, U.S.-based representatives appear to be from liberal-leaning outlets such as the Washington Post and PolitiFact, which is owned by Poynter.
The Twitter Portal
On March 10, 2021 email from a US Public Policy employee at Facebook to several CDC employees spoke of the social media giant’s “weekly sync with CDC” and how the CDC was “to invite other agencies as needed.”
A March 24, 2021 email from the same Facebook employees to CDC employees said “this is my regular FB meeting and they would like to discuss 2 misinformation topics” and “misinformation that was removed.”
On May 10, 2021, a Twitter employee recommended to a CDC official to enroll in Twitter’s Partner Support Portal, which he described as “the best way to get a spreadsheet like this reviewed.”
On May 11, 2021, the CDC official enrolled her personal Twitter account into Twitter’s Partner Support Portal, which allowed “a special, expedited reporting flow in the Twitter Help Center.”
A May 19, 2021 Facebook Community Standards manual reveals how the company works with lawmakers and legal council as well as human rights activists in developing policies in their goals of “bringing 50 million people a step closer to vaccinations” while “combatting COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation” and “overcoming global challenges in vaccination.” Methods used to accomplish this included removing “false information that has been debunked by public health experts” and rejecting ads that violate their policies, “including those that discourage vaccination.” They also reduced the distribution of “misleading claims rated by independent fact-checkers.”
Removed Content
Posts that Facebook would delete—which the CDC or any other public health authority deemed as “false and likely to contribute to imminent violence of physical harm”—included:
* Claims that COVID-19 is no more dangerous than the common flu or cold.
* Claims that COVID-19 cannot be transmitted in certain climates, weather conditions, or locations.
* Claims that for the average person, something can guarantee prevention from getting COVID-19 or can guarantee recovery from COVID-19 before such a cure or prevention has been approved.
* Claims that COVID-19 tests cause cancer.
* Claims about the availability or existence of COVID-19 vaccines.
* Claims about the safety or serious side effects of COVID-19 vaccines.
* Claims about the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.
* Claims about how the COVID-19 vaccine was developed or its ingredients.
* Claims involving conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines or vaccine programs.
Content deemed to have been “debunked” included among other things, “vaccines cause the disease against which they meant to protect, or cause the person to be more likely to get the disease,” that “natural immunity is safer than vaccine acquired immunity,” and “vaccines are not effective to prevent the disease against what they purport to protect.”
Repeat offenders would face restrictions “including (but not limited to) reduced distribution, removal from recommendations” or removal from the site.
These punishments were conducted despite evidence that the vaccines do not prevent transmission, that vaccines cause adverse effects and even death, and that more vaccinated people are now dying than unvaccinated. Even the CDC admitted in June that vaccinated people could contract the disease again.
‘The Coolest Misinformation Fighting Speakeasy’ In August 2021, the head of Google’s News Lab for the Asia Pacific region (APAC), emailed a CDC Vaccine Confidence Strategist to invite her to the APAC’s “Trusted Media Summit.” The CDC’s vaccine confidence strategist then emailed the event planner for Google’s APAC Trusted Media Summit, noting her excitement over being invited to what she referred to as “the coolest misinformation fighting speakeasy.”
The same CDC employee was then invited to the summit to give a keynote addressing how the CDC was working with WHO and other international organizations to address a so-called “infodemic” and using “social inoculation” to mitigate it.
An Oct. 28 email from the CDC to the Twitter team regarded preliminary discussions on the CDC plans for communicating guidance regarding “pediatric vaccines.”
A Nov. 2, 2021 email from a Facebook employee to multiple CDC employees was related to “vaccine misinformation” relative to the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). The Facebook employee informed the CDC employees that they had “launched a new feature in Instagram, where accounts that repeatedly post content that violates our policies on COVID-19 or vaccine misinformation may now lose the ability to be tagged or mentioned or may see pop-ups asking if they’d like to delete certain posts that may violate our policies.”
Finally, Facebook boasts of removing over 16 million posts on Facebook and Instagram, including over 2 million between February and May 2021.
AFL’s first release of documents revealed the explicit collusion between the CDC and Big Tech to censor what the Biden administration deemed “misinformation” and push covert COVID-19 propaganda. AFL’s second release built the evidentiary record showing that CDC specifically sent Facebook and Twitter-specific posts to take down, throttle, censor, or flag. AFL’s third release revealed that the CDC’s mask guidance policies for school children were driven by political polling by liberal dark money group The Kaiser Family Foundation.
The Epoch Times reached out to Facebook for comment.
They tried, but they failed to secure the backups...........
was there a story about that?
I would have started suing Individually any person who tried to delete stuff.
I think Musk has a good case to get him money back
They sold him something then sabotaged it.
AT LEAST Damages $$$ for having to put in time and effort to rebuild from backup tapes.
Ask all the DeSantis fans here....Hes the “Politician” that will turn this Banana Republic around....Not Trump... /s
“* Claims that COVID-19 tests cause cancer.”
Wow! One wonders what they can implant in the hydrogel?
After getting an adverse reaction to the new covid nasal swab that made my nose run constantly for three days I did a little research myself.
It is composed of nanofibers epoxy bonded to a stick and capped off with a cleaning treatment of Ethylene Oxide, which is a known carcinogen. The hydrogel is Porcine. The gel has a distinct odor. The acs article describes every thing with pictures.
https://www.chemistryviews.org/details/video/11310825/What_Are_Swabs_for_Coronavirus_Tests_Made_of/
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c04956
Names. I want names.
L
“ A third email, an internal Twitter missive, showed that Twitter was processing a list of posts that had been flagged by the FBI for “Possible Violative Content.” One of the posts commented on a video of then-Democrat New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo talking about COVID-19 vaccine mandates and stated: “This is our future guys if the dems get full control. If you are in George you better vote Wednesday.”
Wow. So threatening /s
Bkmk
Yup—time for lawsuits from families harmed by the censorship.
Personal lawsuits.
Billions of dollars.
Time for our team to start playing the “Alex Jones” game....
“calling us conspiracy theorists?”
Well the fascists call us fascist.
Listen to America’s Voice Live today and they did a man on the street interviews of college student.
They didn’t know how many stars on our flag, what is the capitol of the US or what is the name of the ocean on our east coast!
I fear we will become too stupid (and too immoral) to survive.
The “government” just did the bidding of big pharma. Follow the $$$$$ and follow the agenda.
It was a great opportunity for a lot of people.
Big pharma made bank, big corporations gained market share as the little guys were shut down, teachers unions got an extended vacation, politicians got to spend a lot more of my kids money, and the elites/globalists got rid of the orange man. All the fear porn was also great for the media and bureaucrats we never should have heard about became instant celebrities.
The one surprise is that hospitals played along. Unless I am missing something, corporate medicine enthusiastically participated in a scheme that saw them post record losses.
Wondering if somebody promised them their cut of my childrens future in return.....
Will see how that plays out.
“Well the fascists call us fascist.” - Good point.
I have this theory that the “vax” could be making people dumber.
Dugway Duke used to be way smarter. Semi... eh, didn’t really start off from the right side of the distribution (no offense semi). Gas Dr. disappointed me a little last time we conversed as well.
It’s sad, but I think that “vax” is really taking a toll.
Prions do grow
“The one surprise is that hospitals played along. “
They got paid through the CARES act, right?
I know they got to charge a Govt account lots of money for each test, each person that died of COVID, each patient put on the vent. I thought they made lots of money, and the stats they were orchestrating was keeping the panic level pegged.
Dying of a motorcycle accident don’t pay, but swab his nose, run the cycles up on the ‘ol PCR tester and bang, hospital gets an extra $30k and everyone else gets a statistic.
There was definitely some of that and government created an incentive for hospitals to classify everything as “Covid” but hospitals have a lot of investment and make money on a wide variety of services (like day surgeries).
I hear a mixed bag from friends in the “industry”. They are publicly reporting some pretty big losses so look for a “bail-out” plan in the future.
I’m a doc but in private practice. I can say what I want and I think most of this was a scam and told my patients what I thought based on the research I did.
Dr. Gas’s responses concerning Covid were a disappointment.
Corporate guy???
“Can anyone think of a benevolent reason for them to do this?”
Sure. They believe that they are so smart and so right about pretty much everything and that normal people are so stupid about everything that we must be censored. So smart and right about everything must win, regardless of the cost or methods!
The amazing thing is they don’t think they have done anything wrong. These revelations will change nothing and they will do it again in 2024 and again in 2026 . . .
How could people be harmed by the censorship?
DIRECTLY harmed? That's going to have to be answered.
“Corporate guy???”
Has to be. Most people’s opinions can be changed based on reasonable arguments. Not these folks though.
Another FReeper mentioned that maybe they believe their own propaganda. Hard to fathom.
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