“Tricky.” Over the course of 110 pages in a federal complaint, that one descriptive word seemed to stand out among the exchanges between social media executives and public health officials on censoring public viewpoints. The exchange reveals long-suspected coordination between the government and these social media companies to manage a burgeoning censorship system. Twitter just reportedly suspended another doctor who sought to raise concerns over Pfizer Covid records. Former New York Times science reporter Alex Berenson is also suing Twitter over his suspension after raising dissenting views to the CDC. In the meantime, Twitter is rolling out new procedures to combat “misinformation” in the upcoming elections — a move that has some of us skeptical.
The recently disclosed exchange between defendant Carol Crawford, the CDC’s Chief of digital media, revealed a back channel with Twitter and other companies to censor “unapproved opinions” on social media. The “tricky” part may be due to the fact that, during that week of March 25, 2021, then CEO Jack Dorsey was testifying on such censorship before Congress and insisting that “we don’t have a censoring department.” It seems that any meeting on systemic censorship with the government would have to wait until after Dorsey denied that such systemic censorship existed.
The exchange is part of the evidence put forward by leading doctors who are alleging a systemic private-government effort to censor dissenting scientific or medical views. The lawsuit filed by Missouri and Louisiana was joined by experts, including Drs. Jayanta Bhattacharya (Stanford University) and Martin Kulldorff (Harvard University). Bhattacharya objected this week to the suspension of Dr. Clare Craig after she raised concerns about Pfizer trial documents.
Those doctors were the co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which advocated for a more focused Covid response that targeted the most vulnerable population rather than widespread lockdowns and mandates. Many are now questioning the efficacy and cost of the massive lockdown as well as the real value of masks or the rejection of natural immunities as an alternative to vaccination. Yet, these experts and others were attacked for such views just a year ago. Some found themselves censored on social media for challenging claims of Dr. Fauci and others.
The Great Barrington Declaration was not the only viewpoint deemed dangerous. Those who alleged that the virus may have begun in a lab in China were widely denounced and the views barred from being uttered on social media platforms. It was later learned that a number of leading experts raised this theory with Fauci and others early in the pandemic.
Fauci is accused of quickly scuttling such discussion and critics point to his own alleged approval of gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab. Fauci and other leading experts now admit that the lab theory is a real possibility, even if they do not agree that it is the best explanation. Social media companies like Facebook declared that the previously banned “conspiracy theory” would now be allowed to be discussed. Yet, some in the media continued to push the media to avoid discussing it. The New York Times science writer Apoorva Mandavilli declared the theory “racist” even as Fauci and others were saying that it is now considered a possible explanation.
Indeed, many of the views that the media attacked as conspiracy theories or debunked are now again being seriously considered. That includes claims of adverse responses to the vaccines, natural immunity protection, and the psychological costs from masking or isolation, particularly among children. None of these views are inviolate or beyond question — any more than the official accounts were at the time. Rather, they were systemically “disappeared” from social media – pushed to the far extremes of public and academic discourse.
The First Amendment is designed to prevent the government from censoring speech. While the new lawsuit will face legal challenges, it has already forced previously unknown government-corporate coordination into the public view.
While the CDC now admits that it made serious mistakes during the pandemic, it allegedly worked with companies to ban opposing views. Those who sought to raise these questions found their accounts suspended. There is every reason for the CDC to combat what it considers false information through its own postings and outreach programs. However, the involvement in censoring dissenting views is deeply troubling.
That brings us back to the “tricky” part. The request for the meeting was made on March 18, 2021. That week, Dorsey and other CEOs were to appear at a House hearing to discuss “misinformation” on social media and their “content modification” policies. I had just testified on private censorship in circumventing the First Amendment as a type of censorship by surrogate. Dorsey and the other CEOs were asked about my warning of a “little brother problem, a problem which private entities do for the government which it cannot legally do for itself.” Dorsey insisted that there was no such censorship office or effort.
The new lawsuit sheds new light on that testimony. It now appears that the CDC was actively feeding disapproved viewpoints to these companies, including a list of tweets that the CDC regarded as misinformation. In one email, Twitter senior manager for public policy Todd O’Boyle asked Crawford to help identify tweets to be censored and emphasized that the company was “looking forward to setting up regular chats.”
Facebook also received lists of “offensive” posts to be “dealt with.” Facebook trained government officials in using its “CrowdTangle” system used by “health departments [to] flag potential vaccine misinformation” to allow the company to review and possibly remove it. It added that “this is similar to how governments and fact-checkers use CrowdTangle ahead of elections….”
That was another eye-raising reference since these companies were criticized for killing the Hunter Biden laptop story before the election. The story was blocked as presumed “Russian disinformation,” a move that Dorsey admitted in the March hearing was a mistake. Now, a year later, story is accepted not just as legitimate but potentially a serious threat for the Biden Administration.
Whatever the outcome of the litigation, the filing raises, again, whether our concept of state censorship and a state media are outmoded. The last few years have seen a striking uniformity in the barring of certain political and policy viewpoints, including dissenting medical or scientific views that could potentially protect lives. That occurred without any central ministry of information or coercive state laws. It was done by mutual agreement and shared values between the government and these companies.
What was not known were the moving parts in what has been arguably the most successful censorship system in our history. To some extent, no direction was needed beyond the periodic announcements of figures like Fauci or the CDC, which were treated as gospel and not to be challenged. Even when Fauci was criticized for reversing himself on key issues like the wearing of masks or their efficacy, it did not change the concerted effort to suppress opposing views.
The “tricky” part for the public is how to deal with the circumvention of the First Amendment in a system of censorship by surrogates. Outsourcing the suppression of opposing views threatens the same core values in our government. Just as the CDC overstepped its bounds in mandatory moratoriums on evictions, it should not be allowed to exercise control over free speech, directly or indirectly. It’s mandate to ensure “a Healthy World–Through Prevention” should not apply to unhealthy thoughts.
There are alternatives to ‘Twitter’. What’s lacking is the cojones to use them and make ‘Twitter” irrelevant. But “NO”!
I spoke with a dog at the Dogs R Us Congregation He had been a human in a prior life and while in Heaven he worked for the Saint Peter Team at the Pearly Gates. He says there was a cow there working for St. Peter and he interviewed new candidates for heaven or Hell. The cow hated humans who ate meat and especially beef. When the candidates came into the Pearly Gates the cow offered them an array of food. Veggies, chicken and ham burgers supposedly made with cow beef Those who ate the burgers were more likely to get his vote to go to Hell. Vegans did much better.
Sorry, I LOL at Turley expecting to be taken seriously on any topic involving censorship these days, especially when it concerns lies his employer told on the air on a regular basis that helped actively kill members of its base audience.
especially when it concerns lies his employer told on the air on a regular basis
You’re a big fan of “sins of your father” shaming.
Turley tells some of the same lies himself — or openly defends them. I was just being polite.
Professor Turkey should be on the Supreme Court.
If any government official is intimidating, coercing or employing any private company to violate the First Amendment that is illegal. There even federal criminal statutes to criminally prosecute that government official (ie: Title 18 US Code 245 and other color of law statutes).
Under “Citizens United” ruling, Twitter (corporate person with First Amendment rights) can and should file a First Amendment lawsuit against any of these officials censoring. It should be a mandatory lawsuit to protect Twitter’s shareholders.
Government is not allowed to farm-out censorship to private companies using coercion, intimidation or employment as an agent of the state.
Hollywood has a better solution to illegal censorship. Hollywood empowered parents (citizens) to censor with a ratings system with labeling (like PG, R, Mature Audiences, Violence, Nudity, etc) since government has no authority to violate the First Amendment. Members of Congress and agency heads swore an Oath of Office not to violate the First Amendment or any other right.
Everyone knows Darren is Turley’s little brother. Who needs CrowdTangle when you do it yourselves? Watch this comment get memory-holed.
Since you brought up getting memory-holed; did you choose that avatar? 😳
I don’t think so. It looks like a frog. Maybe Darren did it. Touché to you both!
What do you post that would require Darren to delete your posts?
“Oh, Job, what evil have you done to turn God’s wrath upon you?” You’re blaming a victim. Of course, I can’t say that here!
One infers from your post that big brother does indeed “require” little brother to do as ordered.
You dont have to say it verbatim.
Was it something misogynistic? Racist? Anti-semite? Calling for real violence against a person or a group of people based off their political leanings? Race? Religion?
If Darren censored you for any of the above or along similar lines, are you really the victim?
In the past, I have modded for a friend. Some people really believe it is their 1stA right to post some really, sick, twisted stuff. The owner of the site did not want that kind of language on her blog. As a result, she got some really ugly, sick and twisted hate mail. One involving a chainsaw.
I wish I could post a link to the historical evidence, but of course, it no longer exists. It was either Will Smith’s wife looks more like Mars Attacks than G.I.Jane, or Gavin Newsom should play the lead in the next All the King’s Men remake with Alec Baldwin as the assassin.
The NSA and other government intelligence agencies work hand and glove with Google and Facebook. It is no surprise that a government agency conspired with Twitter and other tech companies. It is not a conspiracy theory when corporate and government officials actually conspire.
The collateral damage from how COVID was “managed” is incalculable. Will Anthony Fauci be arrested for perjury? Will those who lied to the Senate and Congress?
Oops! I forgot, we have a two-tiered justice system.,
E.M. wrote, “It is not a conspiracy theory when corporate and government officials actually conspire.”
It’s only a theory until it’s proven with facts.
The trend towards totalitarianism is actually here, the question is how to reverse the trend.
The 2nd Amendment is the remedy.
That’s the remedy the Founding Fathers gave us.
1984 is an instruction manual for Democrats
The world’s history fascist regimes would love to have had the power Democrat enjoy in the USA
Mao, Stalin, Hitler, etc
So when are Gov Murphy, Cuomo, Wolf, etc going to be charged with murdering all those nursing home victims? After being told it would kill 30% of nursing home residents…if Covid ill were sent there….These Democrat Governors APPROVED the murder! This is why these states had the HIGHEST death toll, while having the most expensive healthcare system in the world!
And they told us that we were paranoid.
Some truth to the statement that paranoia is just heightened awareness.
It’s often argued that nowhere in history does it show this trajectory of government abusing rights ever stopped at the door of those who originally applauded the abuse.
It won’t be any different this time. And yet we’ll have to suffer the same useful idiots reliable certainty that somehow history won’t repeat itself. This blog is full of them. Just watch.
“. . . that somehow history won’t repeat itself.”
True story:
A young couple were sitting at a restaurant booth. The girl asked the boy: “How did you get the day off work?” He replied: “I told them I was sick.”
There was a long pause, then she asked: “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”
😂
>> What was not known were the moving parts in what has been arguably the most successful censorship system in our history. To some extent, no direction was needed beyond the periodic announcements of figures like Fauci or the CDC, which were treated as gospel and not to be challenged. <<
About a decade ago corporate media companies began to coalesce around the notion that dissenting views to the official narrative about "climate change" was not allowed. Major "newspapers" announced they would not longer run Op-Eds that dissented from the government's official narrative and the big three broadcasters would not allow dissenting views to be discussed.
Did government officials goad corporate media into taking that position? I don't know but I suspect so.
That's been a quite successful censorship campaign.
This is another piece in a long line of evidence that shows just how deep we are into this 21st century cultural shift and how far the culture shifting totalitarian tentacles are reaching; therefore, here is another pessimistic outlook of where we could be heading.
What happens in a constitution based free society/culture (where liberty has always been the core status quo since its inception) when the leaders of government bureaucracies, vast majority of prominent businesses, most public and private education systems, half or more of the politicians in the society and half or more of the voting population in the society all swallow the same extremely biased, hive-minded, anti-liberty propaganda as if it’s fact?
Liberty and the constitution die a slow death, that’s what happens.
What happens when the status quo of liberty and our constitutional rights are essentially stripped away by the power hungry immoral totalitarians that are in charge of literally everything that happens in a society and the people finally learn the truth that their liberty and constitution is dead?
This will be the reaction from liberty loving and constitution supporting people…
https://stevewitherspoonhome.files.wordpress.com/2022/08/cornerdwolf.jpg
What happens when to the dumb-asinine sheeple after they put their totalitarian leaders in complete power and they realize that their liberty and constitutional rights are also dead, they too will react with the same snarling teeth.
I haven’t seen an effective plan to lead the USA away from spiraling into a totalitarian abyss.
I know, I know, pessimism bias is the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of negative events while underestimating the likelihood of positive events; but let’s be completely honest here, is a person really paranoid if everyone IS out to get them?
Okay, discuss.
Steve Witherspoon,
Read this morning in FL, of 30 school boards, 25 flipped from liberal to conservative.
I see that as a clear sign of parents rejecting wokeism and totalitarianism.
Now just to get the wokeism indoctrination out of schools.
“ Now just to get the wokeism indoctrination out of schools.”
How do they do that? By censoring it. Oh the irony. Parents engaging in totalitarianism to fight….totalitarian schools…SMH.
RE:”Parents engaging in totalitarianism to fight….totalitarian schools..” Well writ, “Fighting fire with fire”, “Giving ’em a taste of their own medicine”. “Hoisting them by their own petards” .”We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it any more.” Kicking the Cancel Culture Gestapo out of the front doors and into the dust bin of history.. Sounds like a plan????
How do they do that? By censoring it. Oh the irony. Parents engaging in totalitarianism to fight….totalitarian schools…SMH.
Do you have any clue about the chain of command at a public School?
You can’t, when you post such drivel
How is focusing on real education like reading, writing, math, history in context, chemistry, physics, biology censorship?
Leftist wokeism is not education. It is indoctrination. Politics have no place in public education system. And that is exactly what leftist promote or should I say, indoctrinate. Teaching children to hate others or themselves based on skin color is wrong. So is sexualizing them at an age where they cannot even understand the concept of sex.
UpstateFarmer wrote, “Read this morning in FL, of 30 school boards, 25 flipped from liberal to conservative.”
That’s a start, at least in that area, but as you say “now just to get the wokeism indoctrination out of schools”.
Conservatives in the regressive Democratic bubble area I live in have absolutely no change at winning school board seats. Conservatives have tried over the last 10 years and they don’t just lose, they get absolutely trounced.
It’s great to see the world collapsing on Twitter, FB et crooks who occupy such an undeserved, unearned position of power. But the real fault lies in all of us, our obsession with the frivolous, our desperate need to be entertained and our compulsion to avoid the serious. Only when those character flaws are corrected can we truly be free of the traps of tyrants who prey all to easily on the shoddiness of the lesser angels of our existence.
@mespo
Like. You nailed it, and it will destroy us if we don’t stop. It cracks me up/kills me that people engaging in what you have described think they are the ones with agency. And this comes from someone that has been doing the Silicon Valley thing for almost 30 ears. it’s a joke with a punchline that nobody would like, and the perps are perfectly happy to keep getting rich off of their users’ ignorance.
Bravo!!!!!!!! Couldn’t have said it better myself.
@ Mespo
Why did my “Bravo” post come up under Anonymous? I’m Tootsiebug and want Mespo to know I appreciate his thinking.
Tootsiebug :
“I’m Tootsiebug and want Mespo to know I appreciate his thinking.”
****************
Noted, flattered and appreciated. You know that I WAS born in the wrong millennium.
Same for me! It came up anonymous!
~mespo
IT WOULD HAVE TAKEN DISCIPLINE AND RESOLVE
The whole idea was an undiluted, severely restricted vote of import, under the dominion of the Constitution, through strict adherence to its literal meaning and intent.
“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
– Abraham Lincoln, Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838
_________________________________________________________________
Abraham Lincoln “As…freemen, we must live through all time…”
We didn’t.
Ben Franklin, “[We gave you] a republic, if you can keep it.”
We couldn’t.
__________
Out of chaos comes [the new world – Deep Deep State Swamp] order.
I wish we could say “Never again!” But I’m afraid what we will be saying is, “Here we go again!”
We say Civil War this looks like we need another Revolutionary War.
ZZClancy,
I have been seeing more and more talk about Civil War, and it frightens me. That is a path we must not go down.
Reading about the school board elections that took place yesterday, whereas 25 of 30 boards flipped from liberal to conservative, I like to think it is a clear sign of what is to come in the mid-terms and in 2024. A mass rejection of this wokeism insanity. I prefer sound defeats of far left progressives at the ballot box then Americans shooting at each other.
Sorry, left out the school board elections took place in the state of FL.
I don’t think we will see a civil war. But I do think the 2020’s will be very chaotic and at times dangerous. The 2030’s will be much calmer.
I pray “much calmer” due to wise decisions, and NOT due to draconian totalitarian lockdown by implementing the policies of the WEF and the rest of their ilk!
It isn’t only that they coordinated and cohersed the Tech Giants to censor the information, it is that the CDC and NIH information was patently false!!!!
I don’t read or “follow” Facebook or Twitter. I don’t want my privacy stolen and my bank account stolen.
Sprec free or forever hold your piece. Your pistol is a good piece.
The censorship is absurd, their attempts at gaslighting are absurd, the lockdown was beyond absurd. Had they been willing to not politicize and actually try to help people, the current advice would have been the advice from the get go (even Obama wasn’t so foolish during his pandemic).
People talk about kids and the elderly, but what about all the people that due to the lockdowns: got divorced? Increased drug use or overdosed? Experienced increased domestic abuse? Had to shut their businesses? Didn’t lose their businesses, but now can’t fully staff them (record job creation, my ***)? Couldn’t see a doctor for other issues, or even developed new, non-covid ailments due to being locked down? Became homeless due to any of the above or other? As far as I’m concerned, the lockdown was one of the greatest crimes against humanity the world has ever seen (unless you were rich, Antifa, or protesting Trump). The elites didn’t care then, and they don’t care now. A whole lot of us will never forget.
I fear they are about to do the same with their Green New Deal mulligans. I don’t know what one calls any of that other than tyranny.
Big Brother is watching you and controlling message. The totalitarian deep state and deep tech allies take pages from the playbooks of the PRC, Nazis, and USSR. Hopefully the First Amendment, rule of law, and common sense will prevail.
Sorry folks but if you were so stupid as to get information about Covid (or sports or the weather for that matter) from Twitter or Facebook, you deserve what you get. Real Americans figured out in about four weeks (after the second “Two Weeks to Stop the Spread”) that St. Fauci and the rest of the government control freaks were full of “malarkey” (to just pick a word out of the air).
We took control of our own lives… Clearly social distancing was the best “medicine,” clearly natural immunity was the best immunity (although that was a hard way to get protection in 2020), clearly old people were dying 100 to 1 compared to young people, clearly the Great Barrington scientists were right, clearly it just made sense to get on with our lives… and we did… and we lived. It was only the people that read Twitter and Facebook and “followed” the Cuomo clowns and two faced politicians like Newsome and Pelosi that made their lives miserable for almost two years.
@Dennis Byron
Some of us in blue states had no choice due to our draconian governors. We couldn’t just pack it up and move.
At some point we sell our house in Colorado and move to a FREE State.
Perhaps Wyoming. You know the state that just overwhelming threw Liz out.
James,
That is true.
However, based off the numbers of people moving out of Blue states to Red states over the lock downs, many are.
Also of note, Red states lead in economic recovery fast and better than Blue states. So if Biden wants to claim economic recovery, he needs to give the credit where it is due, and not claim it for himself.
@James
I live in the bluest of blue states. It is not coincidentally the state where Great Barrington is (and the state where the first Declaration of Independence was drafted in 1774, the one that only some Brits in Parliament took seriously so the founders drafted another one in 1776–google “Suffolk Resolves”). We just paid no attention to the RINO that runs Massachusetts for another few months (to be replaced by an out and out socialist).
That does not mean we acted foolishly. People like me who are pushing 80 social distanced and otherwise avoided crowds. But we kept doctor’s appointments, went to outdoors sporting events (some independent minded Massachusetts guys organized a faux American Legion baseball season that included 16 teams in Greater Boston), played golf (at first stupidly having to avoid touching the pin or some such silly rule that lasted a month), shopped walking one way up and down the aisles (one rule they should have kept for reasons having nothing to do with Covid), etc. Our kids who are firefighters and nurses and bus drivers never missed a day of work. Our grandkids sadly and to their everlasting harm did miss three months of school completely and then almost another year where they went physically every other day (except if their parents could home school or transfer them to parochial school; naturally the inner city kids in cities run by massive unions suffered immense everlasting harm).
In general, most of us paid no attention to the lameduck RINO… who sheepishly in March 2022 cut the number of people who he had previously claimed died WITH-* Covid here in Massachusetts in 2020 and 2021 by 33%
______________
*The lameduck RINO will also not tell us how many actually died BECAUSE OF Covid during that time period (or up until now). But strangely he has been telling us for about a year how many people in the hospital WITH Covid are there BECAUSE OF Covid. It turns out only about a third of the people in hospital in Massachusetts WITH Covid are there BECAUSE OF Covid. We can presume the same percent applies to the greatly reduced WITH Covid death number. It turns out more people have died of ODs in Massachusetts in the last two and a half years than BECAUSE OF Covid