The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been tracking and cataloging the vaccine-related social media posts of elected officials, according to internal documents.
The documents were obtained through a freedom of information request and investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson posted them online. The documents show that the CDC stored the vaccine-related posts in a database and classified them based on political affiliation.
The database contains the information on the post, the date it was published, a link to the post, and entries about what was discussed.
It is not clear what the CDC is doing or plans to do with the data. But it is concerning to Attkisson, who published the information, that the CDC is tracking what elected officials are saying about vaccines.
News of the CDC tracking what is being said on social media comes barely two weeks after the Department of Homeland Security announced the new Disinformation Governance Board that has attracted more scrutiny of the government monitoring content online.
