Emails between an employee at the United States (US) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Twitter have revealed that at least one CDC staff member and the US Census Bureau had access to Twitterโs dedicated โPartner Support Portalโ which allows approved government partners to flag content to Twitter for censorship.
The emails were released by the nonprofit organization America First Legal and show Twitter enrolling a CDC employee into this portal through their personal account in May 2021 (pages 182-194).
On May 10, 2021, the CDCโs Carol Crawford sent Twitter employee Todd OโBoyle a list of example posts highlighting โtwo issues that we [the CDC] are seeing a great deal of misinfo about.โ OโBoyle responded by saying that enrolling in Twitterโs Partner Support Portal is the best way for Crawford to get posts like this reviewed in the future.
Crawford asked OโBoyle if she could enroll in the portal with her personal Twitter account and on May 27, 2021, OโBoyle confirmed that Crawford had been enrolled in the portal.
In other emails, Crawford asked OโBoyle whether the federal government could flag โCOVID misinformation on the portal using the existing census.gov accounts that have accessโ and questioned how to flag โmisinformationโ via the portal.
June 2021 emails (pages 359-360) also show another CDC employee attempting to enroll in a Facebook portal but getting error messages. While these emails donโt describe the portal, it appears to be Facebookโs content takedown portal which is similar to the Twitter portal and allows government agencies to flag content for censorship.
Additionally, a February 4, 2021 email (pages 354-355) shows Facebookโs US Head of Public Policy, Payton Iheme, asking Crawford whether sheโs aware of the US Department of Homeland Securityโs (DHSโs) misinformation work.
โI saw that DHS/CISA is planning /possibly working on COVID-19 misinfo concerns?โ Iheme wrote to Crawford. โAre you aware of that aspect?โ
This email was sent more than a year before the DHS announced its controversial โDisinformation Governance Boardโ in April 2022.
Another revelation from this email is that Iheme acknowledges the focus on misinformation โgrowing among members of Congress.โ
These emails provide more evidence of the Big Tech-Biden administration censorship collusion thatโs currently facing a legal challenge over potential First Amendment violations.
โIn recent months, millions of Americans have witnessed the peeling of the โmisinformationโ onion,โ Gene Hamilton, America First Legal Vice-President and General Counsel, said. โBeneath each layer of shocking details about a partnership between the federal government and Big Tech is yet another layer of connections, conspiracy, and collaboration between power centers that seek to suppress information from the American people. We are proud to play a leading role in fighting for the rights of all Americans and revealing this vital information to the American people.โ
We obtained a copy of the emails for you here.
The emails also shine a light on the government departments that have access to these direct Big Tech censorship portals. Previous reports and document releases have shown that the California Secretary of Stateโs Office of Elections Cybersecurity (OEC) has access to the Twitter portal while the DHS and the New Zealand government have access to the Facebook portal.