In case you thought 2021 was just about ever-shifting “expert advice,” think again. Thanks to America First Legal, we now know that behind the chaotic public health messaging, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Facebook were playing a little game of “whack-a-mole” with your freedom of speech.
Today, new onboarding documents were unearthed, which shows just how cozy Facebook got with the CDC. The social media giant wasn’t merely policing what it thought was “misinformation” on COVID and vaccines; it was operating as the de facto enforcement arm of the US government’s thought control initiative. The Biden-Harris Administration, while trumpeting their “fight for truth,” had essentially deputized Facebook to clean up the messy world of online discourse. And who decides what’s messy? Apparently, anyone with a .gov email address.
From “Misinformation” to Censorship: The Slippery Slope
Let’s rewind to 2021, the peak of the pandemic drama. The public was dealing with a mutating narrative on what constituted “the truth.”
In other words, what was factual one week might be misinformation the next, depending on who you asked—or more accurately, who was in power.
At the time, the administration faced heavy criticism for overseeing a clampdown on dissent. Social media platforms, like Facebook, took on the noble mantle of censoring anything that didn’t align with the latest CDC talking points.
One day it was, “Don’t wear masks,” and the next, “You must wear two.” If you were quick enough to quote the CDC’s latest declaration, congratulations, you won a reprieve from the online guillotine. But heaven forbid you posted a month-old statement—down came the banhammer.
The First Amendment? Ah yes, that pesky little thing. It felt like an afterthought in the administration’s relentless quest to manage the pandemic, or rather, manage the narrative about the pandemic.
Facebook’s VIP Censorship Lane
And now, thanks to these documents, we get a peek behind the velvet ropes. Apparently, Facebook wasn’t just taking public health directives from the CDC; it built a slick “end-to-end workflow” tailored to the White House’s censorship needs.
Imagine a fast lane for speech suppression, with Facebook playing the role of an eager bouncer outside the digital club, ensuring no “misinformation” slipped through.
Even better, Facebook’s system featured an exclusive portal—imagine a VIP entrance at a nightclub, except instead of celebrities, it was for government and law enforcement officials. This was the red-carpet treatment for anyone in the Biden Administration looking to silence critics and manage dissent. And, of course, Rob Flaherty, then a rising star in the Biden camp and now a senior staffer for the Harris campaign, was at the heart of the effort, barking orders at Facebook to tighten the leash.
The timing is almost poetic, isn’t it? The very people who were busy “building back better” were also busy building an infrastructure to muzzle public discourse.
The system could handle up to twenty censorship requests simultaneously. We’re talking turbo-charged suppression of whatever Uncle Bob posted about vaccines this week. The government’s ability to monitor, muzzle, and “ensure compliance” was never more streamlined.
What makes this truly remarkable (or terrifying, depending on your perspective) is how this system essentially sidestepped traditional email communications. You know, the stuff that’s usually subject to public oversight. What a relief—no more pesky public records to clog the machinery of control. Each censorship request was given a shiny new ticket number, so the government could track Facebook’s obedience to the letter. Now that’s what I call accountability—just not the kind you might be thinking of.
Digital Muzzle: Removing Content One “Misinformation” Post at a Time
The documents reveal the juicy details: Facebook wasn’t just censoring anything. The platform stuck to content that the CDC deemed “dangerous.” And because no censorship operation is complete without a big helping of irony, all of this was done in strict adherence to Facebook’s so-called “community standards.” You know, the same standards that claim to protect free expression and facilitate dialogue. Oh, the contradictions.
The timing of these revelations dovetails beautifully with fresh evidence that the UK government’s policies had a not-so-subtle hand in shaping the Biden-Harris administration’s heavy-handed censorship approach. As if that weren’t enough, Mark Zuckerberg—Facebook’s reigning tech overlord—finally admitted that the platform’s censorship practices weren’t just altruistic acts of public service. No, they were the direct result of pressure from the White House.
The whole process, as laid out in the documents, started with granting access to CDC employees—yes, the same public servants entrusted with your health—using their government-issued email addresses. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. By using this specialized portal, and not email, the government could skirt those pesky federal record-keeping laws. FOIA requests? Public oversight? Forget about it. The new system made sure government actions were neatly tucked away in proprietary software.
The portal itself was a bureaucrat’s dream. Authorized government users could toss multiple links into the censorship abyss, and even add little comments to each request to really personalize the experience. Every time a link was submitted for deletion, the system kindly acknowledged receipt and handed over a reference number—because if there’s anything censorship needs, it’s transparency. And by transparency, I mean the illusion that this whole process was anything but shadowy.
Gene Hamilton, Executive Director of America First Legal, stated, “These documents show–definitively–the architecture behind the systems that political appointees and governmental bureaucrats used to unconstitutionally censor the free speech of Americans online. The right to speak–to even question authority–is so fundamental to our national identity, yet in the name of a public health crisis, Biden Administration officials worked with major companies to silence dissent. The American people need to review these documents and understand just how far our leaders in Washington went to violate the First Amendment to our Constitution.”
This release, by exposing the mechanisms behind this censorship, underscores the conflict between governmental control and constitutional freedoms, a balance that remains a cornerstone of democratic governance.
Gene Hamilton, the Executive Director of America First Legal, didn’t mince words when summing up the scale of this operation. “These documents show–definitively–the architecture behind the systems that political appointees and governmental bureaucrats used to unconstitutionally censor the free speech of Americans online,” he said in a statement. And architecture is the right word for it. This was a meticulously constructed machine, designed to stifle speech and ensure that only “approved” voices made it through the filter.
Hamilton underscored what should have been obvious from the start: “The right to speak–to even question authority–is so fundamental to our national identity.” The fact that this right was casually tossed aside in the name of public health should be setting off alarms in every corner of the country. But instead, we got the White House working hand-in-glove with major corporations like Facebook to silence dissent. Think about that for a second: the government, under the guise of protecting us from a crisis, managed to convince Big Tech to do its dirty work—effectively muzzling the very people it’s supposed to serve.
How Far Did They Go?
It’s a chilling thought—just how far are these so-called leaders willing to go when it comes to silencing opposition? According to Hamilton, pretty damn far. “The American people need to review these documents and understand just how far our leaders in Washington went to violate the First Amendment to our Constitution.”
