‘Kick People Off’: Rep. Jordan Releases New Info on Biden-Facebook COVID-19 Censorship

Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in file photos. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times; Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) released new documents about the Biden administration’s collusion with Facebook to restrict the online reach of sites like the New York Post and also deplatform users whom the administration viewed as undesirable.

On July 27, Mr. Jordan began to release documents related to collusion between the Biden administration and Facebook to censor content and users on its platform, dubbing it “The Facebook Files.” Documents were obtained by the House Judiciary Committee. In an Aug. 3 post on social media, Mr. Jordan, chairman of the committee, released new info snippets showing that “in 2021, the White House wanted to control what narratives and true content was posted on Facebook surrounding #COVID19.”

Rob Flaherty, President Biden’s then-Director of Digital Strategy, put pressure on Facebook to explain its content decisions. On March 26, 2021, Mr. Flaherty suggested censoring the New York Post, which was, at the time, reporting about COVID-19 deaths.

“I’m curious-NY Post churning out articles every day about people dying. What is supposed to happen to that from [a] policy perspective? Does that article get a reduction, labels?” Mr. Flaherty asked, according to a screenshot of the communication posted by Mr. Jordan.

On the same day, Mr. Flaherty also suggested that Facebook should look to “kick people off” from its site, pushing for censorship on the platform.

From then on, the Biden White House’s attempt to “censor opposing viewpoints only grew,” Mr. Jordan said. “So, they upped the pressure.”

On April 14, Mr. Flaherty said that his “dream” was for Facebook to “play ball” with the White House on censorship, Mr. Jordan pointed out.

Mr. Flaherty also suggested controlling what Facebook users saw on the site. “If you were to change the algorithm so that people were more likely to see NYT, WSJ, any authoritative news source over Daily Wire, Tomi Lahren, polarizing people. You wouldn’t have a mechanism to check the material impact?” he asked.

Facebook suggested to the White House that if it can’t remove a piece of content, “at least we need to contain it.”

“The company ADMITTED to the White House that it reduced content of certain posts—even if the posts didn’t violate the company’s terms and contained TRUE information,” Mr. Jordan said.

On July 16, communication from a Facebook employee stated that the platform will remove COVID-19 content that can “lead to imminent physical harm.” For content that was seen as not leading to physical harm “we instituted borderline demotions.”

“For example, someone sharing negative side effect posts. Similarly, posts questioning whether you should get a vaccine under a mandate, whether it’s government overreach. We demote those,” the employee said. “That’s not false information, but it leads to a vaccine negative environment.”

The Facebook-Biden Collusion

Earlier expose from Mr. Jordan on July 27 had shown that the White House placed “tremendous pressure” beginning in the first half of 2021 to remove content that the administration viewed to be anti-vaccine.

At White House’s request, Facebook demoted the reach of a video by Tucker Carlson even though the content did not formally breach any rules. Facebook demoted the video by 50 percent while it was being “fact-checked.”

In July 2021, the head of Global Affairs at the FBI asked Facebook why it was censoring the lab leak theory regarding the origin of COVID-19. “Because we were under pressure from the administration,” the company admitted while saying that “We shouldn’t have done it,” according to the documents.

That month, President Biden accused Facebook of “killing people” by not censoring COVID-19 content that the administration perceived to be “misinformation.”

The White House wanted Facebook to remove humorous or satirical content that it thought suggested the COVID-19 vaccine wasn’t safe. The Biden administration even wanted to remove honest information about the vaccines.

“The Surgeon General wants us to remove true information about the side effects if the user does not provide complete information about whether the side effect is rare and treatable,” according to Facebook’s communication documents.

Making Officials Accountable

Amidst revelations of censorship collusion between the government and big tech, lawmakers have introduced bills to rein in such activities.

Last week, Senator Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) introduced the “Censorship Accountability Act” that aims to preserve the First Amendment rights of citizens. The Act provides people with recourse if government officials are found violating the First Amendment. Americans will be able to sue such federal executive branch officials for damages.

“The Biden Administration’s brazen collusion with social media companies to censor speech should frighten every American regardless of their political affiliation,” Mr. Schmitt said in a statement, according to an Aug. 3 press release.

In March, the House passed the “Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act” that would prohibit the federal administration from colluding with big tech to censor lawful speech.

“It is the policy of the Congress that employees acting in their official capacity should neither take action within their authority or influence to promote the censorship of any lawful speech, nor advocate that a third party, including a private entity, censor such speech,” the bill stated.

The bill, introduced by Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, was passed by the House on March 9 by a vote of 219-206. It now needs to be approved by the Democrat-controlled Senate.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment.