Republicans Take Aim At The Biden White House's Emails With Tech Platforms
Internal emails from social media companies give new impetus to long-standing Republican claims that they are censored online and that tech companies are not to blame. Instead, focus on the White House.
The emails were released in two places: as part of a federal lawsuit filed by the Republican Attorney General in federal court and as part of an investigation by Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan.
The case is based in part on internal and Twitter meta-emails, now called X, that include messages sent to White House officials. In an email, a White House staffer took to Twitter to highlight a tweet by vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now a presidential candidate, who wrote: A federal appeals court is expected to rule next week that The White House is limiting communications with technology companies. A district judge previously ruled that the White House should ban the technology companies, but an appeals court upheld that ruling while considering the move.
And during a congressional investigation, Jordan X selectively released more internal meta emails, calling them "Facebook files." So far it has published four volumes, the latest of which was published last week. Jordan has asked other technology companies for documents about their dealings with the Biden administration. You have no messages yet.
Emails released by Jordan describe meetings, phone calls and other interactions between Meta staff and Biden administration officials, some of whom worked with people in the White House. These relate primarily to the White House response to Covid-19, but also in part to the FBI's response to election disinformation and the Hunter Biden laptop investigation. They do not represent the full picture, including only the opinions of the meta-team. Employees write about the administration's alleged efforts to influence the way they post on Facebook and Instagram, ranging from false medical information about Covid-19 to vaccine memes.
The battle over email could change the relationship between the tech giant and the federal government.
Republicans, including Jordan, accuse the White House vote of violating the rights of tech platforms and their users, which the White House denies.
The Biden administration said its decision to advocate for the 2021 vaccine comes at a unique time in the public health emergency caused by Covid-19 deaths.
Some Meta activists said in internal messages that the White House arguments were hurting Meta's stock, in part because of potential strains over relations with the administration.
“We have been under pressure from management and others to do more,” one employee wrote in an email to colleagues in July 2021, explaining why Meta had removed some messages that SARS-CoV-2 was “from human origin". which is still the subject of heated debate and for which conclusive evidence is lacking. The employee's name was removed from Jordan's email.
"We shouldn't have done it," the employee added.
For years, Republicans have claimed they were unfairly censored on social media. Courts have repeatedly dismissed his accusations of bias, and overwhelming evidence indicates otherwise, and tech platforms like Facebook have conservatives worried.
But today they finally responded to demands for censorship that may resonate beyond their constituents.
The only difference is that Jordan's investigation and the federal lawsuit don't know whether powerful Silicon Valley companies are pushing for layoffs in certain positions. For example, former Twitter executives told Congress that their decision to postpone the Hunter Biden laptop case until 2020 had nothing to do with pressure from Democrats or law enforcement. But in the letter, a recently released email, the legal scholars said there could be serious allegations about government pressure on technology companies to use technology platforms and their users.
However, those considerations must be weighed against the urgency of the White House response to the pandemic, which could give White House officials a case in court, the lawyers said.
The Supreme Court is sharply divided on when and how government officials can intervene under the First Amendment in a public health emergency, with split decisions on state restrictions on church attendance.
White House emails presented in a federal court trial show that White House officials frequently cited alleged disinformation about Covid-19.
On March 15, 2021, two White House staff members expressed dissatisfaction with Meta's consent. In a thread titled "You're hiding the ball," chief digital strategy officer Rob Flaherty said Meta needs to do more to "minimize the impact." Anti-vaccine content on Facebook.
"We are seriously concerned that your service is a major cause of the vaccine count fluctuation," Flaherty wrote in an email to a Meta employee whose name was redacted in court documents.
Andy Slavitt, then the White House's senior pandemic response advisor, also offered his opinion on the matter.
“We are in a hurry and we are not sorry for all of you,” Slavitt wrote. "Internally, we are thinking about options on what to do with it," he added, without further details on those options.
Slavitt was not available for an interview, according to a spokesperson.
An anonymous Meta employee responded that the agency is “fully committed to providing the specific information needed to successfully manage the commercialization of a vaccine.” The employee has not committed to further layoffs.
A month later, in April 2021, Brian Rice, vice president of public policy at Meta, wrote a letter describing how the company's response to misinformation about Covid-19 could put it at a crossroads in its relationship. broad with the Biden White House.
A Met spokesperson declined to comment on the emails this week.
The emails generated enough pressure to get a response from White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre.
"We are promoting responsible public health and safety measures as we face challenges such as a deadly pandemic and a foreign invasion in our elections," Jean-Pierre said during a July 27 press conference.
She continued. "We have always been clear that we believe social media companies have an important responsibility when considering the impact of their platforms on the American people."
In 2021, President Joe Biden spoke openly and directly about his views on Facebook and how he handled misinformation about Covid-19, telling reporters, "They're killing people."
A White House spokesman declined to comment further.
Legal experts say that, in general, a request by a government official to censor a social media post can violate the First Amendment, even if it appears that the refusal could amount to retaliation.
An inappropriate letter released by Jordan summarizes what Meta's staff said the White House wanted. "We can extrapolate that they want us to remove any negative information or subjective content about the vaccine without concluding that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh them. This information or opinion; humorous or sarcastic content that suggests the vaccine is not safe." The name has been redacted, so it is unclear if he also wrote the other emails in question; At least nine Meta employee email addresses in Jordan's emails were deleted, but Nick Clegg, president of global affairs and vice president of public policy leaders, including President Rice, are not named.
The letter says: “The Surgeon General wants us to remove factual information about side effects if users do not provide complete information about whether the side effects are rare and treatable. »
In an unclassified letter released by Jordan, Clegg said denying the White House request could jeopardize other agencies' priorities.
The White House's denial of the request, Clegg wrote, "is a recipe for prolonged and escalated hostility toward the VA." He went on to write: "The big issue we need to discuss with management (data flow, etc.) is not a good place for us."
At the time, in the summer of 2021, US and European officials were actively negotiating a new agreement to regulate transatlantic data flows under privacy laws, a key issue for Facebook and other technology companies.
These letters have received relatively little attention from the mainstream media and the general public, perhaps because Republican attempts at censorship have often failed in the past. Tech billionaire Elon Musk's release of the "Twitter Files" last year largely confirmed what was already a public or internal debate, as well as internal Republican bias against social media companies.
The name "Facebook Files" has already been associated with a series of Wall Street Journal articles in 2021, based on documents provided by whistleblower Francis Haugen.
But Jordan's investigation has become a rallying point for conservative media. According to the site's hit counter, the first wave of emails sent to Jordan's X on July 27 received more than 29 million views.
Jordan also passed a law prohibiting government officials, including the president, from publicly recommending that a post containing "speech protected by the United States Constitution" be removed from a social media platform. (The bill does not mention limiting the number of members of Congress.)
The Republicans' statement also caught the attention of leading free speech advocates and lawyers who, as a group, were skeptical of previous statements about online censorship.
The Trump White House has also been accused of sending inappropriate censorship requests to tech platforms, including asking Twitter to remove posts by celebrity Chrissy Teigen that criticize President Donald Trump, a former Twitter employee told Reuters this year. in Congress. In 2020, Trump threatened to shut down social media entirely after Twitter called one of his posts a "fact check."
Courts have contemplated coercive censorship for decades, and in legal circles, government pressure on censorship has a sinister name: “jaws.”
"Discontent is a largely forgotten free speech issue," says Geneviève Laquière, a law professor at the University of Chicago. According to Laquière, depending on the particular situation and context, “it may be a deviation from the Constitution.”
Susan Nossel, executive director of the free speech group Penn America, said in an interview that recent revelations from social media companies raise concerns about the White House's involvement. The platform did not act of its own volition, but was imposed by the government.
Many tech companies are taking tough stances on problematic content, such as Covid-19 misinformation, without an official investigation. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in 2021 that it was the company's policy to promote vaccination against Covid-19.
But Jordan's investigation and the federal lawsuit allege that it's not just biases expressed by California tech executives.
Last month, Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty ruled that the Biden administration was likely to "use its power to silence dissent" and ordered sweeping restrictions on when government officials can speak on social media. grid. মিঠ 2020 সালের নির্বাচনের বৈধতার মতো "টেনশন" উ দ্ধৃত করে। তিনি অপরাধমূলক কার্যকলাপ, জাতীয় নিরাপত্তা এ বং অন্যান্য কিছু বিষয়ের জন্য ব্যতিক্রম করেছে ন যা তিনি বলেছেন যে গ্রহণযোগ্য।
অনেক আইন বিশেষজ্ঞ বিচারকের যুক্তি নিয়ে প্রশ ্ন তোলেন এবং নিউ অরলিন্স ফেডারেল আপিল আদালত তা র সিদ্ধান্তকে বাতিল করে দেয়। কিন্তু মামলা চলতে থাকে, এবং গত সপ্তাহে তিন বিচ 81 ইট হাউসের অনুরোধে হতাশা প্রকাশ ক রেছে, কিন্তু ল ুইসিয়ানা এবং মিসৌরিত্ দের সন্দেহজনক প্রশ্নও করেছে।
কলম্বিয়া বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের নাইট ফার্স্ট অ্য ামেন্ডমেন্ট ইনস্টিটিউটের স্টাফ অ্যাটর্নি জে নিফার জোনস একটি সাক্ষাত্কারে এই কথা বলেছেন। "প্রথম সোশ্যাল মিডিয়া সহ সংস ্থাগুলিকে কারো বক্তৃতা সেন্সর করতে বাধ্য করতে নিষেধ করে, তা বলপ্রয়োগ সরাসরি হোক বা আরও সূক্ ষ্ম।"
“কিন্তু তিনি যোগ করেছেন: দস্তির মধ্যে পার্থক্য সম্পূর্ণরূপে পরিষ্কার নয়। এই প্রশ্নগুলোর শেষ পর্যন্ত উত্তর পাওয়া খুবই “”
Year 2021 ওয়ারেন একটি চিঠি লিখেছিলেন যাতে অ্যামাজনকে টিকা বিরোধী প্রচারক কেনেডির একটি মুখোশ দিয়ে ব ইটিতে ব্যবহারকারীদের নির্দেশ দেওয়া বন্ধ করত েবলে। একটি ফেডারেল আপিল আদালত ওয়ারেনের স্বরের একট িপরীক্ষা সহ একটি চার-অংশের পরীক্ষা উদ্ধৃত করে ছে এবং এই সিদ্ধান্তে পৌঁছেছে যে তার লেখাটি অকা র ্যকর রাজনৈতিক প্ররোচনা ছিল, জবরদস্তি নয়। ওয়ারেন জিতেছে।
এই ইস্যুতে সুপ্রিম কোর্টের সর্বশেষ গুরুত্বপ ূর্ণ সিদ্ধান্তটি হয়েছিল 60 বছর আগে। 2015 োয় ালের হাড় ইস্যু করতে বাধা দেয়।
একটি সম্ভাবনা রয়েছে যে সুপ্রিম কোর্ট তার পরব র্তী মেয়াদে চোয়ালের মামলার শুনানি করবে। ন্যাশনাল রাইফেল অ্যাসোসিয়েশন আদালতকে একটি মামলা পুনঃস্থাপন করতে বলেছে যেটি নিউ ইয়র্ক রা জ্যের কর্মকর্তাদের বিরুদ্ধে বেআইনিভাবে আর্থ ি ক প্রতিষ্ঠানগুলিকে পাবলিক স্টেটমেন্ট এবং আর ্ থিক নিষেধাজ্ঞার মাধ্যমে সুরক্ষিত বাকস্বাধী ন ত ার কারণে সম্পর্ক ছিন্ন করতে বাধ্য করেছে।
সাম্প্রতিক স্প্যাট আইন বিভাগ এবং টেক কোম্পান ির লবিং অফিস থেকে প্রতিক্রিয়ার প্রতিশ্রুতি দ েয্ বাধীনতা এবং ক্ষমতাকে শক্তিশালী করে যদি কোনো আ দ াুক ্ ত িতে কতদূর যেতে পারে তা সীমাবদ্ধ করে।
মতপ্রকাশের স্বাধীনতা সম্পর্কিত প্রাক্তন জাত িসংঘের বিশেষ র্যাপোর্টার ঠ কারী জবরদস্তি বৈশ্বিক প্াটফর্ম ে র জন্য একটি বড় সমস্যা এবং আমেরিকান আদালত কী ক র ে তা অন্যান্য দেশগুলি দেখবে।
" কারণে সরকারগুলিকে প্ল্যাটফর্মের বিষয়ে সতর্ক হওয়া উচিত, আমি মনে করি এটি অন্তত অন্যান্য গণতন ্ত্রকে "
