By Harold Pease, Ph.D.
“Never before released internal documents subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee prove that Facebook and Instagram censored posts and changed their content moderation policy because of unconstitutional pressure from the Biden White House.” In short, the Biden Administration censored Americans through Facebook. So what is the problem? Isn’t Facebook a private corporation? Yes, but the Facebook Files establish that government pressure was directly responsible for censorship by Facebook. When government applies pressure to censor and social media feel pressure to comply, or fear consequence of not complying enough, these in effect, become government operations.
CONSTITUTIONAL CHECK: under no circumstances is the government to become its own news agency. A free press necessitates outside sources assessing the activities of government and reporting thus, whether the government loves or hates what is reported. The government is not empowered by the Constitution to assess whether information is dis or misinformation. This empowerment is left to the individual alone. Government has no authority to censor speech or press or to entice others to do it for them (Amendment I).
This finding was known for years by those who do their own research but now is proved by the emails themselves subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee of Mark Zuckerberg. under threat of contempt of Congress. He then, and only then, forwarded them. Committee chair Jim Jordan said, “Based on Facebook’s newfound commitment to fully cooperate with the committee’s investigation, the committee has decided to hold contempt in abeyance for now. To be clear, contempt is still on the table and will be used if Facebook fails to cooperate fully.”
Actually it is unlikely that we would ever know of this Amendment I breach if it were not for Elon Musk who discovered, shortly after his purchase of Twitter that it was a Government media outlet. He subsequently published their texts to each other in what is called the Twitter Files.
Twitter was the “mother lode” on the Deep State. They thought Twitter secure, a place where government (Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and FBI agents in particular), Big Tech, Big Media, Democrats, and the Deep State, could speak freely to co-conspirators to overthrow the government of the United States, more specifically its elected and popularly serving president. They succeeded in removing Donald J. Trump from the White House—a coup. America would never know and all future elections could be rigged in the same manner preserving Deep State power. Twitter conversations would never be revealed. This is what the Twitter Files document (“Twitter File Tweets Confess Rigging 2020 Election,” By Harold Pease, LibertyUnderFire).
Musk’s Twitter Files provide much greater detail as to how the people were kept ignorant by social media and our thinking managed, so we incorporate their description of how this was done. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) housed a censorship branch, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), geared to identify what they considered mis or disinformation in the public sector defined as any information outside the narrative of the federal government. Lacking constitutional authority to censor the American public themselves, CISA (the government) was more than happy to team-up with like-minded private sector organizations notably the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) and social media outlets, notably Twitter, to outsource actual censorship—the dirty work—for them (Ibid).
None of the Twitter Files documentation was acquired under duress as is the case with Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. Three Facebook emails were especially enlightening. In April 2021 a Facebook employee circulated in an email for Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg, writing, “We are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders including the Biden White House to remove posts.” In another April 2021 email, Nick Clegg, Facebook’s President for Global Affairs, informed his team at Facebook that Andy Slavitt, a senior adviser to President Biden, “was outraged that Facebook did not remove a particular post.” In yet another, “the Biden White House demanded to know why Facebook had not censored a video from Tucker Carlson. So Facebook prepped its response to appease the Biden White House. Talking points were drafted.… Facebook was ready to tell the White House that it had demoted a video posted by Tucker Carlson by 50% in response to the White House’s demands” (“Smoking gun documents prove Facebook censored Americans on behalf of White House Jim Jordan says, Jordan shared documents that ‘prove’ Facebook changed content after ‘unconstitutional pressure’ from White House,” By Brian Flood, Fox News, July 27, 2023).
In the summer of 2021 “The White House was mounting a nationwide push for Americans to get vaccinated for Covid-19. Part of that push included a public and secret campaign to get Facebook to more aggressively police vaccine related content, including true information.” Facebook had already been heavily involved “in censoring the COVID Lab leak theory.” Why? The answer was clear “because we were under pressure from the administration…We shouldn’t have done it.” They aligned their COVID-19 policies to be “more responsible to the White House.” Facebook “even considered black holing certain domains” (“New batch of ‘Facebook Files’ Shows social media giant continually bowed to Biden demands, Jim Jordan says,” By Brian Flood, Fox News, July 28, 2023).
Twitter and Facebook violated everyone’s constitutional right to have all the information needed to make an intelligent decision whether in the 2020 presidential election or in blindly taking the inoculation in 2021. As Twitter and Facebook came under government domination it is very likely that YouTube and Google have succumbed similarly. In time a hearing will follow on them.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org Column # 725
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