Elon Musk calls it ‘extremely concerning’
New documents reveal how the United States government used a secret Twitter portal to censor COVID-19 content that contradicted the government’s narrative.
In its ongoing probe into Twitter’s censorship practices, America First Legal has obtained a fourth set of documents (pdf) exposing a secret Twitter portal, which U.S. government officials used to censor dissenting COVID-19 views in violation of the First Amendment. It’s a revelation Elon Musk described as “extremely concerning.”
The documents reveal that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was collaborating with UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and Mafindo to mitigate “disinformation.” Mafindo is a Facebook third-party fact-checking partner based in Indonesia that is funded by Google, known to have censored searches for keywords like Coronavirus, and COVID-19 as well as blocking information regarding adverse reactions and deaths caused by COVID-19 vaccines. Facebook started its third-party fact-checking program in 2016, working with fact-checkers from around the world who are certified by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at Poynter to rate and review the accuracy of the content on their platform. According to the IFCN website, they believe “nonpartisan and transparent fact-checking can be a powerful instrument of accountability journalism.” However, among their advisory board, U.S.-based representatives appear to be from liberal-leaning outlets such as the Washington Post and PolitiFact, which is owned by Poynter.
The Twitter Portal
On March 10, 2021 email from a US Public Policy employee at Facebook to several CDC employees spoke of the social media giant’s “weekly sync with CDC” and how the CDC was “to invite other agencies as needed.”
A March 24, 2021 email from the same Facebook employees to CDC employees said “this is my regular FB meeting and they would like to discuss 2 misinformation topics” and “misinformation that was removed.”
On May 10, 2021, a Twitter employee recommended to a CDC official to enroll in Twitter’s Partner Support Portal, which he described as “the best way to get a spreadsheet like this reviewed.”
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