Lawsuit Exposes CDC’s Collusion with Big Tech to Censor COVID-19 ‘Misinformation’

America First Legal (AFL) on July 27 released documents from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showing collusion between the agency and social media companies to censor free speech on COVID vaccines and promote the Biden Administration’s agenda. 

In July 2021, former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki admitted the White House was “working with social media companies” to identify what it subjectively deemed to be “misinformation” on COVID-19 and vaccines.

“We’re regularly making sure social media platforms are aware of the latest narratives, dangerous to public health that we and many other Americans are seeing across all of social and traditional media,” Psaki said. “And we work to engage with them to better understand the enforcement of social media platform policies.” 

AFL filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Department of Health and Human Services, CDC, U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health to uncover the degree to which the CDC and the White House were collaborating to censor “disinformation” or “misinformation.”

As is the case with FOIA requests regarding U.S. federal health agencies, the CDC obstructed and delayed complying with their legal obligations to be transparent with American citizens, forcing the AFL to sue the CDC to compel the release of the documents.

Here are a few of the things revealed in the first batch of documents containing 286 pages of internal communications between the CDC and Facebook, Twitter and Google.:

• The CDC sent Twitter a “hit list” of tweets to censor.
• The CDC held regular “Be On the LookOut” meetings — funded by our tax dollars — where the agency would share what they classified as “misinformation” with various social media companies, including Twitter and Facebook.
• The CDC recommended information about the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) be added to tweets. No doubt, their intention was to undermine the integrity of the reporting system and by extension, the reports of those who have been injured by COVID-19 vaccines.

• The CDC stalked people on Instagram, flagged posts and sent links to Facebook so the social media giant could flag them as “disinformation.”
• Facebook gave $15 Million dollars worth of Facebook ad credits as a “non-monetary gift” to HHS and the CDC to manipulate us with their propaganda on vaccines, social distancing, travel and “priority communication messages.”

• The CDC requested help from Facebook to ensure “verifiable information sources” are not blocked after State Department of Health posts were being labeled vaccine misinformation (pp. 101-102).
• Facebook and the CDC set up a “COVID-19 Misinformation Reporting Channel” for CDC and Census to make reports to Facebook, and held a “training meeting” for the Misinformation Reporting Channel.
• Facebook shared data with the CDC on “vaccine uptake,” so they could discern state trends, occupations and “barriers to acceptance.”

• The CDC asked Google to promote its new vaccine page in its search results (p. 58).

• The CDC also coordinated with Google regarding vaccine “misinformation” and were collaborating on a “Question Hub” (p. 283).
• The CDC sought coordination with Google regarding a World Health Organization infodemiology conference in connection with the CDC’s creation of the “discipline of infodemiology” to “target” the general public and “push back against the misinformation.” Note that these efforts took place six months BEFORE a COVID-19 vaccine had even been authorized.

• At the CDC’s request, Google agreed to post an ad for a job position at CDC.

• At CDC request, Google “signal boosts” the WHO’s “unicorn program” to provide “comprehensive global training on tracking, analyzing and addressing misinformation.”

• CDC directly made edits into Google’s code for its COVID-19 “Knowledgebase.”

“These explosive smoking-gun documents, obtained as a result of America First Legal’s litigation against the Biden Administration, conclusively demonstrate that Big Tech has unlawfully colluded with the federal government to silence, censor and suppress Americans’ free speech and violate their First Amendment rights,” AFL president Stephen Miller said in a statement.

“Government is expressly prohibited from censoring competing or dissenting viewpoints or from silencing its political opponents whether it does so directly or whether it uses an outside corporation to achieve its draconian, totalitarian ends.”