A new report from a US House of Representatives committee reveals “damaging findings” from internal communications among executives at major tech companies about the Biden administration’s efforts to gag the platforms.
Fox News reports.
After the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Republican Jim Jordan of Ohio, called for testimony last year, tech giants such as Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft were scrutinized over their communications with authorities.
The committee’s 800-page report includes several cases where the platforms censored information related to COVID-19 due to pressure from above. The report also revealed that the Biden administration wanted to crack down on “vaccine misinformation,” while some leaders were unwilling to bow to the pressure. Others caved in to contain larger issues.
The report indicates that Big Tech changed its content moderation policies in 2021, with adaptations by Facebook, YouTube and Amazon to censor everything from COVID-19 “misinformation” to the types of books allowed on the Amazon Marketplace.
The White House’s censorship campaign also targeted truthful information, satire and other content that did not violate the platforms’ guidelines.
Internal email correspondence from Facebook executives in July 2021 shows that the company understood the Biden administration’s desire to remove “negative information about or opinions about the vaccine” as well as “humorous or satirical content that suggests the vaccine is not safe.”
The report also reveals internal discussions at Facebook where the company tried to accommodate the Biden administration. The report comes as big tech companies have come under attack from both Republicans and Democrats in recent months, with Supreme Court hearings in March challenging alleged collusion between the Biden administration and Big Tech to censor certain political messages.
Tags: Executives major tech companies claim pressure Biden administration censor COVID19 content
