An internal March 2021 email from a senior CDC staffer states "we are working on project with Census to leverage their infrastructure to identify and monitor social media for vaccine misinformation." The CDC’s effort to police alleged disinformation expanded to other federal agencies as well. The Free Beacon reported that the now-shuttered disinformation board arranged a meeting with a Twitter executive who blocked users from sharing stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop. The Biden administration has faced criticism for engaging in what some have called "Orwellian" practices, such as the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security Disinformation Governance Board. The communications reveal a high level of coordination between the government and tech industry during the pandemic and raise questions about the extent to which other private companies are working with the federal government to censor the public. An April 2021 email from a CDC staffer to Facebook states that the "algorithms that Facebook and other social media networks are apparently using to screen out posting by sources of vaccine misinformation are also apparently screening out valid public health messaging, including Health communications." Other emails show the scheduling of meetings with the CDC over how to best police alleged misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines.Īlthough many of the posts flagged by the CDC contained false information about the COVID-19 vaccines, the efforts to police misinformation also resulted in mistaken acts of censorship. In one email to a CDC staffer, a Twitter employee said he is "looking forward to setting up regular chats" with the agency.
Over the course of at least six months, starting in December 2020, CDC officials regularly communicated with personnel at Twitter, Facebook, and Google over "vaccine misinformation." At various times, CDC officials would flag specific posts by users on social media platforms such as Twitter as "example posts."
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