In response to the Biden Administration’s admission to be coordinating censorship efforts with popular social media platforms, Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennesee is demanding the administration answer questions regarding the new practice.
The questions revolve around understanding the methods and measurements used for the White House to flag and request posts to be removed. In addition, the questions want to know more about how the White House is staffing this operation and the legal basis for which a branch of the US Federal government is using to conduct these censorship operations.
Here are the five questions:
- What criteria are you directing social media platforms to use to flag and remove posts?
- What criteria are you directing social media platforms to use to ban users?
- In your July 15th press briefing, you stated that 12 people are responsible for “65 percent of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms.” Who are those account[s] and have they, or others, been removed at your direction?
- What is the legal basis for your Administration’s decision to direct social media platforms to flag and remove posts from their sites?
- Does the White House have staff dedicated to searching social media for content to flag for removal?
This follows the announcement from Former Vice President Joe Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki, whcn she informed the press that the White House was coordinating with Facebook to censor posts relating to “unapproved” COVID messages.
Psaki said “Facebook, and any private sector company makes decisions about what information should be on their platform. Our point is that there is information that is leading to people not taking the vaccine, and people are dying as a result, and we have a responsibility as a public health matter to raise that issue. The responsibility we all have — the government, media platforms, public messengers — to give accurate information.”
It must be noted that the White House is not directly removing posts.
