Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan surprised the public Thursday by releasing internal Meta documents demonstrating the company's censorship of Americans due to pressure from the Biden Administration.
The congressman shared the revelations via a Twitter thread he called "The Facebook Files" in reference to "The Twitter Archives."
"Never-before-released internal documents subpoenaed by the Judiciary Committee PROVE that Facebook and Instagram censored posts and changed their content moderation policies because of unconstitutional pressure from the Biden White House," shared the Republican Representative.
During the first half of 2021, social media companies like Facebook faced tremendous pressure from the Biden White House—both publicly and privately—to crack down on alleged “misinformation."
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 27, 2023
He further explained that the current administration heavily coerced social media companies during the first half of 2021, asking them to crack down on alleged "misinformation."
Jordan even shared several email exchanges, one from Facebook's chief operating officer commenting to Mark Zuckerberg about the "continued pressure" from the White House.
He also showed a text from the same year in which Facebook's president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, informed his Facebook team how "outraged" Biden's senior adviser, Andy Slavitt, was that Meta's social network did not remove a post with a meme about people getting covid vaccines.
In another April 2021 email, Nick Clegg, Facebook’s president for global affairs, informed his team at Facebook that Andy Slavitt, a Senior Advisor to President Biden, was “outraged . . . that [Facebook] did not remove” a particular post. pic.twitter.com/5muflAQjcx
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 27, 2023
According to Jordan's publications, Clegg attempted to explain that removing such content would represent "a significant incursion into traditional boundaries of free expression." However, the White House pressed further with that and other publications.
In July 2021, President Biden publicly denounced Facebook and other social networks because they were allegedly "killing people" by failing to censor "misinformation." These pressures led Facebook to consider changing its policies.
But it wasn't just the White House.
Facebook also changed its policies in direct response to pressure from Biden's Surgeon General, censoring members of the “disinformation dozen.” pic.twitter.com/FvGuoqUlns
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) July 27, 2023
"These documents and others just presented to the Committee, prove that the Biden administration abused its powers to force Facebook to censor Americans by preventing free and open discourse on issues of critical public importance," Jordan expounded.
The Republican representative explained that he would continue to release new installments that will demonstrate the pressure from the Biden Administration and highlighted that the only reason Facebook is not declared in contempt is that they are cooperating in the Committee's investigation. Still, he assured that if they decide not to cooperate "in its entirety," the option will be back on the table.
