FLASHBACK: A current top campaign adviser for VP Kamala Harris was deeply involved in pushing Facebook to suppress “misinformation” in an effort to control the political narrative on COVID and other issues.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted in a letter on Monday while expressing regret that his company, Facebook, was pressured by the Biden-Harris administration to censor Americans, particularly regarding COVID-19 content, bringing to the forefront actions taken by Harris’ deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty as part of that pressure campaign.
Flaherty, who previously served as the White House director of digital strategy, helped lead the campaign to target alleged “misinformation” relating to the COVID-19 virus and its vaccinations, FOX Business previously reported.
Flaherty emailed Google team members in April 2021 to “connect […] about the work you’re doing to combat vaccine hesitancy, but also crack down on vaccine misinformation,” according to the documents.
A top aide for VP Harris once helped pressure tech companies to suppress certain narratives on social media. (Getty Images)
Flaherty continued asking for trends surrounding vaccine misinformation on the website, while offering government assistance in the form of COVID experts at the White House to partner in product work with YouTube.
Google, in an internal email, noted that after a subsequent meeting with Flaherty, the White House staffer “particularly dug in on our decision making for borderline content” – which is content that doesn’t cross Community Guidelines but rather brushes up against it, according to YouTube.
A week later, Google acknowledged that it sent the White House the total amount of videos removed for COVID vaccine misinformation, while discussing the government’s desire for even more data.
“Really [Flaherty’s] interested in what we’re seeing that is NOT coming down,” read an internal Google email between employees, seemingly referring to videos that had not yet been removed.
According to internal company communications viewed by FOX Business and reported on in 2023, Flaherty asked Facebook if they could provide government agencies with special access to tools to target users in 2021.
“Since it’s a global pandemic, can we give agencies access to targeting parameters that they normally wouldn’t be able to?” Flaherty asked.
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Robert Flaherty testifying in front of the House Judiciary Committee on May 1. (House Judiciary Committee)
The idea came up in a conversation about how to convince people worried about side effects around the COVID vaccine to take it.
On an April 5 call, a Facebook employee mentioned how if someone was worried about nosebleeds as a side effect of the vaccine, in an ideal world, they would direct them to information addressing that concern. Flaherty asked the Facebook team, “Are you able to provide resources?”
Another Facebook employee replied that doing something like showing them a targeted resource addressing their concern might trigger people. The Facebook employee said they “have to be careful in how we approach.”
Flaherty asked, “If people are having the conversation, is the presumption that we let people have it. Direct them to CDC. What then?”
A Facebook employee replied, “We all know people that have had the experience that think that FB is listening to them.”
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg once claimed Facebook had suppressed 18 million posts that contained “misinformation” about COVID-19. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The Facebook employee told Flaherty that something like an immediate generated message about nosebleeds might give users “the Big Brother feel” but suggested they show the content on a delay to avoid setting off alarm bells among users.
“We should pay attention to those conversations, make sure that people see information, even if it’s not right then,” the Facebook employee said.
Flaherty was involved in a tense exchange with GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, of Ohio, during a hearing on Capitol Hill earlier this year when Flaherty claimed that Elon Musk did not face “any adverse government actions” in response to changing the outlet’s censorship policies.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and the Harris-Walz campaign for comment but did not receive a response.
“Ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to take content down, and we own our decisions, including COVID-19-related changes we made to our enforcement in the wake of this pressure,” Zuckerberg wrote in his letter to the House Judiciary Committee this week. “I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it.
Fox News Digital’s Hillary Vaughn and Chase Williams contributed to this report