The Liberty Daily 
The 1st Amendment is crystal clear. Government may not quash free expression of American citizens. That doesn’t just mean directly. Pressuring private organizations to engage in censorship is an unambiguous breach of our 1st Amendment rights.
The Twitter Files have revealed the depths to which our government is willing to go to stifle Americans illegally, but those depths may have been exceeded on Facebook and Instagram. A recent thread by Reason’s Robby Soave revealed some shocking engagements of censorship between our government and the social media giants:
1. THREAD: THE FACEBOOK FILES
Twitter is not the only social media site to face pressure to censor content. I obtained emails showing that the CDC had significant influence over covid moderation at Facebook and Instagram. Here’s what I found.— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) January 19, 2023
3. For instance, in May 2021, CDC officials began routinely vetting claims about COVID-19 vaccines that had appeared on Facebook. The platform left it up to the federal government to determine which assertions were accurate. pic.twitter.com/0QDrxXG7iE
— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) January 19, 2023
5. Facebook was clearly a willing participant in this process; moderators repeatedly thanked the CDC for its "help in debunking."
— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) January 19, 2023
7. By July 2021, the CDC wasn't just evaluating which claims it thought were false, but whether they could "cause harm." pic.twitter.com/eBmyZHlm0x
— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) January 19, 2023
9. Meta also provided the CDC with a list of new claims about vaccines and asked whether the government thought they could "contribute to vaccine refusals." The CDC determined that this label applied to all such claims. pic.twitter.com/VYUJD1tP9G
— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) January 19, 2023
11. Meta also kept the CDC apprised of criticism of Anthony Fauci. One email warned the CDC that Facebook users were mocking Fauci for changing his mind about masking and double-masking. The CDC replied that this information was "very helpful." pic.twitter.com/CUM5wwORtM
— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) January 19, 2023
13. "What's at stake is the future of free speech in the technological age," @JeninYounesEsq, an attorney for @NCLAlegal, tells me. "We've never had a situation where the federal government at very high levels is coordinating or coercing social media to do its bidding…"
— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) January 19, 2023
15. The theory is that the combination of direct influence and pressure from government officials, in conjunction with explicit threats from politicians, illegal violates free speech rights.
— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) January 19, 2023
17. "Multiple arms of the administration delivered the jawboning effort together,"says @Will_Duffield, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute. "Each one component wouldn't rise to something legally actionable, but when taken as a whole administration push, it might."
— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) January 19, 2023
19. For a closer look at the emails themselves, read this article. https://t.co/TcZKp5jUd7
— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) January 19, 2023
21. You can also watch my monologue on this subject for Risinghttps://t.co/uiZ4hVu8OO
— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) January 19, 2023
23. I'll also be talking about my reporting on a livestream for @reason later today. Details here: https://t.co/Db82bQLrTq
— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) January 19, 2023
Here’s their livestream on ReasonTV:
