Multiple hundreds of internal documents have exposed numerous top U.S. government agencies in their working alongside the big tech social media titans such as Twitter and Facebook to try and censor American freedom of speech — all under the guise of attempting to battle disinformation — over the course of several years, as discovered and reported by The Intercept.
Lee Fang, an investigative journalist for The Intercept, officially brought to story to light this past Monday, finally confirming what Americans have worried about in our current age of censorship that only authoritarian regimes could possibly dream of creating in a nation that was originally based on the unabridged right to freedom of speech.
By Monday evening, Fang was pulled in to speak on a segment of Tucker Carlson Tonight to talk about his recent massive report.
“We looked at really hundreds of documents that paint a vivid picture of the [Federal Bureau of Investigation], the [Department of Homeland Security] closely collaborating with the top social media platforms, Twitter and Facebook, to censor various forms of content under the banner of fighting disinformation,” Fang explained To Carlson.
Fang stated that the story just highlights a “very cozy” relationship between the government alphabet agencies like the FBI and DHS and tech titans, where they took part in a series of monthly meetings — as recently as August — and sent emails back and forth, along with texts, to help mold the conversation online.
The report put a spotlight on one particular relationship between former DHS official and current Microsoft executive Matt Masterson, and Jen Easterly, a DHS director stating “the government needs to get the private sector, needs to get more comfortable with the government,” as reported by Fang.
“Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov’t,” allegedly stated Masterson via text to Easterly. “It’s really interesting how hesitant they remain.”
Fang alluded to big tech and big government closely working alongside one another regarding reports talking about the expanded role of DHS in forcible centering a large number of topic areas of policy and other political topics.
As seen in the recent report, Fang heavily emphasized numerous key takeaways showing that DHS has plans to go after inaccurate information on certain topics such as “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.”
The report also indicated that prior to the 2020 election, tech companies, such as Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, Wikipedia, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Verizon Media, all met monthly with officials from the FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and many other governmental representatives.
Fang claimed via his social media that Facebook and Twitter created special login areas for the government to rapidly request takedowns of certain people or their content.
A spokesperson coming from Twitter outright denied all allegations via a statement sent to The Intercept, claiming that the platform “[does] not coordinate with other entities when making content moderation decisions,” going on to add that officials “independently evaluate content in line with the Twitter Rules.”
Leaked Documents Show Facebook And Twitter Worked Closely With The FBI And DHS To Police "Disinformation" @lhfang Joins Tucker Carlson Tonight To Discuss This Bombshell Report
Link To The Intercept Piece: https://t.co/PHMEGJVngE pic.twitter.com/mhUkmTDaDe
— The Columbia Bugle ???????? (@ColumbiaBugle) November 1, 2022
