The Biden White House worked with Google-owned YouTube to censor American speech regarding the coronavirus and vaccine, according to the House Judiciary Committee.
In 2021, the Biden administration worked with YouTube employees to target alleged “misinformation” regarding the Chinese coronavirus and its vaccinations, according to documents obtained by FOX Business.
The documents reveal that former White House Director of Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty, who has since left the administration to help run Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign, had been corresponding with Google team members about “combat[ing] vaccine hesitancy” and “crack[ing] down on vaccine misinformation.”
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, attends a press event to announce Google as the new official partner of the Women’s National Team at Google Berlin. (Photo by Christoph Soeder/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Flaherty also asked that Big Tech employees disclose trends involving vaccine “misinformation” on YouTube, and offered coronavirus experts from the White House with whom the Google-owned company could partner.
Google revealed in an internal email that Flaherty “particularly dug in on our decision making for borderline content,” which refers to content that doesn’t directly violate YouTube’s Community Guidelines but gets close.
A week later, Google acknowledges in an email that the company sent the White House videos it removed for coronavirus vaccine “misinformation,” and also talked about the government’s desire for more information, FOX Business reports.
“Really [Flaherty’s] interested in what we’re seeing that is NOT coming down,” an internal Google email read, appearing to refer to videos that had not been removed.
The next day, YouTube’s Government Affairs team emailed YouTube’s Product team, writing, “There is a very high degree of interest now coming from the White House now regarding vaccine misinfo/vaccine hesitancy and our work around borderline content.”
“Unfortunately, the role of tech in addressing vaccine hesitancy is about to come under a massive spotlight particularly as the supply of the vaccine is soon to outpace demand,” the April 2021 email added.
In the email, the company’s Government Affairs team also asked the Product team if they could brief the White House on YouTube’s work to reduce the so-called “borderline content.”
“We were hoping to get something on the books in the next two weeks or so to prevent anything from potentially spiraling out of control,” YouTube’s Government Affairs team wrote in the email.
The next week, the Government Affairs team wrote to the Product team, telling them, “Over the last several weeks, the Google & YT GAAP team have had conversations with the White House staff on YouTube’s policies and all the great work that is being done to raise authoritative information and fight harmful misinformation related to COVID-19 misinformation.”
The Government Affairs team then asked the YouTube Product team to meet directly with White House staffers, writing, “[White House] staff continue[d] to have questions on the raise/reduce efforts,” adding, “we believe having the opportunity for you both to share more background would be hugely beneficial as we seek to work closely with this administration on multiple policy fronts.”
“We knew the Biden White House worked to censor American speech with the help of Big Tech,” House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) told FOX Business. “Internal documents from Google obtained by the Judiciary Committee and Select Subcommittee show that their scheme extended to YouTube.”
“The Committees will continue their critical investigative work to protect Americans’ First Amendment rights and put an end to the vast government censorship enterprise,” Rep. Jordan added.
The revelations of these documents come about one year after the “Twitter Files” were released, showcasing evidence of government having worked with employees of Big Tech to censor American speech.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and X/Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
