Jim Jordan details wild plan between Biden officials and Amazon to censor ‘sensitive’ anti-vaccine material – as White House denies it’s ‘coercive’

Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan released new details about the Biden White House’s close collaboration with Amazon to deplatform books they consider “sensitive” — as White House officials insisted they have never “forced” private companies ‘.

On March 2, 2021, White House adviser Andrew Slavitt contacted Amazon. “Who can we talk to about the high level of propaganda and disinformation or disinformation in the White House?”

Amazon initially resisted White House pressure to restrict anti-vaccination materials.

“We will not be performing any manual intervention today,” reads an email between Amazon executives. ‘The team/PR strongly believes it is too visible, and will further amplify the Harry/Sally story (which is apparently being covered by Fox News today) and not solve the problem in the long run… due to customer behavior staff.’

And ahead of a March 9, 2021, meeting between the White House and Amazon officials, a “pre-brief” email to Amazon employees highlighted a “key topic of conversation”: “Is the admin asking us to remove books , or are they more concerned? about search results/order or both?’

But on the day of the meeting, Amazon immediately adopted a “do not promote” category for anti-vaccine books listed on its website.

“The impetus for this request is criticism from the Biden administration of sensitive books that we give prominence to and that require urgent action,” an Amazon official wrote in an email to other staffers.

In another internal email, an Amazon official expresses the urgency in making changes to the shadow ban anti-vaccination content “due to criticism from the Biden people.”

“The next four months of vaccine response/adoption will be critical,” the official wrote.

They proposed removing the books from sale entirely because “search data shows that customers purchasing this content are looking for specific books and using high-intent searches, meaning customers are likely to continue consuming this content despite our warnings.’

On March 12, Amazon wanted to take further steps to crack down on anti-vaccine books, saying they were “feeling pressure from the White House Task Force.”

Amazon wasn’t alone in bowing to the Biden administration’s desire to deplatform content that could cast doubt on the Covid-19 vaccines — Twitter, now X, and Facebook also felt the heat.

Jordan went after Slavitt and Rob Flaherty, a top White House communications official, during a censure hearing on Wednesday.

Jordan showed emails between the White House and Facebook, including one in which Flaherty allegedly wrote, “My bias is to kick people off the platform.”

“The White House is telling a social media platform – one of the largest in the world – that you should kick people off your platform if they say things we don’t like,” Jordan said.

Flaherty and Slavitt denied coercion.

“There were no threats and there were no consequences,” Flaherty said.

“It was not our intention to force social media companies to take action,” Slavitt said. “We have never received any indication that our dialogue was ever interpreted in this way. I want to make it clear that they made their own decisions.”

The Judiciary Committee shared a 98-page interim report on the ‘censorship industrial complex,’ detailing tens of thousands of emails between Biden officials and Facebook, YouTube and Amazon, alleging White House violations of free speech violated.

Flaherty emphasized that private companies are the “ultimate decision makers,” but “that doesn’t mean communications professionals can’t ask or even beg these companies to address misinformation on their platforms.”

A court ruled last July that the White House could not communicate with private companies about deplatforming content, but that ruling was blocked. Still, the White House has scaled back its outreach to tech companies.

But the FBI has resumed sharing intelligence about foreign influence campaigns with those companies.

“What are they planning to do now to restrict speech and keep important information from the American people?” Jordan wondered.

Rep. Dan Goldman, RN.Y., suggested that Republicans wanted to cut off communications with tech companies so Russia could help Donald Trump get elected.

“They want to deter the government from actually interacting with private companies as we face elections in November 2024,” he said.

“If that can’t happen, Donald Trump and these Republicans will benefit because Russia will help them,” Goldman said. “That’s why we’re here, and that’s why this is fake.”

A series of documents shared by Jordan last year showed that Facebook had bowed to pressure from the White House to remove posts questioning the vaccine.

It started with an April 2021 email to Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg.

It said: “We face continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the (Biden) White House” to remove posts.

An additional April 2021 email from Facebook’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg to his team said Biden adviser Slavitt was “outraged.” . . that (Facebook) has not deleted a particular message.

The message had to do with the COVID-19 vaccines that the White House wanted to label as “misinformation” and remove from the social media platform.

Clegg responded to the White House, saying removing that content “would constitute a significant infringement of the traditional boundaries of free speech in the United States.”

According to additional emails, Facebook was trying to “fix” its relationship with the Biden administration.

“Given what’s at stake here, it would also be a good idea if we could regroup and take stock of where we are in our relations with the White House, as well as our internal methods,” Clegg wrote in another email.