Government / Big Tech social media coordination
I wish there was a word for that!
Some useful info on government-BigTechSocialMedia coordination against “misinformation” going back even considerably before their big May 2021 announcement.
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JULY 15
~ “Murthy and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki discussed their efforts as part of a "new campaign" to fight virus-related misinformation. An advisory recently published by Murthy's office details steps that tech outlets, private citizens, local governments and media outlets can take to battle misinformation when they come across it.”
~ Psaki said part of the Biden administration's new campaign involves asking social media companies to be more active in combatting misinformation and to share the results of their efforts publicly.
~ “We are in regular touch with these social media platforms, and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff, but also members of our COVID-19 team," Psaki said.
~ She mentioned Facebook specifically as a platform with which officials have been in frequent contact.
~ “We've increased disinformation research and tracking within the surgeon general's office," Psaki said. "We're flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.
~ “We're working with doctors and medical professionals to connect medical experts who are popular with our audiences with accurate information and boost trusted content—so we are helping get trusted content out there."
~ Psaki added that an estimated 12 individuals are responsible for about 65 percent of all anti-vaccine misinformation on social media. Though some of those individuals are blocked on some social media platforms, she said they are not blocked on Facebook. “All of them remain active on Facebook, despite some even being banned on other platforms—including ones that Facebook owns," she said.
~ The social media company "needs to move quickly" to remove such posts.
~ Facebook itself says it has partnered with the feds: “We've partnered with government experts, health authorities and researchers to take aggressive action against misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines to protect public health," a statement Facebook provided Newsweek said. "So far we've removed more than 18 million pieces of COVID misinformation, removed accounts that repeatedly break these rules, and connected more than 2 billion people to reliable information about COVID-19 and COVID vaccines across our apps."
~ Earlier this year, Facebook told users in an announcement on its Business blog that the company had more than 80 independent fact-checkers to review content in more than 60 languages as part of its effort to combat COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.
~ But Psaki said Thursday that the efforts Facebook has made to regulate misinformation is not enough.
~ “You shouldn't be banned from one platform and not others for providing misinformation."
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MAY 5, 2021
~ “The President’s view is that the major platforms have a responsibility related to the health and safety of all Americans to stop amplifying untrustworthy content, disinformation, and misinformation, especially related to Covid19 vaccinations and elections, and we’ve seen over the last several months, broadly speaking – I’m not blaming any specific individual or group; we’ve seen it from a number of sources. He also supports better privacy protections and a robust anti-trust program. So, his view is that there’s more that needs to be done to ensure that this type of misinformation, disinformation, damaging, sometimes life-threatening information, is not going out to the American public.”
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AUGUST 12, 2020
~ “Google, Facebook and Others Broaden Group to Secure U.S. Election: More tech companies met with government agencies on Wednesday to fight disinformation on social media.”
NY Times, https://archive.ph/WFLKd
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CIRCA 2016
~ The NY Times article above mentions how government / Big Tech social media coordination goes back at least four years, so circa 2016.
~ “Discussions between the tech companies and government agencies have occurred periodically over the past four years. While some of the companies have made a practice of sharing leads about disinformation campaigns and other election threats, the efforts have been haphazard.”
Well, I’ve just been unpersoned on Facebook, so I guess that means I’m doing something right ;-)
Thanks for filing your lawsuit, Mark. We need you to win this for all of us as free speech is all that stands between us and tyranny.
Yep they were losing control, something happened in 2016 (can’t remember what), but it angered some liberal fascists, and slowed the implementation of the global fascist superstate.
They need to be stopped, we need to consider organizing under a new “unofficial” party, with very simple and specific platform points. (while still voting RED in 2022)