Leaked documents outlined the topics covered in the meetings.
QUICK FACTS:
- Executives from social media giants Facebook and Twitter reportedly held meetings with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on a regular basis.
- The executives and government officials talked about the censorship of certian topics on their platforms, including the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the coronavirus outbreak, and racial justice.
- Information about the meetings was brought to light due to leaked documents and through Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s recent lawsuit.
- The leaked information indicated that DHS planned to target misinformation around “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.”
DETAILS FROM LEAKED DOCUMENTS:
- Journalists received years worth of internal DHS memos, emails and documents due to a leak and the ongoing lawsuit that illustrated efforts by the agency to influence information on tech platforms.
- “Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov’t. It’s really interesting how hesitant they remain,” Microsoft executive Matt Masterson, a former DHS official, texted Jen Easterly, a DHS director, in February.
- According to reporters who reviewed the documents, the majority of DHS’s efforts were unknow, but became more familiar with the announcement of their “Disinformation Governance Board.”
- The panel, which was originally created to police “misinformation” and “disinformation” and “malformation” that allegedly threatened the United States, was eventually scaled back and then shut down after outrage from Americans.
BACKGROUND:
- The DHS’s Disinformation Governance Board was formed with the purpose of monitoring American free speech and censoring “Conspiracy theories,” according to documents provided by a whistleblower to Congress, as American Faith reported at the time.
- The DHS internal memo asserts that the DGB was created to coordinate with “Big Tech” to enforce the censorship of narratives conflicting with the government’s official statements: “Collectively, whistleblower allegations and the documents we’ve reviewed raise concerns that DHS could be seeking an active role in coordinating the censorship of viewpoints that it determines, according to an unknown standard, to be ‘MDM’ by enlisting the help of social media companies and big tech.”
