Latest Twitter Files reveals US government ties to COVID-19 censorship

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: agencies
17 Mar 2023 21:48

According to Twitter Files, under the pretext of containing the spread of covid-related fake news, the US actively censored Covid-related information regardless of its truth value.

The Twitter logo is seen on a cell phone, Friday, Oct. 14, 2022, in Boston (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

The US government has reportedly cooperated with Big Tech firms and other third parties to censor covid-related data online, according to journalist Matt Taibbi citing the latest release of Twitter Files.

Taibi said this enterprise was part of the Virality Project which was conducted by federal agencies in cooperation with state-funded non-governmental organizations and Stanford University. The proclaimed objective of the Virality Project was to monitor alleged disinformation related to COVID-19.

The project was first pitched to Twitter by Stanford in February 2021, shortly after US President Joe Biden took office, Taibbi revealed.

“On February 5, 2021, just after Joe Biden took office, Stanford wrote to Twitter to discuss the Virality Project. By the 17th, Twitter agreed to join and got its first weekly report on ‘anti-vax disinformation’ which contained numerous true stories” Taibbi explained in a Twitter thread.

10.THE BEGINNING: On February 5, 2021, just after Joe Biden took office, Stanford wrote to Twitter to discuss the Virality Project. By the 17th, Twitter agreed to join and got its first weekly report on “anti-vax disinformation,” which contained numerous true stories. pic.twitter.com/QbJuQ4mROH
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023

"We’ve since learned the Virality Project in 2021 worked with the government to launch a pan-industry monitoring plan for COVID-related content," Taibbi tweeted. "Government, academia, and an oligopoly of would-be corporate competitors organized quickly behind a secret, unified effort to control political messaging."

According to Taibbi, the Virality Project was vetting covid-related content on a large scale for Twitter, Google, Medium, and TikTok. Taibbi claimed that while the project did vet out disinformation, it also vetted information legitimate information and political opinions.

Taibbi explained that the gauge for vetting out disinformation since July 2020 was through assessing the information to be “demonstrably false” or an “assertion of fact”. However, true stories that were asserted to “fuel hesitancy” were assessed as misinformation, Taibbi added.

Taibbi cited an email from the Virality Project sent to Twitter assessing information about the adverse effects of the vaccine or news of countries prohibiting particular vaccines as misinformation.

"The Virality Project was specifically not based on ‘assertions of fact,’ but public submission to authority, acceptance of narrative, and pronouncements by figures like [former chief presidential medical advisor] Anthony Fauci," Taibbi said.

In a report released on April 26, 2022, the Virality Project urged the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to set up a center specializing in misinformation and disinformation. The Disinformation Governance Board was established the following day, according to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, but it was eventually discontinued following the harsh criticism that the board and its chair were subjected to.

The Office of the Surgeon General and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention were other federal partners in the Virality Project, Taibbi added.

During a hearing in Congress last week, Taibbi described the network of tech companies, government agencies, and private organizations involved in vetting information on social media as the "Censorship-Industrial Complex."

Posts found to contain misinformation, such as those about the history of COVID-19 or the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, would be flagged by the network. Twitter files have shown that the US government cooperates with Twitter to manufacture psyops.

Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, is the mastermind behind the so-called Twitter Files. He has stated that he wants to demonstrate "what really happened" about behind-the-scenes content moderation choices at the social media business before he acquired it in October.

Three journalists, Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and Michael Shellenberger, have been delving into internal documents and conversations to highlight the company's decision-making process surrounding some high-profile actions, such as banning former President Donald Trump in January 2020. The Twitter Files have been released in bits and pieces throughout December.