Leaked documents indicate that Facebook and Twitter have worked with the FBI and DHS to limit online speech, according to The Intercept’s Ken Klippenstein and Lee Fang:
Years of internal DHS memos, emails, and documents—obtained via leaks and an ongoing lawsuit, as well as public documents—illustrate an expansive effort by the agency to influence tech platforms.
This initially occurred in the context of the DHS’s ‘Disinformation Governance Board,’ outliving that initiative.
Facebook apparently went so far as to create a portal specifically for the U.S. government to flag problematic speech on the platform. In addition, DHS, the FBI, and various media outlets were meeting on a regular basis at least until August.
Government agencies were particularly concerned with speech around the COVID-19 pandemic including vaccine efficacy, racial issues, the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, and U.S. involvement in Ukraine. The DHS also “considered countering disinformation … that undermines trust in financial systems and courts,” and the FBI, for its part, acted to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story.
As noted by Klippenstein and Fang:
How disinformation is defined by the government has not been clearly articulated, and the inherently subjective nature of what constitutes disinformation provides a broad opening for DHS officials to make politically motivated determinations.
This of course transcends the U.S., given Facebook and Twitter’s global user base, and shines a light on how media and Big Tech, on the one hand, and governmental intelligence services, on the other, constitute two of the principal agents by which social engineering is exerted.
