Now, here’s the first edition of the YouTube Files.
We knew the Biden White House was pushing Facebook and Twitter to censor more.
Now we know the White House was repeatedly pressuring Google to censor content on YouTube.
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On April 12, 2021, Rob Flaherty—Biden’s Director of Digital Strategy—emailed Google wanting to know how Google could better “crack down on vaccine misinformation” and to discuss “ways the White House (and our COVID experts) can partner in your product work.”
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Privately, Google understood what this request meant as internal docs obtained by @JudiciaryGOP reveal:
“Rob’s questions were very YT focused” & he “dug in on our decision making for borderline content,” which YT says is content that doesn’t “violate our Community Guidelines”
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A week later, on April 21, 2021, one of the Google Gov’t Affairs team members, who had been on recent calls with the Biden White House, specifically Rob Flaherty, explained plainly what Flaherty wanted:
“Really he’s interested in what we’re seeing that is NOT coming down.”
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YouTube’s Gov’t Affairs team then emailed the YouTube Product team, warning the Biden “White House is very interested in our work on borderline content,” and the Product team should brief the White House “to prevent anything from potentially spiraling out of control.”
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Another week later, YouTube’s Gov’t Affairs team emailed the YouTube Product team to update them on the situation.
The Google and YouTube Gov’t Affairs teams were having “conversations with the White House staff on YouTube’s policies.”
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Both Google & YouTube’s Gov’t Affairs teams wanted the YouTube Product Team to meet with the White House staff, who were “familiar with many of [YouTube’s] policies and efforts” removing content, because the WH “staff continue[d] to have questions on the raise/reduce efforts.”
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The company needed this meeting ASAP because:
1) there was “significant attention coming from the [White House] staff on this issue”; and
2) Google was seeking “to work closely with [the Biden] administration on multiple policy fronts” and needed to appease them.
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.@SenRandPaul and Republicans in the House introduced legislation that would provide victims of government censorship with a remedy—the ability to sue the government bureaucrats responsible for causing your constitutionally protected speech to be removed.
judiciary.house.gov/media/pr…
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.@JudiciaryGOP and @Weaponization will continue this critical investigative work to further inform legislative solutions to the vast government censorship enterprise.
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Tune in today for the @Weaponization hearing marking the one-year anniversary since the first #TwitterFiles report.
Stay tuned...
judiciary.house.gov/committe…
Nov 30, 2023 · 1:44 PM UTC
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