A U.S. federal judge has revealed that Big Tech giant Facebook censored one of Tucker Carlson’s videos in response to a demand from Democrat President Joe Biden’s White House.
The video, in which Carlson discussed Covid vaccines, was “shadowbanned” by Facebook, meaning it was hidden from other users but without the immediate knowledge of the person who posted it.
The news comes as more information emerges about the Biden admin’s efforts to censor the speech of the American people by using Big Tech companies as a proxy.
As the Daily Caller reported, Judge Terry Doughty issued an injunction over the White House’s efforts to censor their own citizen’s speech by getting Big Tech platforms like Facebook to do so.
Doughty issued an order to block the Biden admin from communicating with any social media companies.
While it would be a violation of the First Amendment to censor the American people, the Biden admin believed it could skirt the Constitution by pressuring Big Tech firms to silence people instead.
The government’s defense is that such coordination did not violate these platforms’ content policies.
Here within the injunction, the judge described efforts by the White House to censor a video that popular ex-Fox News show host Tucker Carlson made about vaccines in April 2021.
On the 14th of April of that year, Rob Flaherty, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Digital Strategy, emailed Facebook with demands that the platform censors Carlson and Tomi Lahren for saying things he objected to about the experimental vaccines.
Flaherty was outraged that “Tucker Carlson saying vaccines don’t work and Tomi Lahren stating she won’t take a vaccine” made the top posts of the day.
In that email, Flaherty observed that Facebook already promised him that such content would be demoted.
“This is exactly why I want to know what ‘Reduction’ actually looks like – if ‘reduction’ means ‘pumping our most vaccine-hesitant audience with Tucker Carlson saying it does not work’… then…I’m not sure it’s reduction,” wrote an angry Flaherty.
Facebook promptly promised the White House official that they would have a report for him by the end of the week.
The reference to Lahren’s content may be about that Fox News host airing sentiments on April 12, 2021, that “Not one Democrat or Democrat-celebrated health or science official has said the vaccines will end the mask requirements…
“You know what? I personally will not get the vaccine and I personally will not be forced to get it.
“If you want to get it, by all means, please do.
“If you want to wear one, two, or five masks while driving or walking alone, by all means, please do.”
Carlson also aired vaccine-skeptical content on his show “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on April 13, 2021.
During that show, Carlson said, “Before we take this one [the COVID-19 vaccine], a few questions about it.
“But this specific vaccine, there are two things we’d like to know….
“The first question: is the vaccine safe?
“The second question: is it effective.
“Safe and effective?
“That is all that matters.”
Tucker then proceeded to go over the material that made him question whether the vaccine was either safe or effective.
