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New Facebook Files show Biden admin had F-bomb-riddled faceoff over COVID narrative: Report

August 2, 2023 | | Print Article

New Facebook Files reveal an F-bomb-riddled faceoff that the Biden administration engaged in with the social media company’s employees as it tried to dictate the COVID narrative on the platform.

(Video Credit: Fox News)

Fox Business obtained shockingly profane internal communications where the Biden administration evidently bullied Facebook for special access to tools so they could target users who were against the vaccine through government agencies. They reportedly dropped F-bombs, denigrating employees for not sharing enough data with them which directly contradicts claims by the White House at the time.

“Since it’s a global pandemic, can we give agencies access to targeting parameters that they normally wouldn’t be able to?” President Biden’s digital director Rob Flaherty reportedly asked a Facebook employee.

That idea was conceived during a conversation revolving around how to convince users to accept the COVID vaccine despite being concerned about side effects.

Fox News reported, “On an April 5th call, a Facebook employee mentioned how if someone was worried about nose bleeds as a side effect of the vaccine, in an ideal world, they would direct them to information addressing that concern. Flaherty asked the Facebook team ‘are you able to provide resources?'”

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A Facebook employee replied to that concern by pointing out that showing users a targeted resource could trigger people. The Facebook employee commented that they “have to be careful in how we approach.”

“If people are having the conversation, is the presumption that we let people have it. Direct them to CDC. What then?” Flaherty asked.

“We all know people that have had the experience that think that FB is listening to them,” an employee noted.

They were concerned that an automated response might be reminiscent of “the Big Brother feel.” The employee suggested that Facebook show the content on a delay to avoid alarming users.

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“We should pay attention to those conversations, make sure that people see information, even if it’s not right then,” the Facebook employee asserted.

Biden’s head of strategic communications and public engagement for the nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Courtney Rowe, seemed to ridicule and belittle Americans’ ability to discern what was true and what wasn’t during an April 5th call.

“If someone in rural Arkansas sees something on FB, it’s the truth,” Rowe claimed. “What we need is help pushing back on the myths.”

“The idea that ‘Big Brother’ was snooping on people’s Facebook conversations is something the White House brushed off at the time when FOX’s Peter Doocy asked about it in July 2021. Doocy asked then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki at the time if the government was ‘spying’ on people’s profiles looking for vaccine misinformation,” Fox News recounted.

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“This is publicly open information, people sharing information online. Just as you are all reporting information on your news stations,” Psaki responded at the time.

Doocy bulldogged the question, “The big concern though, I think, for a lot of people on Facebook is that now this is Big Brother watching you.”

“They’re more concerned about that than people dying across the country because of a pandemic where misinformation is traveling on social media platforms? That feels unlikely to me,” Psaki dismissively replied.

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According to Fox News, the calls between the White House and Facebook grew progressively more hostile and demanding. During an April 14th phone call, Andy Slavitt, President Biden’s White House Senior Advisor for the COVID response, along with Flaherty, thrashed Facebook for not handing over enough information.

Slavitt accused Facebook and WhatsApp of being much more difficult to deal with than other social media platforms.

“Conversations are not as challenging – we have much more straightforward conversations with others,” Slavitt reportedly charged.

“I feel like we’re running around in circles. Some partners give us lots of information, some partners tell us to f*** right off. This feels like we’re chasing our tails. If you don’t want to give information, just say that,” Flaherty told Facebook.

“My dream for FB is to play ball. It’s about will we get out of this f***ing mess,” Flaherty snarled. “I’m not doubting that you are sincerely trying to solve this problem in good faith. I’m doubting that you are telling us everything… We have to explain to the President… why there is misinformation on the Internet… We don’t want to be in a position where we take down bad news. But if your goal as a company is to make it more likely that people will get the vaccine. People don’t see this in only one way.”

“We can’t ask news outlets to take down bad news,” the employee told him.

Following that call, Facebook caved and handed over a big dump of data to the Whtie House. Nick Clegg, VP of Global Affairs, emailed his team on April 18th summarizing a phone call he had with Slavitt.

“He [Slavitt] was appreciative of the data we sent thru on Friday, and confirmed that Rob F had said that they had never received so much data from us before,” Clegg told the team.

He said they agreed to have Flaherty “share the data and policy recommendations from the researchers with us asap so that we could give a considered reply on further steps we may/may not be able to take.”

Meta told Fox News that the data dump in question was data gathered from CrowdTangle, Meta’s tool that analyzes public content on its platform.

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