CDC Collaboration With Big Tech on COVID-19 Misinformation a Threat to First Amendment Rights: Legal Advocacy Group

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was sued by America First Legal (AFL) to compel the release of records regarding correspondence between the federal public health agency and social media companies during the pandemic. AFL, a legal nonprofit run by former Trump administration officials, recently obtained documents showing that the CDC worked with Big Tech companies to flag and censor posts deemed as COVI-19 misinformation.

Gene Hamilton, vice president and general counsel of AFL, spoke to The Epoch Times, stating that “seeing [then-press secretary] Jen Psaki at the White House podium last year, admitting that they were actively collaborating with social media companies to combat what the administration deemed as misinformation” was great cause for alarm.

During a July 2021 press conference, Psaki said, “we’re regularly making sure social media platforms are aware of the latest narratives, dangerous to public health that we and many other Americans are seeing across all of social and traditional media. And we work to engage with them to better understand the enforcement of social media platform policies.”

AFL immediately submitted requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for all records related to the collaboration, said Hamilton. Hamilton was not surprised to have “received no records from the goodwill of the Biden administration, despite the legal obligation to do so,” he added. “So, we sued them.”

Over a year later, Hamilton said, “we finally have some of the very first records that establish precisely what Jen Psaki was talking about at the White House podium.” He described the records received thus far to be “incredibly illuminating because they actually show what the White House said was happening.” Prior to this, no one had direct evidence of the collaboration, he added.

For example, Facebook provided the CDC with $15 million dollars worth of ad