HOUSTON, US
Internal emails from Facebook and Instagram show that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had significant input on the Meta-owned social media platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The Facebook Files released Thursday on Twitter.
Journalist Robby Soave revealed internal communications with the CDC and how the US agency tried to control the COVID vaccine narrative on both Facebook and Instagram.
"The CDC had significant input on pandemic-era policies at Meta," tweeted Soave in a thread similar to the Twitter Files that have been previously released to the public. "The CDC was consulted frequently, at times daily, receiving constant updates about which topics were trending and giving recommendations on what content to flag as false or misleading."
"Twitter is not the only social media site to face pressure to censor content," he added.
"In May 2021, CDC officials began routinely vetting claims about COVID-19 vaccines that had appeared on Facebook. The platform left it up to the federal government to determine which assertions were accurate," said Soave. "Claims vetted by the CDC included whether 'COVID-19 is man-made.' The CDC told Facebook that it was 'theoretically possible, but extremely unlikely.'"
"Facebook was clearly a willing participant in this process," Soave continued. "Moderators repeatedly thanked the CDC for its 'help in debunking.' By July 2021, the CDC wasn't just evaluating which claims it thought were false, but...
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