Two campaign staffers for Vice President Kamala Harris were previously involved in efforts to censor Americans for spreading purported “disinformation” about COVID-19 while working in the Biden-Harris White House.
Then-administration officials Rob Flaherty and Aisha Shah are named as having been involved in the government’s efforts to censor Americans in legal filings related to the Murthy v. Missouri lawsuit, which alleged that the federal government violated the First Amendment by pressuring social media companies to censor content related to the pandemic and other hot-button topics. On the Harris campaign team, Flaherty is now a deputy campaign manager and Shah is the director of digital partnerships, according to their respective LinkedIn profiles.
Flaherty served as the director of digital strategy and an assistant for President Joe Biden and Shah worked as the deputy director of partnerships, according to their profiles.
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Flaherty participated in meetings with officials from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, according to a July 2023 motion for a preliminary injunction filed in the Murthy v. Missouri case. He also corresponded with social media platforms via email to encourage them to take a more aggressive posture against COVID-19 “misinformation” and content that could make users more hesitant to take coronavirus vaccines.
“Since we’ve been on the phone — the top post about vaccines today is tucker (sic) Carlson saying they don’t work. Yesterday was Tomi Lehren (sic) saying she won’t take one,” reads one email Flaherty sent to Facebook officials in April 2021. “This is exactly why I want to know what ‘Reduction’ actually looks like — if ‘reduction’ means ‘pumping our most vaccine hesitant audience with tucker (sic) Carlson saying it doesn’t work’ then… I’m not sure it’s reduction!”
Additionally, Flaherty demanded that Twitter remove a parody account linked to Finnegan Biden, the president’s granddaughter, writing to the company that he “cannot stress the degree to which this needs to be resolved immediately,” according to the motion.
Flaherty subsequently testified to the House Judiciary Committee in May, defending his actions because the pandemic was still severe at the time, “misinformation” presented a public health challenge by increasing vaccine hesitancy and pointing out that social media companies ultimately determine what content is permitted on their platforms. (RELATED: Mark Zuckerberg’s Overdue Admission About Government Censorship Could Offer Fuel For First Amendment Claims)
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Shah was identified by Facebook and parent company Meta in response to a third-party subpoena as a White House official who communicated with social media firms about “misinformation, disinformation and censorship,” according to another legal filing pursuant to the Murthy v. Missouri case.
The Supreme Court ultimately sided with the Biden administration in Murthy v. Missouri, ruling that the plaintiffs lacked standing. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the dissent in the case, stating that the highest court’s ruling establishes precedent that “permits the successful campaign of coercion in this case to stand as an attractive model for future officials who want to control what the people say, hear, and think.”
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, wrote that the Biden administration “repeatedly pressured” Facebook to censor content that would not have been restricted otherwise and that he regrets giving into that pressure, according to a Monday letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan.
The Harris campaign, Flaherty, Shah and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
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