Social Media, the CDC and COVID-19 Collaboration

During the pandemic, it has become increasingly clear that the main players along with social media platforms are "singing from the same hymn book".  Thanks to Judicial Watch, we now have some idea why at least two of the biggest players are hand-in-hand when it comes to the COVID-19 narrative.

 

In this case, Judicial Watch launched legal actions against the United States Department of Health and Human Services to force compliance with the Freedom of Information Act after Judicial Watch sent an FOIA request to the Centers for Disease Control on September 15, 2020, asking for access to :

"Any and all records of communication between CDC officials and/or employees and employees, agents, and/or representatives of Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube concerning, regarding, or relating to COVID-19 related content on company platforms. Such records include, but are not limited to, any advice or instructions issued on disinformation re COVID-19."

 

Since the first request was not fulfilled, Judicial Watch filed a second FOIA request on March 9, 2021 as shown here:

 

In response, Judicial Watch received 2,469 pages of documents from the CDC which clearly reveal close cooperation between the CDC and Facebook about the COVID-19 narrative and so-called "misinformation".  Let's look at some of the more interesting documents which show links between Big Tech and the CDC.

  

Here is a document from Google showing the launching of a COVID-19 alert on its products which provides consumers with the CDC's latest recommendations with most of the information redacted (pages 4 to 8 inclusive with pages 6, 7 and 8 being completely redacted):

 

 

Here is another email showing the link between Google's YouTube and the CDC (pages 14 to 16):

 

Here is an email showing the link between LinkedIn and the CDC (pages 27 to 35):

 

Here is an email showing how Facebook supplied the CDC with $2 million worth of advertising credits (second round) dated March 8, 2020, very early in the pandemic (page 36):

 

According to Judicial Watch, there is another email from mid-2020 showing additional funding from Facebook to the CDC for another $1 million worth of advertising.

 

Here is another email from the CDC to Facebook wondering if Facebook needed any assistance in providing credible content for coronavirus searches on Facebook dated January 31, 2020: (page 39)

 

Here is an email from Facebook and Instagram to the CDC regarding a product solution to support the CDC's efforts to get targeted information to specific populations (page 40):

 

Here is an email exchange between WhatsApp and the CDC offering support for the CDC's narrative on the COVID-19 issue (page 172 - 173):

 

I believe that is enough for this posting.  As you can see, right from the very beginning of the pandemic (and even before it was officially proclaimed by the WHO), the world's most influential social media companies picked their narrative which was in sharp contrast to the narrative of the Trump Administration and worked hand-in-hand with the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to ensure that the CDC's narrative on COVID-19 remained dominant in their online ecosystem.  This goes a long way to explaining why there has been so little long-lasting coverage of dissenting views (i.e. the heavy-handed use of censorship) on the science of the pandemic from the other side of the narrative and why all of the social media outlets seem to be using the same playbook.

 

Health Misinformation Part 1 - The Role of the Biden Administration and its Surgeon General

After this announcement from Health and Human Services in mid-July 2021:

 

...and the Surgeon General Vivek Murthy made this announcement:

 

....the Surgeon General released this advisory:

 

...which, in large part, points the finger at social media for its collaboration in spreading health misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Since the Surgeon General is appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate, his views are representative of the Biden Administration's viewpoint on key issues, in this case, the COVID-19 pandemic.  In this two-part posting, we'll look at the commentary regarding fake health information and how the Biden Administration wants to crush any dissenting views followed by a closer look at how one of America's most influential foundations plans to wage war on health misinformation.

 

Here is some of the background from the Surgeon General's advisory with my bolds throughout:

 

"During the COVID-19 pandemic, people have been exposed to a great deal of information: news, public health guidance, fact sheets, infographics, research, opinions, rumors, myths, falsehoods, and more. The World Health Organization and the United Nations have characterized this unprecedented spread of information as an “infodemic”.

 

While information has helped people stay safe throughout the pandemic, it has at times led to confusion. For example, scientific knowledge about COVID-19 has evolved rapidly over the past year, sometimes leading to changes in public health recommendations. Updating assessments and recommendations based on new evidence is an essential part of the scientific process, and further changes are to be expected as we continue learning more about COVID-19.  But without sufficient communication that provides clarity and context, many people have had trouble figuring out what to believe, which sources to trust, and how to keep up with changing knowledge and guidance.

 

Amid all this information, many people have also been exposed to health misinformation: information that is false, inaccurate, or misleading according to the best available evidence at the time.  Misinformation has caused confusion and led people to decline COVID-19 vaccines, reject public health measures such as masking and physical distancing, and use unproven treatments.  For example, a recent study showed that even brief exposure to COVID-19 vaccine misinformation made people less likely to want a COVID-19 vaccine.  Misinformation has also led to harassment of and violence against public health workers, health professionals, airline staff, and other frontline workers tasked with communicating evolving public health measures."

 

Certainly, the science has evolved over the past 16 months, however, it is very, very clear that many of the "experts" being relied on by the government and mainstream media are not providing us with a balanced viewpoint of the pandemic and the vaccines being touted as the only solution to the problem. 

 

According to the Surgeon General, there have already been some steps taken to build a healthier information environment:

 

1.) Trusted community members, such as health professionals, faith leaders, and educators, have spoken directly to their communities to address COVID-19-related questions (e.g., in town halls, community meetings, via social and traditional media)

 

2.) Researchers have identified leading sources of COVID-19 misinformation, including misinformation “super-spreaders”

 

3.) Media organizations have devoted more resources to identify and debunk misinformation about COVID-19

 

4.) Some technology platforms have improved efforts to monitor and address misinformation by reducing the distribution of false or misleading posts and directing users to health information from credible sources

 

5.) Governments have increased their efforts to disseminate clear public health information in partnership with trusted messengers

It has become very clear that these "trusted" individuals are generally disseminating only one side of the pandemic narrative.

 

He does note that there is much more to be done and that, most importantly, each of us has a role to play as follows:

 

1.) By taking a moment to verify whether the information that we are reading on social media is accurate and whether the source is trustworthy before we choose to share it with other people.  

  

2.) When talking to friends and family who have misperceptions, we can ask questions to understand their concerns, listen with empathy, and offer guidance on finding sources of accurate information.

  

He then suggests the following areas of action that need to be taken:

 

1.) Equip Americans with the tools to identify misinformation, make informed choices about what information they share, and address health misinformation in their communities, in partnership with trusted local leaders

 

2.) Expand research that deepens our understanding of health misinformation, including how it spreads and evolves; how and why it impacts people; who is most susceptible; and which strategies are most effective in addressing it

 

3.) Implement product design and policy changes on technology platforms to slow the spread of misinformation

 

4.) Invest in longer-term efforts to build resilience against health misinformation, such as media, science, digital, data, and health literacy programs and training for health practitioners, journalists, librarians, and others

 

5.) Convene federal, state, local, territorial, tribal, private, nonprofit, and research partners to explore the impact of health misinformation, identify best practices to prevent and address it, issue recommendations, and find common ground on difficult questions, including appropriate legal and regulatory measures that address health misinformation while protecting user privacy and freedom of expression

 

Given that there is significant disagreement regarding the source of the "novel" coronavirus, the actual deadliness of the coronavirus (i.e. dying with or dying from) and the use of novel vaccines that may or may  not be safe because they were rushed to market in unprecedented haste and that researchers and medical professionals who do not share the prevailing and government-promoted narrative have been shutdown by social media platforms and threatened by their professional organizations and employers, I found this part interesting:

 

As well, given that the mainstream media has been complicit in promoting the narratives of Big Government and Big Pharma, this is also interesting:

 

The Surgeon General also lays a substantial share of the problem with medical disinformation at the feet of Big Tech:

 

....a viewpoint that is obviously shared with Joe Biden as shown here:

Let's look at the summary of the advisory noting that the Surgeon General's greatest concern is the link between health misinformation and COVID-19 vaccine reluctance:

 

"During the COVID-19 pandemic, health misinformation has sowed confusion, reduced trust in public health measures, and hindered efforts to get Americans vaccinated. And misinformation hasn’t just harmed our physical health—it has also divided our families, friends, and communities.

 

While health misinformation has always been a problem, today it spreads at unprecedented speed and scale. We are all still learning how to navigate this new information environment. But we know enough to be sure that misinformation is an urgent threat, and that we can and must confront it together.

 

The only way to address health misinformation is to recognize that all of us, in every sector of society, have a responsibility to act. Every single person can do their part to confront misinformation. But it’s not just an individual responsibility. We need institutions to recognize that this issue is their moral and civic responsibility, too, and that they are accountable."

  

From my perspective, one of the key problems with accessing accurate medical information during the pandemic has been the lack of transparency by governments and their officials who repeatedly change their minds about various aspects of the pandemic including this:

 

...and government leaders doing this while the rest of us are locked down:

  

...and social media companies banning anyone, no matter how qualified that they are, who provide a viewpoint that doesn't follow their limited pandemic narrative and then changing their minds once additional evidence comes to the forefront as shown here:

 

....and professional organizations who take actions against their members who have taken a stance that contradicts the stance on the pandemic of their professional organization:

 

....how on earth, as mere mortals, are we supposed to winnow the "medical truth" from the "medical misinformation" when even governments, health officials, medical researchers, other scientists and physicians can't agree on the COVID-19 narrative and are promoting their own version of medical misinformation which benefits them?  Following the money seems to be the mantra that we all need to keep in mind during the pandemic since each interest group is promoting the narrative that benefits its stakeholders.

In part two, we'll take a closer look at the proposal to battle the "scourge" of medical misinformation from one of the world's most influential Foundations.

Facebook and its Battle Against Extremism

With the Biden White House releasing its plans for battling domestic terrorism, the latest iteration of terror that is supposed to fill us with fear as shown here:

 

....Facebook has also availed itself of the opportunity to fight against domestic terrorism as shown here:

 

 

As you will see in the later part of this posting, Facebook has taken its responsibility for battling extremism to a new level.

Facebook's Redirect Initiative claims the following:

 

"The Redirect Initiative helps combat violent extremism and dangerous organizations by redirecting hate and violence-related search terms towards resources, education, and outreach groups that can help. This initiative is based on Facebook’s “Get Help” search based modules in combination with the Redirect Method, evolved to fit Facebook and Instagram. 

 

For example, when people search on Facebook for terms related to white supremacy in the US, results are directed to Life After Hate, an organization founded by former violent extremists that provides crisis intervention, education, support groups, and outreach."

 

Facebook has several initiatives that fall under the "counter speech" banner as follows:

 

1.) Extreme Lives

 

2.) Resiliency Initiative

  

3.) Peer to Peer Facebook Global Digital Challenge

  

4.) Online Civil Courage Initiative (OCCI)

 

Now, let's look in detail at two additional initiatives that are specilifally focussed on terrorism:

  

5.)  The Global Internet forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) - GIFCT's aim is to disrupt terrorist abuse and exploitation of digital platforms to maximize the extraordinary benefits of a free, open, and secure internet.   

GIFCT was formally established in July 2017 by four founding companies - Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube - as a program of knowledge-sharing, technical collaboration and shared research.  Today, it is an independent organization capable of sustaining and deepening industry collaboration and capacity in its efforts to prevent terrorists and extremists from abusing and misusing digital platforms.

 

GIFCT has four goals:

 

1.) improve the capacity of technology companies to prevent and respond to abuse of their platforms by terrorists and violent extremists.

 

2.) enable multi-stakeholder engagement around terrorist and violent extremist misuse of the internet.

 

3.) encourage those dedicated to online civil dialogue and empower efforts to direct positive alternatives to the messages of terrorists and violent extremists

 

4.) Advance broad understanding of terrorist and violent extremist operations and their evolution, including the intersection of online and offline activities.

 

Member companies agreed that governments will not be able to remove terrorist content directly from company platforms.

 

6.) Redirect Initiative - Here is a quote from Facebook about this initiative:

"The Redirect Initiative helps combat violent extremism and dangerous organizations by redirecting hate and violence-related search terms towards resources, education, and outreach groups that can help. This initiative is based on Facebook’s “Get Help” search based modules in combination with the Redirect Method, evolved to fit Facebook and Instagram. 

 

For example, when people search on Facebook for terms related to white supremacy in the US, results are directed to Life After Hate, an organization founded by former violent extremists that provides crisis intervention, education, support groups, and outreach.

 

Redirect is disrupting the connection between followers and the violent, extreme content they seek with Facebook claiming that the program has been successful and has expanded its program with organizations in the United States, Australia, Germany, Indonesia and the United Kingdom "to help individuals leave a life of hate so they can live a life of hope." "

  

Here is a "Life After Hate" promotional video:

 

  

Under the Redirect Initiative, Facebook is testing a new alert system by using pop-ups which redirect users to a support page.

 

Here is an example:

 

The "confidential support" link is found here:

 

 

Here is more information from Life After Hate:

 

 

Here is more information on the program:

 

The group is closely linked with ExitUSA as shown here:

 

...and here:

 

This test which is only on Facebook's main platform was being run in the United States as a pilot program and is being used to identify both users who may have been exposed to rule-breaking extremist content and other uses who may have previously been subject to Facebook's enforcement procedures.  

 

Now that we know that Facebook only has our best interests at heart with this new initiative that, coincidentally has been launched within days of the Biden Administration's plans to battle the domestic terror "bogeyman", let's go back in time to the mid-1960s for a quote from Barry Goldwater at the 1964 Republican National Convention:

 

 

Here's the key quote:

  

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you, also, that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

 

Take that Facebook.

You must admit that it's reassuring to see that Facebook through its Redirect Initiative is attempting to protect us all from extremist propaganda at the same time as it is censoring any narrative that doesn't follow its own COVID-19/pro-vaccine beliefs. (sarcasm intended)

Coronavirus Skeptics and How They Use Scientific Data to Bolster Their Viewpoint

A recent paper on the MIT website entitled "Viral Visualizations: How Coronavirus Skeptics Use Orthodox Data Practices to Promote Unorthodox Science Online" by Crystal Lee et al examines how coronavirus skeptics use data visualizations which are then posted on social media accounts showing that governments' response to the pandemic was excessive.  Here is a summary of the goals of the study:

  

"This paper investigates how pandemic visualizations circulated on social media, and shows that people who mistrust the scientific establishment often deploy the same rhetorics of data-driven decision- making used by experts, but to advocate for radical policy changes. Using a quantitative analysis of how visualizations spread on Twitter and an ethnographic approach to analyzing conversations about COVID data on Facebook, we document an epistemological gap that leads pro- and anti-mask groups to draw drastically different inferences from similar data. Ultimately, we argue that the deployment of COVID data visualizations reflect a deeper sociopolitical rift regarding the place of science in public life."

  

It is important to note that the authors of the study use the term "anti-masker" to represent individuals and groups that are in opposition to the norms of the mainstream public sphere (i.e. the lamestream media).  They also note that anti-maskers can be described as "counterpublic", that is, the organize themselves into groups that are in opposition to mainstream civic discourse.

  

Here is an additional quote from the paper with bolds being mine:

 

"In approaching anti-maskers as a counterpublic (a group shaped by its hostile stance toward mainstream science), we focus particular attention on one form of agentive media production central to their movement: data visualization. We define this counterpublic’s visualization practices as “counter-visualizations” that use orthodox scientific methods to make unorthodox arguments, beyond the pale of the scientific establishment. Data visualizations are not a neutral window onto an observer-independent reality; during a pandemic, they are an arena of political struggle.

 

Among other initiatives, these groups argue for open access to government data (claiming that CDC and local health departments are not releasing enough data for citizens to make informed decisions), and they use the language of data-driven decision-making to show that social distancing mandates are both ill-advised and unnecessary. In these discussions, we find that anti-maskers think carefully about the grammar of graphics by decomposing visualizations into layered components (e.g., raw data, statistical transformations, mappings, marks, colors). Additionally, they debate how each component changes the narrative that the visualization tells, and they brainstorm alternate visualizations that would better enhance public understanding of the data. This paper empirically shows how COVID anti-mask groups use data visualizations to argue that the US government’s response (broadly construed) to the pandemic is overblown, and that the crisis has long been over.

 

The authors investigated how anti-mask and anti-lockdown activists use the rhetoric of scientific rigour to oppose these public health measures.  These activists do not ignore scientific evidence in their arguments, rather, they use "counter-visualizations" by using orthodox methods to make unorthodox arguments that challenge the governments' narrative that the pandemic is urgent and ongoing.   The authors examined data visualizations through two methods:

 

1.) quantitative analysis of close to half a million tweets that used data visualizations to discuss the pandemic out of a set of over 390 million tweets spanning the period between January 21, 2020 and July 31, 2020.  The researchers processed over 41,000 images, many of which are quite professional in their presentation.  This was supplemented with a six month-long observational study of anti-mask groups on Facebook, extending from March to September 2020 which provided researchers with an overview of what online discourse about data and its visual representation looks like both inside and outside anti-mask groups.  The researchers followed five Facebook groups, each with a range of followers between 10,000 and 300,000, collecting posts that included terms for coronavirus and visualization

 

2.) qualitative analysis of anti-mask groups provided researchers with a view of how these groups leverage the language of scientific rigour (i.e. criticizing data sources, stating the limitations of specific models) to support ending public health restrictions.

  

Here are some examples of counter-visualizations from the coronavirus skeptics user network:

 

Now, let's look at what the research discovered as quoted from the article again with all bolds being mine:

 

"Anti-maskers have deftly used social media to constitute a cultural and discursive arena devoted to addressing the pandemic and its fallout through practices of data literacy. Data literacy is a quintessential criterion for membership within the community they have created. The prestige of both individual anti-maskers and the larger Facebook groups to which they belong is tied to displays of skill in accessing, interpreting, critiquing, and visualizing data, as well as the pro-social willingness to share those skills with other interested parties. This is a community of practice focused on acquiring and transmitting expertise, and on translating that expertise into concrete political action. Moreover, this is a subculture shaped by mistrust of established authorities and orthodox scientific viewpoints. Its members value individual initiative and ingenuity, trusting scientific analysis only insofar as they can replicate it themselves by accessing and manipulating the data firsthand. They are highly reflexive about the inherently biased nature of any analysis, and resent what they view as the arrogant self-righteousness of scientific elites.

 

As a subculture, anti-masking amplifies anti-establishment currents pervasive in U.S. political culture. Data literacy, for anti-maskers, exemplifies distinctly American ideals of intellectual self-reliance, which historically takes the form of rejecting experts and other elites. The counter-visualizations that they produce and circulate not only challenge scientific consensus, but they also assert the value of independence in a society that they believe promotes an overall de-skilling and dumbing-down of the population for the sake of more effective social control. As they see it, to counter-visualize is to engage in an act of resistance against the stifling influence of central government, big business, and liberal academia.

 

It is pretty hard to argue with the 'dumbing-down of the population" given how many people get what little news they access on a daily basis from their social media news feeds or the mainstream media which has proven itself to be little more than a mouthpiece for governments during the pandemic.  One need only look at the complete lack of media coverage regarding the concept of cycle thresholds for RT-PCR tests to understand how many of the COVID-positive tests are invalid to gain a sense of the mainstream media's complicity.

 

Let's close with a quote from the paper's conclusions:

 

"...the CDC’s initial public messaging that masks were ineffective—followed by a quick public reversal— seriously hindered the organization’s ability to effectively communicate as the pandemic progressed. As we have seen, people are not simply passive consumers of media: anti-mask users in particular were predisposed to digging through the scientific literature and highlighting the uncertainty in academic publications that media organizations elide. When these uncertainties did not surface within public-facing versions of these studies, people began to assume that there was a broader cover-up....

...Instead of treating increased adoption of data-driven storytelling as an unqualified good, we show that data visualizations are not simply tools that people use to understand the epidemiological events around them.  They are a battleground that highlight the contested role of expertise in modern American life."

 

While governments and the mainstream media are doing their best to dismiss COVID skeptics as ignorant and ill-informed "anti-vaxxers" and in some cases linking them to white supremacy and far-right extremism as shown here:

 

...in fact, this research shows that COVID skeptics are quite capable of presenting the world with a cogent argument that governments, public health officials, NGOs and Big Pharma should not be trusted to tell us the whole truth and nothing but the truth when it comes to the current pandemic.