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> From President Biden on down, administration officials “created a political atmosphere that sought to influence the actions of platforms based on their concer

> From President Biden on down, administration officials “created a political atmosphere that sought to influence the actions of platforms based on their concerns regarding misinformation,” Alphabet said, claiming it “has consistently fought against those efforts on First Amendment grounds.” This actually surprised me because I thought (and maybe still think) that it was Google employees that led the charge on this one.

softwaredoug 1y ago
It's in their interests now to throw Biden under the bus. There may be truth to this, but I'm sure its exaggerated for effect.
- nitwit005 1y ago
  Worth noting that Trump directly threatened to put Zuckerberg in prison for life in relation to this: https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/31/politics/video/smr-trump-zuckerberg https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/31/politics/video/smr-trump-zuck... I wouldn't trust any public statement from these companies once that kind of threat has been thrown around. People don't exactly want to go to prison forever.
HankStallone 1y ago
It was. At the time, they felt like they were doing the right thing -- the heroic thing, even -- in keeping dangerous disinformation away from the public view. They weren't shy about their position that censorship in that case was good and necessary. Not the ones who said it on TV, and not the ones who said it to me across the dinner table. For Google now to pretend Biden twisted their arm is pretty rich. They'd better have a verifiable paper trail to prove that, if they expect anyone with a memory five years long to believe it.
- dotnet00 1y ago
  To be fair, even if they were being honest about Biden twisting their arm (I don't buy it), the timing makes it impossible to believe their claim.
  - CSMastermind 1y ago
    Why wouldn't you buy it? The Twitter files showed direct communications from the administration asking them ban specific users like Alex Berenson, Dr. Martin Kulldorff, and Dr. Andrew Bostom: https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/twitter-files-10th-installment-show-white-house-pressure-to-censor-dissenting-voices-biden-administration-coronavirus-misinformation-disinformation-david-zweig-pandemic-online-content-social-media-censoring-censorship-first-amendment-free-speech-vaccines https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/twitter-files-10th-i... Meta submitted direct communications from the administration pressuring them to ban people as part of a congressional investigation: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/27/did-bidens-white-house-pressure-mark-zuckerberg-to-censor-covid-content https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/27/did-bidens-white-ho... It would be more surprising if they left Google alone.
    - braiamp 1y ago
      If you read those documents, you will see that the administration was telling them that those accounts were in violation of Twitter TOS. They simply said "hey, this user is violating your TOS, what are you gonna do about it?", and Twitter simply applied their rules.
      - db48x 1y ago
        That was after they had changed the TOS to make it against the rules to talk about certain topics, such as gain of function research at Chinese labs that was funded by researchers that were themselves funded by the US government.
        braiamp 1y ago
        Which is still a debunked theory. Nobody created SARS-CoV-2 for nefarious purposes. The best theory we have is that there was a failure in the contention. But people pushing for that theory wanted to have a conspiration instead, when plain human failures explain everything.
- tstrimple 1y ago
  They don't need a paper trail. Conservatives will believe anything damning they see about liberals. Just vague accusations or outright lies work plenty well to keep conservatives foaming at the mouth over imagined issues.
frollogaston 1y ago
It's been known for years that the White House was pressuring Google on this. One court ordered them to cease temporarily. I wanted to link the article, but it's hard to find because of the breaking news.

softwaredoug 1y ago

It's in their interests now to throw Biden under the bus. There may be truth to this, but I'm sure its exaggerated for effect.

nitwit005 1y ago
Worth noting that Trump directly threatened to put Zuckerberg in prison for life in relation to this: https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/31/politics/video/smr-trump-zuckerberg https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/31/politics/video/smr-trump-zuck... I wouldn't trust any public statement from these companies once that kind of threat has been thrown around. People don't exactly want to go to prison forever.

HankStallone 1y ago

It was. At the time, they felt like they were doing the right thing -- the heroic thing, even -- in keeping dangerous disinformation away from the public view. They weren't shy about their position that censorship in that case was good and necessary. Not the ones who said it on TV, and not the ones who said it to me across the dinner table. For Google now to pretend Biden twisted their arm is pretty rich. They'd better have a verifiable paper trail to prove that, if they expect anyone with a memory five years long to believe it.

dotnet00 1y ago
To be fair, even if they were being honest about Biden twisting their arm (I don't buy it), the timing makes it impossible to believe their claim.
- CSMastermind 1y ago
  Why wouldn't you buy it? The Twitter files showed direct communications from the administration asking them ban specific users like Alex Berenson, Dr. Martin Kulldorff, and Dr. Andrew Bostom: https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/twitter-files-10th-installment-show-white-house-pressure-to-censor-dissenting-voices-biden-administration-coronavirus-misinformation-disinformation-david-zweig-pandemic-online-content-social-media-censoring-censorship-first-amendment-free-speech-vaccines https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/twitter-files-10th-i... Meta submitted direct communications from the administration pressuring them to ban people as part of a congressional investigation: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/27/did-bidens-white-house-pressure-mark-zuckerberg-to-censor-covid-content https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/27/did-bidens-white-ho... It would be more surprising if they left Google alone.
  - braiamp 1y ago
    If you read those documents, you will see that the administration was telling them that those accounts were in violation of Twitter TOS. They simply said "hey, this user is violating your TOS, what are you gonna do about it?", and Twitter simply applied their rules.
    - db48x 1y ago
      That was after they had changed the TOS to make it against the rules to talk about certain topics, such as gain of function research at Chinese labs that was funded by researchers that were themselves funded by the US government.
      - braiamp 1y ago
        Which is still a debunked theory. Nobody created SARS-CoV-2 for nefarious purposes. The best theory we have is that there was a failure in the contention. But people pushing for that theory wanted to have a conspiration instead, when plain human failures explain everything.
tstrimple 1y ago
They don't need a paper trail. Conservatives will believe anything damning they see about liberals. Just vague accusations or outright lies work plenty well to keep conservatives foaming at the mouth over imagined issues.

frollogaston 1y ago

It's been known for years that the White House was pressuring Google on this. One court ordered them to cease temporarily. I wanted to link the article, but it's hard to find because of the breaking news.