This is an adapted excerpt from the Oct. 15 episode of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
You may remember that back in 2022, two Republican attorneys general — one from Missouri, the other from Louisiana — sued the Biden administration, accusing the federal government of violating the First Amendment by allegedly asking social media companies to suppress certain accounts and posts, namely the ones spreading misinformation about Covid-19 and vaccines during the height of the pandemic.
Now, full disclosure, in my capacity as the White House press secretary, I was named in that lawsuit. Not because I was ever in touch with those social media companies directly — because I was not — but simply because I talked from the White House podium about the efforts to ensure that accurate information about Covid-19 and the vaccines was shared with the public at the height of the pandemic.
Over the course of many months, that case ultimately landed before the U.S. Supreme Court, which then effectively rejected it, ruling that the plaintiffs lacked the legal standing to sue.
It’s not just from MAGA officials. The double standard is coming from the tech companies.
But before the Supreme Court weighed in, the Republican Party kind of lost its mind. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said the Biden administration coerced “every major social media platform in America to ban speech that the White House did not like.” Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said that “Facebook was operating at the direction of and for the direct benefit of the federal government.”
Now, keep that criticism in mind as we fast-forward to the events of the past few days, when we witnessed with our own eyes the current attorney general, Pam Bondi, brag about how she was able to pressure Facebook into — wait for it — operating for the direct benefit of the federal government.
On Tuesday, in a message posted to X, Bondi wrote that “following outreach from @thejusticedept, Facebook removed a large group page that was being used to dox and target @ICEgov agents in Chicago.”
“The wave of violence against ICE has been driven by online apps and social media campaigns designed to put ICE officers at risk just for doing their jobs,” she added. “The Department of Justice will continue engaging tech companies to eliminate platforms where radicals can incite imminent violence against federal law enforcement.”
While Bondi provided zero evidence to back her claims of doxxing and targeting, what she appears to be referencing is a Facebook group called “ICE Sightings—Chicagoland.” It had more than 90,000 members who primarily shared information about where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations were being conducted in their communities, which you can’t really blame them for, given the brutality we’ve seen over the last several months. Now, I am not condoning or defending all of the posts in that Facebook group (obviously not the ones that are threatening or harmful, should they exist). The point is that MAGA Republicans like Cruz have screamed for years about how “Big Tech censorship is the single greatest threat to free speech in America.” And yet, when Big Tech actually censors people at the request of Donald Trump’s Justice Department, and the attorney general literally says she will use the power of the federal government to continue to get “tech companies to eliminate platforms” — it’s crickets. The outrage suddenly disappears. It’s not just from MAGA officials. The double standard is coming from the tech companies, too. Just last year Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee how much he regretted cooperating with the Biden administration. Zuckerberg said federal interference was a “wrong” move that he’d fight in the future and said his company was “ready to push back if something like this happens again.” Well, not only is Zuckerberg not pushing back now, he’s gone radio silent. Funny how that works.
Jen Psaki is the host of "The Briefing with Jen Psaki" airing Tuesdays through Fridays at 9 p.m. EST. She is the former White House press secretary for President Joe Biden.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.
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