News round-up, July 6, 2023
Quote of the day…
“President Harry Truman: “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one place to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”
The Telegraph UK / TodayCensorship and Freedom of Speech
Capatilist vs. Communist Theory on Speech and Press Freedoms
https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/2007-08/communism-computing-china/censorship.htmlFreedom of information, speech and the press is firmly rooted in the structures of modern western democratic thought. With limited restrictions, every capitalist democracy has legal provisions protecting these rights. Even the UN Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the general assembly in 1948 declares "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers" (although as Article 19, it comes after the right to hold property, be married and hold a nationality, among others). As such, western ethics heavily favor the nearly unfettered rights to speech, press and information. Such rights might be tailored to protect state security from a Lockesian social contract perspective, but a Kantian categorical outlook surely provides for a society in which everyone can speak freely is better to one in which no one can speak freely.
Communism, as a primarily economic system, is much quieter on the issue of individual human rights. Two conflicting positions on these freedoms arise with analysis of communist theory. The first is an argument against individual freedoms. In a communist society, the individual's best interests are indistinguishable from the society's best interest. Thus, the idea of an individual freedom is incompatible with a communist ideology. The only reason to hold individual speech and information rights would be to better the society, a condition which would likely be met only in certain instances rather than across time, making the default a lack of freedom.
On the other hand, the idea of perfect equality in communism argues for a right of expression and press. Since each individual is equally important, each should have an equally valid point of view. Indeed, Marx defended the right to a freedom of the press, arguing in 1842 that restrictions, like censorship were instituted by the bourgeois elite. He claimed censorship is a tool of the powerful to oppress the powerless.
Indeed, many implementations of communism favored a constitutional democracy, albeit usually with only one party. Before and at the creation of many communist countries, a desire for freedom from the oppression of the proletariat by the bourgeois translated into strongly voiced support for individual freedoms for speech, dissent and information. Chairman Mao, in encouraging his countrymen to prepare for WWII more than a decade before he came to power, proclaimed "[the people] should subject ... the party in power, to severe criticism, and press and impel it to give up its one-party, one-class dictatorship and act according to the opinions of the people....The second matter concerns freedom of speech, assembly and association for the people. Without such freedom, it will be impossible to carry out the democratic reconstruction of the political system." In 1945, closer yet to his assumption of power, Mao proclaimed, "Two principles must be observed: (1) say all you know and say it without reserve; (2) Don't blame the speaker but take his words as a warning. Unless the principle of 'Don't blame the speaker" is observed genuinely and not falsely, the result will not be 'Say all you know and say it without reserve." More striking still is the fact that this latter quote is recorded in "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung," more commonly known as the Little Red Book, a veritable bible of Chinese communism considered infallible during Mao's lifetime.
Thus, on the balance, it seems communist theory is compatible with freedoms of speech, information and protest, but it is far from a fundamental right such as it is under democracy and individual-centered ethics systems like that of Kant and Locke. Freedom of information should only be granted when communist society as a whole is likely to benefit. In this light, it makes much more sense that communist leaders, while still a persecuted opposition philosophy, would strongly support speech rights and later reject them when communism becomes the ruling system. At that point, access to oppositional speech and information is no longer beneficial to the communist state, and thus no longer needed in communist philosophy.
China in Practice
Modern day China, more than almost any other country in the world, severely restricts its citizens freedom of speech and expression. Oddly enough, Article 35 of the current Chinese constitution, written in 1982, stipulates "Citizens of the PRC have freedom of speech, publication, assembly, association, procession and demonstration." Up to the advent of the internet, the Chinese government had been able to successfully curtail this freedom in nearly all its physical manifestations. China has a tightly controlled traditional media, China forces all published information to be from official sources and to be vetted through the state. Ironically, the communist state founded on the backbone of Marx's words stipulates a minimum personal income of $35,000 dollars to be able to publish print media, an income level which could easily be considered bourgeois by Chinese standards. China also has strong restrictions against assembly and worship, demonstrated over the last few days with a crackdown on Tibetan protesters. Many assumed the government's ability to crack down on dissent would be destroyed by the increased prominence of a dynamic and nearly infinite internet space. However, China has adapted it's censorship policies to the internet, and by many standards managed to stay ahead of the curve in restricting free speech in the digital realm.
Internet use in China is blossoming. As of 2004 over 94 million users were online and in 2007 the China Internet Network Information Center, considered the premier source for measuring Chinese internet use, pegged the number of Chinese users at 210 million. This number will only grow in the foreseeable future, with the booming mobile market, more and more a popular portal to the internet, estimated to hit 600 million by 2010.
China Presents: The Internet (This realm has been modified from it's original version. It has been formatted to fit The Party's view of the world.)
This internet usage boom presents a variety of new challenges to a government adept at censoring traditional media types. The internet is much more vast than the physical realm controlled by China. It is not susceptible to the traditional local control structure relying on dedicated neighborhood party leaders to enforce edicts from the centralized government. Furthermore, the barriers to traditional information distribution of geography, money, and access to printing machinery, are no longer an issue in a digital realm where a cell phone or a few cents can buy time on the internet and allow anyone to blog their opinions.
China has responded with a vast centralized censorship program. One study by a group at Harvard in 2002, "found blocking of almost every kind of content. If it exists, China blocks at least some of it." The blocking has traditionally been centered on political and opinion based sites. Some of the most likely to be blocked are related to independence movements in Taiwan and Tibet, protest groups like the Falun-Gong, political parties opposed to the state, and sites on democracy. For the majority of Chinese web-users, these controversial topic-specific sites are not part of their daily internet routine, which focuses mostly on sports, entertainment and gaming sites. These users may have only the vaguest notion of the filtering being conducted by the government. Recently, however, the Great Firewall of China has evoked increased backblash as it has begun to block more popular websites like the photo-sharing site, Flickr and selected MySpace pages .
China's filtering and censorship program is regarded as the most sophisticated and effective in the world. It includes some 30,000 censors as well as technology, often provided by foreign companies like google and yahoo who are required to censor their results or be censored themselves. The filtering effort is in conjunction with a strict criminal prosecution system working with laws that forbid the publication of anything "(i) Denying the guiding status of Marxism, Mao Zedong Thought, or Deng Xiaoping Theory; (ii) Violating the Party line, guiding principles, or policies; (vii) Anything else that violates Party propaganda discipline or violates national publishing administration regulations." These laws are enforced with the aid of laws requiring all ISPs and internet cafes to record and store information about all users and their internet use.
Conclusions
It appears that the modern Chinese government has no interest in conforming to the platitudes of free speech, press and dissent espoused by Marx, Mao and it's own active constitution. While dissent may seem compatible within the framework of theoretical communism, it appears to be at odds with the communism practiced in China. In revoking its founders statements, the government's position may seem to oppose the spirit of communism; yet, the choices make perfect sense when considered in the framework of making decisions not on a priori ethical assumptions like democracies aspire to do, but rather on the basis of what is best for the communist society at the moment. While the world wide web may yet be too much for the well-oiled Chinese censorship machine to handle, the government has done remarkably well so far in providing a slimmer, more China-friendly version of the internet to its citizens.
Most read…
Largest-ever wind project off U.S. shores just got a green light
Ocean Wind 1, which could power hundreds of thousands of New Jersey homes, is the Biden administration’s third approval of a large offshore wind energy project
The Washington Post By Kate Selig, July 5, 2023 Yellen Faces a Diplomatic Test in Her High-Stakes Visit to China
The Treasury secretary will need to defend export controls and tariffs while explaining that the United States does not aim to harm China’s economy.
NYT By *Alan Rappeport, July 6, 2023Major banks yet to match EU with nuclear green label - study
The European Union (EU) has recently included nuclear power plants in its roster of environmentally sustainable investments. However, there is dissent among certain member countries regarding this decision. A study recommends that banks revise their green bond regulations to align with the EU's stance on this matter.
REUTERS by Simon Jessop and Kate Abnett, Editing by Germán & Co, July 6, 2023NOW / Belarus leader Lukashenko says Prigozhin is back in Russia
State television heavily criticized Prigozhin yesterday, vehemently stating that the investigation is ongoing.
Reuters By Guy Faulconbridge, editing by Germán & Co, July 6, 2023Inside the campaign branded the ‘largest attack against free speech in US history’
Campaigners argue the White House overstepped its power and limited free speech
The Telegraph By James Titcomb, 6 July 2023 
At the COA Spring Gala 2023, Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES and Chairman of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, presented President Lacalle Pou with the prestigious Gold Insigne. This award was given in recognition of President Lacalle Pou's outstanding leadership in successfully transforming Uruguay into a prominent technology and innovation hub, all while upholding a thriving democracy and robust economy.
This photo from 2016 shows offshore wind turbines near Block Island, R.I. The Biden administration on Tuesday approved a large offshore wind energy project to be built off the coast of New Jersey, which faces local opposition. (Michael Dwyer/AP)Largest-ever wind project off U.S. shores just got a green light
Ocean Wind 1, which could power hundreds of thousands of New Jersey homes, is the Biden administration’s third approval of a large offshore wind energy project
The Washington Post By Kate Selig, July 5, 2023 The Biden administration gave a green light Wednesday to the largest-ever offshore wind project the U.S. has yet approved, paving the way for dozens of turbines that could eventually power hundreds of thousands of New Jersey homes.
The approval of Ocean Wind 1′s plan for construction and operations is a milestone for the project, which has faced fierce opposition from Republican lawmakers and residents in New Jersey. The project would be the state’s first utility-scale offshore wind farm and could power as many as half a million homes with clean energy, according to Orsted, the Danish energy company developing the project.
“The announcement of Ocean Wind 1’s Record of Decision today represents a pivotal inflection point not just for Orsted, but for New Jersey’s nation-leading offshore wind industry as a whole,” said New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a proponent of offshore wind energy, in a release.
Construction is already underway on the other two large offshore wind projects approved by the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).
The Vineyard Wind 1 project off Massachusetts and the South Fork Wind project off Rhode Island and New York are expected to generate about 800 megawatts and 130 megawatts of energy, respectively.
Ocean Wind 1 is the largest project of the three. Orsted projects that Ocean Wind 1 will deliver 1,100 megawatts of energy from up to 98 General Electric Haliade-X wind turbines placed approximately 15 miles off the coast of southern New Jersey. Orsted says the project could power approximately 500,000 homes, though BOEM has a slightly lower projection of roughly 380,000.
“The [approval] represents a critical step toward harnessing clean, renewable offshore wind to power New Jersey’s homes and businesses,” said Allison McLeod, the senior policy director of New Jersey League of Conservation Voters.
The Department of the Interior described the approval as a step forward for the offshore wind industry and as constituting “significant progress” toward the Biden administration’s goal of developing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030 in a release.
“The Biden-Harris administration has worked to jump-start the offshore wind industry across the country — and today’s approval for the Ocean Wind 1 project is another milestone in our efforts to create good-paying union jobs while combating climate change and powering our nation,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in the release.
But to reach the administration’s climate goals, proposed wind projects up and down the East Coast will need to overcome steep obstacles, including opposition from Republicans and local residents. The resistance is especially fierce in Cape May County, where a number of coastal communities will be able to spot the wind turbines from the shore.
Residents have joined groups such as Protect Our Coast NJ to rally against the project on the basis of concerns ranging from the deaths of whales to the impact that the turbines could have on local tourism. These activist groups have taken legal action against the wind project.
The county has also enlisted lawyers in its effort to halt the offshore wind development. In June, the county voted to add an additional two law firms to its legal team to challenge federal regulatory decisions and the permits that the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection issued to Orsted.
Former New Jersey Superior Court Judge Michael J. Donohue, who is serving as special counsel to the county, said Cape May County is reviewing BOEM’s decision and “will determine what avenues for legal challenges, if any, exist to pursue.”
In addition to legal challenges, Ocean Wind 1 has suffered from rising interest rates and inflation. The New Jersey legislature narrowly approved a bill last week to let Orsted keep federal tax credits in an effort to address what lawmakers described as lingering economic harms from inflation and the covid-19 pandemic.
Despite these setbacks, Orsted said in a release that with the BOEM approval, the project remains on track to begin onshore construction this fall and ramp up offshore construction in 2024. The project is expected to begin commercial operations in 2025, according to the company.
…”We proudly announce that several AES companies have been certified as Great Places to Work, including AES El Salvador, AES Dominicana, AES México, AES Panamá, and AES Puerto Rico. AES Servicios América ranked 3rd in the Great Place to Work for Women Argentina 2023. We're committed to providing an inclusive and empowering work environment for all, and our employees are our most valuable asset. Let's collaborate for a brighter, cleaner, and more sustainable future.
Ricardo Manuel Falú
Senior Vice President, Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer and President, New Energy Technologies SBU
Image by Germán & CoYellen Faces a Diplomatic Test in Her High-Stakes Visit to China
The Treasury secretary will need to defend export controls and tariffs while explaining that the United States does not aim to harm China’s economy.
NYT By *Alan Rappeport, July 6, 2023*Alan Rappeport covers the Treasury Department and is traveling with Secretary Janet L. Yellen to China this week.Since then, Ms. Yellen has emerged as a voice of moderation in the Biden administration, embracing the mantle of economic pragmatism as the world economy copes with inflation and sluggish growth. The Treasury secretary has expressed objections to China’s record on human rights, called for diversifying American supply chains and acknowledged that protecting national security is paramount.
But she has also been the administration’s most prominent proponent of maintaining economic ties with China, arguing against tariffs, urging caution on new restrictions on investment in China and, most recently, warning that decoupling the two economies would be “disastrous.”
Set to arrive in Beijing on Thursday for a four-day visit, Ms. Yellen will be navigating those conflicting interests in real time. The trip, her first as Treasury secretary, represents Ms. Yellen’s most challenging test of economic diplomacy to date as she attempts to ease years of festering distrust between the United States and China.
For Ms. Yellen, the challenge will be to convince her Chinese counterparts that the bevy of U.S. measures blocking access to sensitive technology such as semiconductors in the name of national security are not intended to inflict harm on the Chinese economy. That will not be easy, as both countries continue to erect new barriers to trade and investment.
The Biden administration is preparing several new restrictions on U.S. technology trade with China, including potential limits on advanced chips and U.S. investment in the country. Forthcoming rules also appear likely to clamp down on Chinese companies’ access to U.S. cloud computing services, according to people familiar with the matter, in an effort to close a loophole in earlier restrictions on China’s access to advanced chips used for artificial intelligence.
This week Beijing retaliated against the Biden administration’s limits on semiconductors, announcing it would restrict the export of certain critical minerals used in the production of some chips.
On Monday, ahead of her trip, Ms. Yellen met in Washington with Xie Feng, China’s ambassador to the United States, and laid out “issues of concern” in what the Treasury Department described as a frank conversation. According to a summary of the conversation released by the Chinese Embassy, Mr. Xie explained China’s objections to America’s trade practices and urged the United States to take steps to resolve them.
In her meetings in Beijing, Ms. Yellen is expected to make the case that the Biden administration’s actions to make the U.S. economy less reliant on China and to entice more production of critical materials inside the United States are narrowly focused measures that are not meant to instigate a broader economic war. China continues to hold nearly $1 trillion of U.S. debt and is America’s third-largest trading partner, making an abrupt severing of ties potentially calamitous for both countries and the global economy.
“I think she is going to go as the sober voice of reason to say this is not about containment,” said Tim Adams, the president of the Institute of International Finance and a former Treasury under secretary for international affairs. “It’s really about setting the tone of cooperation and showing that the U.S. remains interested in being engaged with China on trade and investment.”
Through the past several decades, the Treasury has consistently been the American government agency that has tried hardest to maintain friendly relations with China. Wall Street firms, a key constituency for the department, tried through the 1990s to win access to the Chinese market through China’s negotiations to join the World Trade Organization. After China joined the W.T.O. in 2002, Wall Street firms and the Treasury Department pushed for China to move faster in actually opening its markets.
Beijing finally agreed in November 2017 to allow foreign investors to hold much larger stakes in insurance, banking and securities businesses, as part of a series of concessions made in an unsuccessful attempt to head off a trade war with the Trump administration.
While it is her first trip to Beijing as Treasury secretary, Ms. Yellen is no stranger to China. In her role as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, she had regular contact with Chinese officials, and as chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018 she would meet with officials from China’s central bank at international gatherings.
The Zhoushan port in the Chinese province of Zhejiang. China is America’s third-largest trading partner, making an abrupt severing of ties potentially calamitous for both countries and the global economy.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Ms. Yellen’s credentials as an academic economist have made her a welcome emissary in Beijing.
“They like her very much because she looks at the world in economic terms, and they’re extremely comfortable with that,” said Craig Allen, the president of the U.S.-China Business Council.
Michael Pillsbury, a senior fellow for China strategy at the Heritage Foundation, said that Chinese officials viewed Ms. Yellen as a voice of reason and that they hoped she would be able to make the case to others in the Biden administration that the United States should back away from new investment restrictions and roll back tariffs.
“They want Janet to help,” said Mr. Pillsbury, who was a top adviser on China in the Trump administration. “They see her as a friend of China.”
Ms. Yellen does not direct trade policy, but she has been critical of the tariffs that President Donald J. Trump imposed on more than $300 billion of Chinese imports.
“Tariffs are taxes on consumers,” Ms. Yellen told The New York Times in 2021. “In some cases it seems to me what we did hurt American consumers, and the type of deal that the prior administration negotiated really didn’t address in many ways the fundamental problems we have with China.”
Those tariffs remain under review by the Office of the United States Trade Representative, and Ms. Yellen has acknowledged that they are unlikely to be rolled back anytime soon.
Ms. Yellen’s ability to forge deeper ties with Beijing could be complicated by the current political moment.
Concerns about China have grown after a spy balloon traversed the United States before being shot down over the Atlantic Ocean. The upcoming presidential election is also likely to escalate anti-China rhetoric as candidates look to paint themselves as tough on China, often a winning campaign message. And Republicans have been expressing criticism of greater U.S. outreach to China.
Ms. Yellen’s visit follows a trip last month by Antony J. Blinken, the secretary of state. John F. Kerry, the special climate envoy, is expected to make a trip to Beijing soon.
Representative Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who leads the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, accused the Biden administration of slow-walking export restrictions targeting Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant, and sanctions against Chinese officials responsible for human rights violations against Uyghurs in Xinjiang. He argued that China’s behavior had gotten worse while the Biden administration pursued “zombie engagement” with the Chinese Communist Party.
“After Secretary Blinken left Beijing with little to show for his trip, doubling down by sending additional cabinet-level officials like Secretary Yellen would only perpetuate this vicious cycle,” Mr. Gallagher said.
With Republican presidential candidates like Nikki Haley warning that China is “preparing for war” with the United States, there is additional urgency for Ms. Yellen to find ways to keep the lines of communication with her Chinese counterparts open even if her trip does not yield any major breakthroughs.
“The Chinese are very aware of the U.S. election cycle, and in my mind this is partly why they have been willing to be a little more open,” said Eswar Prasad, a former head of the International Monetary Fund’s China division. “Both Secretary Yellen and the Chinese would like to get back to a place where they see at least parts of the economic relationship as a positive-sum game, rather than a zero-sum game.”
Image: Germán & CoCooperate with objective and ethical thinking…
An excavator works near Hungary's Paks nuclear power plant to prepare the new Paks II construction site in Paks, Hungary, May 9, 2023. REUTERS/Marton Monus/File Photo / Editing by Germán & CoMajor banks yet to match EU with nuclear green label - study
The European Union (EU) has recently included nuclear power plants in its roster of environmentally sustainable investments. However, there is dissent among certain member countries regarding this decision. A study recommends that banks revise their green bond regulations to align with the EU's stance on this matter.
REUTERS by Simon Jessop and Kate Abnett, Editing by Germán & Co, July 6, 2023LONDON/BRUSSELS, July 6 (Reuters) - None of the world's 30 major banks have explicitly included nuclear energy in their criteria for issuing green or sustainability-linked bonds, researchers said on Thursday, despite an EU decision last year to label it as sustainable.
The European Union decided last year to include nuclear power plants in its list of investments that can be labelled and marketed as green. The move aimed to guide investors towards climate-friendly technologies, but split EU countries who disagree on atomic energy's green credentials.
So far, banks have not followed the EU's lead in their own green bond rules, according to an analysis by Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy. The study looked at the 30 banks deemed systemically important by the Financial Stability Board.
Of those banks, 17 had explicitly excluded nuclear energy from their green financing frameworks, while 12 had frameworks that were silent on nuclear, and one had no such framework, the researchers said.
The EU's own green bond standard includes nuclear power. But exclusion from banks' frameworks could restrict the sector's access to a fast-growing pool of sustainable capital.
Green bond issuance hit a record high globally in both the first and second quarters of 2023, Refinitiv data showed.
Research co-author Matt Bowen said he was surprised nuclear energy was so often excluded from banks' green finance guidelines, given its potential contribution to fighting climate change.
Nuclear energy does not produce climate-damaging CO2 emissions in the same way that fossil fuels such as oil and gas do, but it does produce radioactive waste.
Countries including Germany and Austria oppose the energy source and lobbied against the EU's decision to label it as green, citing concerns including waste disposal, the potential risk of accidents and long delays to recent nuclear projects.
The International Energy Agency has said global nuclear capacity would need to roughly double by 2050, if the world is to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…
…“More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko walks before a press conference in Minsk, Belarus July 6, 2023. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/ Editing by Germán & CoNOW / Belarus leader Lukashenko says Prigozhin is back in Russia
State television heavily criticized Prigozhin yesterday, vehemently stating that the investigation is ongoing.
Reuters By Guy Faulconbridge, editing by Germán & Co, July 6, 2023MINSK, July 6 (Reuters) - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who last month brokered a deal to end an armed mutiny in Russia, said on Thursday that Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was no longer in Belarus.
Lukashenko said on June 27 that Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner Group whose fighters briefly captured a southern Russian city and marched towards Moscow, had arrived in Belarus as part of the June 24 deal that defused the crisis.
But Lukashenko told reporters on Thursday: "As for Prigozhin, he's in St Petersburg (Russia's second biggest city). He is not on the territory of Belarus."
A business jet linked to Prigozhin left St Petersburg for Moscow on Wednesday and was heading for southern Russia on Thursday, according to flight tracking data, but it was not clear if the mercenary chief was on board.
Lukashenko said an offer for Wagner to station some of its fighters in Belarus - a prospect that has alarmed neighbouring NATO countries - still stands.
He said he did not see it as a risk to Belarus and did not believe Wagner fighters would ever take up arms against his country.
Lukashenko has spoken proudly of his role in ending the armed mutiny, which Russian President Vladimir Putin has said could have plunged Russia into civil war. Last week Lukashenko said he had persuaded Putin not to "wipe out" Prigozhin.
But much remains unclear about the terms of the deal Lukashenko brokered, and whether it is being implemented as agreed.
Russian state TV on Wednesday launched a fierce attack on Prigozhin and said an investigation into what had happened was still being vigorously pursued.
Source: The Telegraph UK Editing by Germán & CoInside the campaign branded the ‘largest attack against free speech in US history’
Campaigners argue the White House overstepped its power and limited free speech
The Telegraph By James Titcomb, 6 July 2023 As the Delta variant spread across the US in July 2021, Clarke Humphrey, an official at the White House’s Covid-19 response team, emailed two Facebook executives asking them to take down an Instagram account impersonating Anthony Fauci.
“Hi there – any way we can get this pulled down? It is not actually one of ours,” Humphrey wrote. Less than a minute later, Facebook responded: “Yep, on it!”
The account imitating the then chief medical adviser was duly deleted – far quicker than if it had been reported through Instagram’s standard channels.
The emails are among those in a cache of more than 15,000 gathered by state prosecutors in a lawsuit against the US officials including Joe Biden, seeking to shut down contact between the White House and social media giants.
Last year, Louisiana and Missouri’s attorneys general, alongside a number of prominent anti-vaccine campaigners, sued the White House, seeking a ruling that the communication violated US free speech laws.
On Tuesday – the Independence Day timing may or may not have been a coincidence – a judge appointed by Donald Trump issued a stunning injunction forbidding a lengthy list of White House officials from making contact with social media companies to report misinformation.
The order bars individuals including Xavier Becerra, the US health secretary, Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general, and Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House Press Secretary, among dozens more officials, from “urging, encouraging , pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms”.
In a 155-page ruling, the judge, Terry Doughty, said the case “arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history” and compared the administration’s actions to the “Ministry of Truth”, the repressive censorship authority in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.
The Biden administration is likely to appeal the injunction – which is not final – and said it did not order posts to be taken down. However, it is a major victory for campaigners who have argued that democratic governments overstepped their power during the pandemic, including restrictions on free speech.
The trove of emails, obtained through legal requests, contain no single smoking gun. Instead they illustrate ongoing pressure from officials at various US government agencies to pressure YouTube, Twitter, and – in particular – Facebook parent Meta to act faster and more aggressively on anti-vaccine posts, conspiracy theories and the lab-leak theory.
Sir Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister and Meta’s president of global affairs, was intimately involved in the White House discussions, sending regular reports on how the company was tackling misinformation and pushing back on public pronouncements from officials criticising Meta.
In one phone call between Murthy and Sir Nick, the surgeon general asked Meta to do more to tackle misinformation. In another email in 2021, Andy Slavitt, the White House’s senior Covid-19 adviser, emailed Sir Nick complaining about a post from the Fox News host Tucker Carlson expressing scepticism about vaccines.
“Number one on Facebook. Sigh,” Slavitt wrote, according to legal documents. Sir Nick responded saying the post did not break Facebook’s rules, but was being demoted so that fewer people would see it in news feeds. Rob Flaherty, the White House’s director of digital strategy, responded saying: “There’s 40,000 shares on the video. . . . How effective is that?”
He added: “Not for nothing but last time we did this dance, it ended in an insurrection,” referring to the January 6 attack on the Capitol. In other emails, Sir Nick apologised for not responding to posts that broke Facebook’s rules more quickly, the documents say.
After Biden made an offhand remark accusing Facebook of “killing people” by allowing posts criticising the vaccine, Sir Nick texted Murthy, the surgeon general. “It’s not great to be accused of killing people,” he wrote. Nonetheless, at a subsequent meeting, Facebook agreed to “do more” to tackle Covid misinformation.
Despite the occasional resistance from Facebook, emails published as part of the lawsuit often showed White House officials berating social media companies, who were deferential in response. “We think there is considerably more we can do in ‘partnership’ with you and your team to drive behaviour,” one executive wrote.
Officials were also active in encouraging Twitter and YouTube to remove content, according to the order. In the early weeks of the administration, Flaherty emailed Twitter asking them to remove a parody account linked to Biden’s granddaughter, writing: “Please remove this account immediately.” It was gone 45 minutes later.
Humphrey asked the company to remove an anti-vaccine tweet by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Later that year, Christian Tom, a deputy director of digital strategy, asked Twitter to remove a digitally altered video of Jill Biden that made it appear as if the First Lady was swearing at children. Twitter initially said it did not violate its policies, but later removed the clip.
YouTube, meanwhile, was asked why it was “funnelling people into hesitancy” over the vaccine. The companies did not comment.
The White House denied that it had forced social media companies to take material offline.
“Our consistent view remains that social media platforms have a critical responsibility to take account of the effects their platforms are having on the American people, but make independent choices about the information they present,” it said.
But as the lawsuit argues, the conversations were not taking place in a vacuum. They came as debates raged across Congress about whether to remove “Section 230” protections enjoyed by social media companies that limit responsibility for what their users post, and as the US government pursued lawsuits against Facebook and Google seeking to break the companies up.
Whatever the case’s ultimate outcome, its plaintiffs may believe they have already been successful. A “Disinformation Governance Board” set up last April, which prompted the lawsuit, was disbanded in August.
After reporting by The Telegraph, the UK Government is under pressure to shut down its own Counter Disinformation Unit, which passed information to social media companies to encourage them to take down posts. And Elon Musk, a champion of conservative voices, now owns Twitter.
In his conclusion, the judge quoted the late Democrat president Harry Truman: “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one place to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”