In the Wake of Twitter Revelations, Don’t Forget Facebook

New Twitter boss Elon Musk is exposing how the federal government outsourced censorship duties to social media platforms. Musk’s Tweet of “my pronouns are/Prosecute Fauci” drew more than one million “likes,” and the billionaire and his followers have a case. 

Doctors Ayanta Bhattacharya (Stanford) and Martin Kulldorff (Harvard) were co-authors with Sunetra Gupta (Oxford) of the Great Barrington Declaration. The authors and signers challenged the draconian lockdown policies of Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984 and a National Institutes of Health (NIH) bureaucrat since 1968.

As Bhattacharya and Kulldorff explain, NIH director Francis Collins tasked Dr. Fauci with a “quick and devastating published takedown” of the Great Barrington scientists without any debate on the facts. Like other actions of Dr. Fauci, who claims to represent science, this attempted takedown has not been subjected to a full investigation. 

So Musk’s tweet is not out of line, despite protests from Fauci apologist Dr. Peter Hotez, who wants criticism of Fauci to be prosecuted as a hate crime. Musk also took heat from former CIA boss John Brennan, a proud Gus Hall voter in 1976, and Watergate veteran John Dean. He charged that Musk, a South African, “has no real understanding of American norms, nor appreciation of public service.” Dean also called for an investigation of Musk on the grounds that he is “dangerous.” 

The legality of government outsourcing censorship to social media platforms is the subject of a court case. In his deposition, Dr. Fauci seemed to forget everything he had done during the pandemic. The recent Twitter revelations are pertinent to the case, but embattled Americans should not forget about Facebook. 

In 2018, CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified that Facebook was cooperating with the investigation by former FBI boss Robert Mueller, but declined to provide details. Asked by Sen. Cory Gardner if the government had ever demanded that Facebook remove a page from the site, Zuckerberg said, “yes, I believe so.” The Facebook CEO did not indicate the page’s content, which government official had demanded its removal, and when the removal occurred. 

CEO Zuckerberg is not eager to reveal whether his company is still taking direction from the government. So if Elon Musk tweeted “investigate Facebook” it would be hard to blame him.