A recent report from James O’Keefe and investigative journalism group Project Veritas claims that social media giant Facebook is working to actively censor vaccine concerns across its platform. Whistleblowers claim that content that might promote “vaccine hesitancy,” such as shocking but true news stories, are downranked and censored by the Silicon Valley Masters of the Universe.
Project Veritas reports that two Facebook whistleblowers have revealed a trove of internal Facebook documents detailing a plan to curb “vaccine hesitancy” (VH) on a global scale. The goal of the feature is reportedly to “drastically reduce user exposure” to VH comments.
The program also aims to force a “decrease in other engagement of VH comments including create, likes, reports [and] replies.” This revelation moved two Facebook whistleblowers to come forward to Project Veritas to reveal the full extent of Facebook’s censorship efforts.
One whistleblower noted that the company uses a tier system to determine how a comment should be censored or downranked on the platform. Comments including “shocking stories,” that describe potentially true or actually true events or facts that can raise “safety concerns” are allegedly demoted across the platform.
“They’re trying to control this content before it even makes it onto your page before you even see it,” one Facebook insider stated. “If I lose my job, it’s like, what do I do? But that’s less of a concern to me.”
According to the whistleblowers, regardless of whether or not a comment is true if it goes against the company’s VH system, it’s demoted or hidden from view. “It doesn’t match the narrative,” one insider explained. “The narrative being, get the vaccine, the vaccine is good for you. Everyone should get it. And if you don’t, you will be singled out,”
Project Veritas reached out to Facebook and was provided with a short, sweeping statement which reads: “We proactively announced this policy on our company blog and also updated our help center with this information.”
Read more at Project Veritas here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com
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