America First Legal has released additional documents from its litigation against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These documents reveal the complete onboarding materials Facebook used to train CDC employees on their government censorship portal aimed at blocking free speech related to "Covid & Vaccine Misinformation."
Many Americans recall the significant level of censorship by the Biden-Harris Administration in 2021. Public health officials frequently revised their guidance, resulting in situations where repeating information that was considered true a week prior could lead to account suspensions. The administration's efforts to manage rapidly changing information during a global pandemic highlighted the importance of the First Amendment.
The documents show how Facebook responded to pressure from the Biden-Harris White House, including from Rob Flaherty, a current senior Harris Campaign staffer, to remove specific posts. This release follows earlier documents that exposed the United Kingdom's influence on U.S. censorship policy and Mark Zuckerberg’s admission that Facebook engaged in censorship due to pressure from the White House.
The Intercept had previously released excerpts from this slide deck, but America First Legal is now publishing it in full for the first time.
Part A: Censorship Made Easy
The documents include an onboarding presentation given by Facebook employees to CDC staff on May 19, 2021. During this session, Facebook trained CDC staff on using its "Government Reporting System." This training came after demands from senior Biden-Harris White House officials were exposed by the House Judiciary Committee. According to their “End-to-end workflow,” if there were "Government requests," then "Facebook processes."
These slides illustrate how closely the CDC and Big Tech coordinated with each other to censor speech they disagreed with. The onboarding included a demonstration of a “government user experience.” As part of this workflow, Facebook streamlined the process for government entities to censor American citizens.
Step 1 – Access to Account
Initially, Facebook granted access through its CRS system. The slides showed CDC employees how to sign up, register, and log into this new portal. Only government-issued or law enforcement email addresses were allowed access.
Step 2 – Submit Posts with Links
Before creating this portal, the CDC sent spreadsheets via email with links for Facebook to remove. With this new system, post reporting became standardized and fed into one system. This method also created a loophole in government recordkeeping requirements, allowing actors to evade federal laws requiring meticulous records and preventing public oversight through tools like FOIA.
CDC employees could select reasons for reporting posts such as “COVID Misinformation,” “Vaccine Discouragement,” and “COVID Vaccine Misinformation.” Authorized users could refer up to twenty links at a time for removal across Facebook’s platforms and submit additional comments.
Step 3 – Confirmation and Job Reference Number
The final step involved receiving a confirmation message along with a ticket or reference number on what was called “Final landing page: transparency.” Users would also have access to a Help Center.
Part B: Insights into Facebook’s Community Standards
The briefing summarized Facebook’s Community Standards which stated that they only removed information deemed false by public health authorities. Despite instances where these authorities were later proven wrong, any determination by the Biden-Harris administration led Facebook to begin censoring speech.
Facebook censored statements making false claims about masks or discouraging social distancing—policies now questioned based on subsequent evidence. Repeat offenders faced reduced account reach or removal altogether.
Since the beginning of the pandemic until just before this presentation was given, Facebook claimed it had removed over 16 million pieces of content based solely on governmental declarations of falsity.
Gene Hamilton, Executive Director of America First Legal said:
“These documents show–definitively–the architecture behind the systems that political appointees and governmental bureaucrats used to unconstitutionally censor free speech online. The right to speak–to even question authority–is so fundamental yet in name of public health crisis Biden Administration officials worked with major companies silence dissent.”
Hamilton emphasized that Americans need review these documents understand extent leaders Washington violated First Amendment rights during pandemic.