Jim Jordan goes Twitter Files on Facebook

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Chairman of the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, yesterday tried his hand at Twitter Files style reportage. He released a thread concerning Facebook and how that platform has “just obeyed orders” from the Biden administration.

Facebook has taken this treatment before

The Twitter (now X) journalist “Name Redacted” released a thread about Facebook in December of last year. His chief concern: Facebook, like Twitter before Elon Musk bought it, also hired former members of the “intelligence community.” In fact, “Name Redacted,” searching Facebook’s “team” files, found at least 115 high-ranking former three-letter agency employees. All but a relative handful got their jobs after the Election of 2016.

More to the point, Facebook is, and has been for a very long time, a State actor. Facebook, like other platforms, set up a secure portal for government agents to report content for removal. That portal remains active to this day. (If it ever goes down, one can view it on the Wayback Machine.)

Facebook’s nefarious relationship with the intelligence community goes back to the Trump administration. Apparently it had Trump’s blessing at first, an example of Trump’s lack of imagination. In the Election of 2020, he paid for that folly.

Today, Facebook constantly removes content that doesn’t fit the narrative it prefers – or is enforcing on behalf of the government. According to that narrative, coronavirus originated in a Wuhan wet market, vaccines are safe and effective, Democrats are good, Republicans are evil, and the World Economic Forum is either innocent of world takeover plans or else should take over the world for the betterment of humankind. And, of course, Joe Biden won the Election of 2020 fair and square.

The thread

So yesterday at noon, Rep. Jim Jordan dropped a nineteen-tweet thread. This thread details what seem to be findings, so far, of the Weaponization Subcommittee. He ended this thread with a direct threat to hold Facebook in contempt of Congress if they don’t cooperate. Herewith the odd numbers:

Note: the Center for Countering Digital Hate prepared a list of its “Disinformation Dozen.” These were the most prominent opponents of the coronavirus vaccine. They are: Joseph R. Mercola, D.O., Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Ty and Charlene Bollinger, Sherri Tenpenny, Rizza Islam, Rashid Buttar, Erin Elizabeth, Sayer Ji, Kelly Brogan, Christine Northrup, Ben Tapper, and Kevin Jenkins. Sadly, of the four, one (Rashid Buttar) recently passed away.

Skepticism, as well as support and awe, greeted this thread.

Recall that Robert F. Kennedy, Junior, is suing the government over this. In fact Judge Terry A. Doughty just consolidated his case with the larger Missouri v. Biden case.

Analysis

CNAV would like to believe that Chairman Jordan is as serious about this, as are:

• Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and other surviving members of the “Disinformation Dozen,”
• The plaintiffs in Missouri v. Biden, and Senator Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), the original Attorney General of Missouri, and:
• Ourselves.

But Jim Jordan ought to be Speaker of the House now. Furthermore he could and should have pushed harder to challenge the results in the six or seven States that were rife with election irregularities in 2020.

CNAV also suspects he is letting Facebook off too lightly. Maybe he’s trying to push harder against the government by alleging one-sided coercion. But “I was just obeying orders” is an argument that didn’t work for Lt. William Calley after My Lai, nor for the Nazis at Nuremberg. Furthermore, someone has to ask why Facebook set up that secure-access portal for members of the intelligence community. We don’t know how old that portal is; it showed up in the Missouri v. Biden case file. But we do know that Facebook’s relationship with the intelligence community predates Biden.

Facebook took a willing role

We know something else. On the Friday after the Election of 2016, a Google executive held a staff meeting in which she invited staff to lament, with her, Trump’s election. No doubt someone at Facebook did the same. Why didn’t Facebook sue to stop this intimidation? Their protestations of acting under force majeure ring hollow. Not only could and should they have sued the government exactly as Kennedy and the Missouri plaintiffs are now doing, but also – and more to the point – they didn’t have to hire 115 “spooks” after Trump’s election (and in some cases, earlier). That very act suggests that Facebook sympathized with the government to some degree.

Rep. Jordan needs to consult the “Name Redacted” Facebook thread if he really wants to know how that relationship started. That thread gives names and dates, more than Jordan revealed yesterday. In short, Facebook has been entirely too cozy with the government, and they should atone for that as well.