Our founders were very smart people. But unfortunately, even they could not fully see how adept the government would become at manipulating the flow of information. They also did not imagine that the media would choose to become a propaganda machine for political parties within the government.

Documents obtained via congressional subpoena show that President Joe Biden’s administration exerted pressure on Google-owned YouTube to suppress vaccine information.

No one is surprised. But you would think that the Constitution would prohibit the government from making that decision. Don’t you think?

“Internal docs from Google (YouTube’s parent company) obtained by @JudiciaryGOP and @Weaponization show that the Biden White House wanted Americans censored,” Rep. Jim Jordan wrote on X.

On April 12, 2021, Rob Flaherty—Biden’s Director of Digital Strategy—emailed Google wanting to know how YouTube could better “crackdown on vaccine misinformation” and to discuss “ways the White House can partner in your product work.”

One company employee said “Rob’s questions were very [YouTube] focused” and that the White House “dug in on our decision-making for borderline content” that doesn’t “violate our Community Guidelines.”

Flaherty has since left the administration to help run Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign as a Deputy Campaign Manager, according to Fox News.

"…there is a very high degree of interest now coming from the White House regarding vaccine misinfo/vaccine hesitancy and our work around borderline content," the email from YouTube read.

"Unfortunately, the role of tech in addressing vaccine hesitancy is about to come under a massive spotlight particularly as the supply of the vaccine is soon to outpace demand," the April 2021 correspondence added.

"We were hoping to get something on the books in the next two weeks or so to prevent anything from potentially spiraling out of control," the email stated, according to Fox News.

The release of the documents dubbed the “YouTube Files,” follows a similar set of documents related to Facebook’s content moderation released in July.

In one email, an unnamed Facebook employee said “We are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the White House and the press, to remove more COVID-19 vaccine-discouraging content.”

Free speech and free expression are vital for creativity and innovation. Censorship does the opposite of that, as it essentially demands compliance and conformity with the obstruction of new ideas. It also prevents the flow of knowledge as it destroys the exchange of those ideas.

Eventually, truth becomes "self-evident." But when we see the government working to censor certain claims or ideas, that is not truth. That is power.

I think it is safe to assume that the Government cannot get around the First Amendment by using third parties to do their dirty work because they could not do so directly.