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A leading Biden administration official said Tuesday that the nation’s cyber agency is not responsible for online censorship, despite a federal judge ordering the official to face questions from state attorneys general about her role in policing social media.
Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said her organization is not stamping out internet content ahead of next week’s midterm elections and disputed that her team is working with tech companies on censorship decisions.
“We don’t work with the platforms on what they do around content. That is entirely their decision. It is their terms of service,” Ms. Easterly said at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event. “And I want to be very clear about this: We do not censor information. Securing elections is a nonpartisan activity.”
Ms. Easterly’s claims stand in stark contrast to allegations from Missouri and Louisiana’s attorneys general, who told a federal judge that Ms. Easterly oversees the federal government’s efforts to censor social media.
U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty ordered in October that Ms. Easterly or another CISA official focused on misinformation and disinformation must face questions from Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and others who filed a lawsuit alleging that the Biden administration privately encouraged digital censorship.
Judge Doughty said in his order that the plaintiffs told him Ms. Easterly “oversees the ‘nerve center’ of the federal government’s efforts to censor social media users.”
The plaintiffs alleged that Ms. Easterly’s cyber agency disclosed extensive conversations and meetings with social media platforms in response to the plaintiffs’ initial questions, and the plaintiffs said Ms. Easterly’s text messages show her knowledge of the government’s scheme, according to the judge.
Ms. Easterly said Tuesday that her team is not engaged in censorship of any kind. Instead, she said her team works to educate Americans about disinformation tactics, provides election literacy and amplifies the voices of state and local elections officials.
“We do not censor anything,” Ms. Easterly said. “What social media platforms do, what the news does, is entirely their decision.”
The Biden administration, however, has pressured social media platforms to do its bidding, according to records unearthed in litigation.
For example, Missouri’s attorney general previously published on Twitter an email showing a White House official asking Facebook employees in July 2021 to remove an Instagram account that appeared to parody Dr. Anthony Fauci. A Facebook official replied that they would do so.
Allegations of the Biden administration’s social media censorship extend far beyond Ms. Easterly’s agency.
Mr. Landry and Mr. Schmitt, who is also running for the U.S. Senate, have named 54 individuals and 13 federal agencies as defendants in their litigation.
