Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gave Dr. Anthony Fauci his personal cell phone number in March 2020, before Facebook began censoring alleged misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic, new court documents reveal.
Documents revealed during discovery have shed new light on the Biden administration’s role in social media censorship during the pandemic. Zuckerberg’s move to give Fauci his phone number demonstrated the intention to have further communications, according to the plaintiffs in a suit against President Joe Biden regarding censorship of information during the pandemic. Biden is being sued by two Attorney Generals, one from Louisiana, the other from Missouri.
Going through the lawsuit against the government for coercing social media companies to censor free speech.
1) Government is not providing Anthony Fauci’s communications
2) Why would Zuckerberg give Fauci his personal cell phone number in March 2020? https://t.co/1cB7Us8oDg pic.twitter.com/ZVdvC1DivG
— Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) September 5, 2022
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, disclosed that Fauci was one of 32 federal officials that may have communicated with the company about its COVID-19 misinformation policy, according to the court documents. At the time, Fauci was serving as both the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and top medical adviser to Biden. (RELATED: ‘God Gave Us Two Arms’ So We Can Get COVID And Flu Shots At The Same Time, White House COVID Coordinator Says)
According to the plaintiffs, government officials have failed to produce certain communications between Fauci and Zuckerberg, among others, sought during discovery. Earlier documents unveiled that employees of Facebook, Twitter, and Google communicated directly with government officials when determining what information to censor on their platforms.
Fauci himself was responsible for propagating misinformation at various points during the pandemic, including claiming that vaccinated individuals could not spread the coronavirus and that masks provided no protection against spread.