We’re starting to learn more about the relationship between Big Tech, government, and censorship. Missouri’s AG Eric Schmitt is predicting the release of damning documents related to a lawsuit he filed that purport to show the “cozy relationship” between Biden administration officials and tech companies.

🚨In May, We filed a landmark lawsuit against top ranking Biden Admin. officials for colluding with social media companies to censor free speech. We have already received documents that show their cozy relationship, and now we’re demanding more. 🧵

— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) September 1, 2022

The Daily Caller’s Vince Coglianese has already made some of those documents public.

🚨 According to newly released emails obtained by state AGs, Facebook & the Biden admin arranged weekly/monthly calls to discuss what to censor on the platform.https://t.co/m8UKZEBby9 pic.twitter.com/u2RRDwcwAU

— Vince Coglianese (@VinceCoglianese) September 1, 2022

These particular emails look to be conversations between Facebook and the CDC in which meetings are discussed to determine which topics might be considered misinformation, and offering the government agency time to refute claims, presumably ones already being shared on the application.

This is all a far cry from what Mark Zuckerberg insisted to Joe Rogan was just a passive attempt to mitigate topics that they thought met hazy suggestions about what the federal government, via the FBI, might deem misinformation. 

Zuckerberg told Rogan: “The background here is that the FBI came to us – some folks on our team – and was like ‘hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert. We thought there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election, we have it on notice that basically there’s about to be some kind of dump that’s similar to that’.”

He said the FBI did not warn Facebook about the Biden story in particular – only that Facebook thought it “fit that pattern”.

It’s going to be a lot harder going forward for tech companies to insist they aren’t involved in censoring speech in violation of the First Amendment when they seem to be taking their cues from government.

I talk about that on this episode, as well as give you some thoughts on a fun little journey called “Jexi” (trailer below). And stay til the end to hear about how the media helped destroy a promising career by turning the catfishing of Manti T’eo into a national scandal.

The show lives on Spotify and you can also find me at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, FCB Radio’s Spreaker, and Deezer.