The following article is a supplement to the MRC Report: The Biden Administration Waged War on Free Speech with 57 Censorship Initiatives.
Initiative #42: The Trust & Safety Team
Type of Censorship: Direct Action
Agencies Involved:
- Department of Commerce
- Census Bureau
- Trust & Safety Team
- Census Bureau
Summary:
Under President Joe Biden and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, the Census Bureau’s Trust & Safety Team focused on identifying and censoring speech the Commerce Department claimed was mis- or dis-information. The Team met secretly with the leadership of Big Tech giant Facebook (now Meta) to instruct what “topic types” should be censored. The Team, sometimes in conjunction with the Center for Disease Control, continued to communicate frequently with Meta. It also sent alerts to Meta’s censorship partner PolitiFact on what messages to target for suppression.
Key Individuals:
- Stephen Buckner, Census Bureau Acting Associate Director for Communications
- Steven Dillingham, Census Bureau Director
- Ron Jarmin, Census Bureau Deputy Director
- Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce
- Zack Schwartz, Census Bureau Division Chief
- Jennifer Shopkorn, Census Bureau Senior Advisor for Communications
