The documents, acquired through a source close to the House Judiciary Committee, reveal White House Director of Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty emailed Google team members in April 2021 to “connect […] about the work you’re doing to combat vaccine hesitancy, but also crack down on vaccine misinformation,” according to the documents.
Flaherty continued, asking for trends surrounding vaccine misinformation on the website, while offering government assistance in the form of COVID experts at the White House to partner in product work with YouTube.
Google, in an internal email, noted that after a subsequent meeting with Flaherty, the White House staffer “particularly dug in on our decision making for borderline content,” – which is content that doesn’t cross Community Guidelines but rather brushes up against it, according to YouTube.
“…there is a very high degree of interest now coming from the White House now regarding vaccine misinfo/vaccine hesitancy and our work around borderline content,” the internal email from YouTube read.
“Over the last several weeks, the Google & YT GAAP team have had conversations with the White House staff on YouTube’s policies and all the great work that is being done to raise authoritative information and fight harmful misinformation related to COVID-19 misinformation,” the email stated.
The Government Affairs team then asked if the YouTube Product team could meet directly with White House staff
MORE