Federal government denies talks with social media companies to throttle accounts, contradicting POEC evidence

Access to information filings made by Rebel News into the Privy Council Office (PCO) returned no documents relating to the communications between the Federal cabinet's chief bureaucrats and Twitter.

However, the evidence submitted to the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) shows that such talks occurred at least once.

The POEC was tasked with examining the government's use of a never-before-used counter-terrorism law to end the peaceful anti-mandate truckers' convoy, which converged on the nation's capital for weeks beginning the last days of January 2022.

Rebel News filed for documents with the PCO, asking to: "Provide copies of all communications with Twitter (or its representatives) regarding any discussions/requests to censor/suspend/ban/promote/throttle/shadow ban an account or particular post, since January 1, 2022."

Rebel News became aware of the records requested through evidence submitted at the POEC.

According to the PCO, thorough search of the records under the control of PCO was carried out on your behalf; however, no records relevant to your request were found.

Communication records submitted to the POEC indicate the PCO was pressuring social media companies, including Twitter, to remove content the Liberals considered objectionable.

On February 1, 2022, a ministerial update provided to the cabinet included a note from Mike MacDonald, the PCO assistant secretary to the cabinet on security and intelligence matters.

The note read:

PCO did another check in with Facebook, Google, Twitter, Reddit, TikTok, Microsoft. All were asked what they were doing about hateful content and encouraged to remove the worst of it quickly.

Rebel News has filed an appeal of the denial of access to the documents. The Liberals already offered evidence that these documents exist.

The public is entitled to know who and what the Liberals wanted to censor and why.