The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s strategy for controlling what people see about COVID on various social media, including Facebook, was funded by $3.5 million in free ads, according to a Judicial Watch expose.

The 2,469 pages of documents obtained by a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request show communications between CDC officials and Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as they planned the CDC’s strategy for controlling and censoring COVID messages to the public.

In one email alone, Facebook gifted the CDC with $2 million in free ads for “messaging related to coronavirus.” In a different email a month later, the CDC thanked Facebook for an additional $1 million in free ads.

“These documents show that Facebook and the CDC are joined at the hip on managing the ever-changing Covid-19 ‘narrative’ — which includes censorship of alleged ‘misinformation,’” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a Judicial Watch press release.

SOURCES:

Judicial Watch July 28, 2021

Judicial Watch Copies of CDC Emails