The Australian Home Affairs Department—normally responsible for dealing with terrorism and border security—made over 4,000 requests to U.S. tech giants to review COVID-19-related content during the pandemic years.
The revelations come after a Freedom of Information request (pdf) from Senator Alex Antic and highlight the extent to which government authorities attempted to control public discourse around issues like vaccine efficacy, lockdowns, and mask mandates.
Between Jan. 1, 2017, to Dec. 15, 2022, the Home Affairs Department made 4,213 “COVID-19-related content referrals” to digital platforms like Facebook and Twitter to review content against their own terms of service—the height of the pandemic was from 2020 to 2021….