In 2020, DHS began meeting with social media companies to coordinate 'content moderation' efforts
The Department of Homeland Security has been influencing big tech platforms. This originally became evident during the Biden administration when the ill-fated Disinformation Governance Board was launched in early 2022. However, even before the existence of the defunct board, the DHS was putting effort into this and those efforts still continue.
Attorney General Eric Schmitt of Missouri filed a lawsuit subsequently revealing that in February 2022, former Microsoft executive and former DHS official Matt Masterson, told a DHS director that “Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov't. It's really interesting how hesitant they remain.” The information was contained in appended meeting minutes, according to The Intercept.
Before 2020, a report was made that The Department of Homeland Security met with Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, and additional platforms to coordinate “content moderation” operations. The meetings were a part of an initiative of collusion and collaboration between DHS and big tech to decide how “misinformation” would be addressed on the platforms.
Topics that were flagged included President Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 and the suggestion that the COVID-19 virus originated in a Wuhan, China lab, even though last wee A Senate report found this to be the most likely scenario. Any information weakening trust in financial institutions was also flagged.
Former President Donald Trump’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act formed a new branch within DHS, that was supposed to deal with online “disinformation.” CISA stated that the mission of the branch”evolved,” to communicate “disinformation” concerns to social media companies. Big Tech companies simply took DHS' word for it. DHS justified their reach by stating concerns about “marginalized communities.”
Both Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and precious Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey made statements saying that their platforms made efforts to suppress the New York Post because the FBI warned them to look for a “misinformation” dump.
During the 2020 election, where "weekly teleconference to coordinate Intelligence Community activities to counter election-related disinformation” were held. Meetings have been happening about every two weeks since then.