(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The former Biden official who viciously pressured Big Tech to censor COVID-19-related posts is now at the helm of Kamala Harris’s campaign.
Rob Flaherty, who previously served as the director of digital strategy at the Biden White House, holds the influential position of deputy campaign manager for Harris in Delaware.
This appointment has sparked significant alarm on X, with critics suggesting that Flaherty has gotten off scot-free for his role in the Biden-Harris censorship efforts.
The Zuckerberg story was big:
The White House pressured Meta to illegally censor factual information about COVID and Hunter’s laptop.
Even bigger:
The person responsible for this was former Director of Digital Strategy @Rob_Flaherty.
He's now Kamala's Deputy Campaign Manager. pic.twitter.com/hfMUdmStJA
— John LeFevre (@JohnLeFevre) August 28, 2024
Flaherty’s actions, as seen in subpoenaed emails and other communications, prompted widespread condemnation from lawmakers, Republicans and free speech advocates in 2023 and mid-2024.
Specifically, Flaherty was relentless in his efforts to coerce social media platforms into stifling free speech, according to evidence cited in the Murthy v. Missouri case.
This legal challenge, brought by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, sought to end the federal government’s role in censorship.
U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty described the censorship as resembling a “dystopian scenario,” with the federal government acting as an “Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’”
Doughty’s ruling memo mentioned Flaherty a staggering 79 times. Despite the case eventually reaching the Supreme Court, where Flaherty was cited 68 times, the justices dismissed it on standing issues.
The evidence was nonetheless strikingly damning, wrote Justice Samuel Alito in his dissent.
“[Former Biden COVID advisor Andy] Slavitt and Flaherty did not simply ask Facebook for information. They browbeat the platform for months and made it clear that if it did not do more to combat what they saw as misinformation, it might be called to account for its shortcomings,” Alito warned.
Among the content targeted were even memes and jokes, as admitted by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday.
Despite this intense scrutiny and backlash, Flaherty faced no repercussions. He left the White House in June 2023 to join the Harris campaign (then the Biden campaign). He previously worked as an assistant and deputy assistant to the president, according to his LinkedIn profile.
BREAKING NOW: Rob Flaherty, the person at Kamala and Biden's White House responsible for getting Facebook to CENSOR MILLIONS OF AMERICANS is now Kamala's Deputy Campaign Manager.
YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP.. pic.twitter.com/5B9UwrlDD3
— Chuck Callesto (@ChuckCallesto) August 28, 2024
His long career as a Democratic operative includes communications roles at the Democratic National Committee and the failed presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Robert “Beto” O’Rourke in 2019.
