James O'Keefe reveals bombshell docs showing Facebook 'demoting' users based on 'vaccine hesitancy'
Project Veritas founder speaks out on 'Hannity'
Whistleblowers from Facebook are alleging that the tech giant is pushing an effort to censor content expressing vaccine hesitancy on its platform.
New reporting from Project Veritas shows leaked internal memo explaining "Vaccine Hesitancy Comment Demotion" which shows the "goal" is to "drastically reduce user exposure to vaccine hesitancy."
Another leaked document addressed "Borderline Vaccine (BV) Framework" that delves into how to classify such content with another expressed "goal" of to "identify and tier the categories of non-violating content that could discourage vaccination in certain contexts, thereby contributing to vaccine hesitancy or refusal," adding "We have tiered these by potential harm and how much context is required in order to evaluate harm."
"Facebook uses classifiers in their algorithms to determine certain content… they call it ‘vaccine hesitancy.' And without the user's knowledge, they assign a score to these comments that's called the ‘VH Score,' the ‘Vaccine Hesitancy Score,’" one Facebook "insider" told Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe. "And then based on that score will demote or leave the comment alone depending on the content within the comment."
The insider, who is described by O'Keefe as a "data center technician" for Facebook, revealed that the tech giant was running a "test" on 1.5% of its 3.8 billion users with the focus on the comments sections on "authoritative health pages."
"They're trying to control this content before it even makes it onto your page before you even see it," the insider told O'Keefe.
The ratings are divided into two tiers, one being "Alarmism & Criticism" and the other being "Indirect Vaccine Discouragement" which includes celebrating vaccine refusal and "shocking stories" that may deter others from taking the vaccine.
The algorithm flags key terms in comments to determine whether or not it can remain in place but allows human "raters" to make a ruling if the algorithm cannot do so itself.
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A second insider described as a "Data Center Facility Engineer" described Facebook's actions like being in an "abusive" relationship where they're "not allowing their spouse to speak out about the things that are going on in their marriage… and limiting their voice… It's very incriminating, in my opinion."
In response to the leaked documents, Facebook told Project Veritas, "We proactively announced this policy on our company blog and also updated our help center with this information."
Facebook did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment.