Newly disclosed federal records show that former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s office considered expanding its campaign against online misinformation beyond COVID-19 while pursuing additional pressure on technology companies, raising renewed questions about government involvement in regulating Americans’ speech.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Internal communications from the Biden administration reveal that former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s office considered a broader, sustained campaign to influence how social media companies handled health-related information, extending beyond COVID-19 vaccines and the immediate public health emergency.
The records, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by government watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust, describe plans to increase pressure on technology companies, seek greater access to platform data and enlist outside organizations to evaluate whether companies were sufficiently restricting content federal officials considered misleading.
The documents were detailed in an Oct. 19 investigation by the Daily Caller News Foundation, which examined communications from 2021 involving Murthy’s advisers and their efforts to influence Facebook, Twitter and other online platforms. The records add to previously disclosed evidence about coordination between federal officials and technology companies during the pandemic.
The revelations follow a May 2026 Justice Department settlement involving allegations that the Biden administration improperly pressured Twitter to suppress protected speech.
The Trump administration described that settlement as “an important milestone in the battle for free speech in our country,” while maintaining that government officials had exceeded constitutional limits by encouraging private companies to remove viewpoints they opposed.
The agreement resolved litigation brought by journalist Alex Berenson, who alleged that Biden administration officials contributed to his removal from Twitter because of his criticism of COVID-19 policies. The settlement ended the litigation without requiring continued court proceedings, although it did not constitute a judicial determination of every allegation surrounding the administration’s contacts with technology companies.
The newly released communications provide additional insight into the internal deliberations that preceded and followed the administration’s public campaign against pandemic misinformation.
In a May 2021 email contained in the records released by Protect the Public’s Trust, Murthy policy adviser Daniel Tartakovsky recommended emphasizing that the surgeon general’s concerns were not confined to COVID-19.
“May be worth emphasizing that you don’t just see this as a COVID-related issue (i.e., it’s health and medical misinformation, not just COVID-related misinformation),” Tartakovsky wrote. “More broadly, it gets at the issue of how social media impacts people, especially young people.”
The communication indicates that officials were considering a broader public health strategy involving online information and social media’s influence on Americans, particularly younger users.
The documents do not establish that every proposed initiative was implemented, but they show that the administration’s discussions extended beyond removing false claims about coronavirus vaccines.
Protect the Public’s Trust communications director Alexa Moutevelis criticized the priorities reflected in the correspondence.
“These documents show an administration consumed by its campaign against what it termed ‘misinformation,’ potentially at the expense of other priorities, and intent on controlling what Americans could say,” Moutevelis told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Murthy and Tartakovsky did not respond to the news organization’s requests for comment.
One of the most detailed records is an internal memorandum addressed to the Office of the Surgeon General’s “Misinformation Tiger Team,” which outlined several approaches for increasing technology companies’ cooperation with government efforts to combat health misinformation.
The memorandum, titled “Health Misinformation Next Steps”, considered a strategy labeled “Maximum Pressure/Engagement,” which proposed organizing a high-profile summit and obtaining public commitments from major technology companies.
Under the proposal, officials would seek agreements from companies on actions to reduce misinformation, while outside organizations would evaluate their performance and publish assessments.
The memorandum suggested working with researchers and advocacy groups to create a system for measuring whether technology platforms were reducing the spread of content identified as health misinformation.
It also proposed using prominent media appearances by Murthy to criticize companies that failed to meet expectations and organizing a coalition of outside groups to maintain regular contact with individual technology platforms.
One proposed strategy was identified as the “Nick Clegg Approach,” referring to Meta’s president of global affairs.
The memorandum stated that companies cooperating with government expectations could receive favorable public recognition, while those failing to respond adequately would continue facing criticism from the Department of Health and Human Services and the White House.
The document also identified potential drawbacks, including insufficient internal expertise to independently evaluate technology companies’ data and the possibility that the campaign could interfere with other priorities.
Officials acknowledged that Facebook possessed substantially more information about its own platform than government authorities could independently examine.
“FB has insurmountable advantage on data, which means we’ll never know if they are on the level,” the memorandum stated.
The document proposed “to hold FB and other tech providers accountable with push on more open data.”
Another passage acknowledged the potential political consequences of the strategy, warning that it “politicizes office by further engaging in social media/censorship war.”
That language is notable because it shows the office internally recognized that its activities could become part of a broader dispute over online censorship, even as public statements emphasized protecting Americans from dangerous health claims.
The memorandum also discussed a more limited alternative involving meetings with technology companies and researchers, as well as community discussions about the effects of misinformation.
The records indicate that senior administration officials viewed public pressure as an important means of encouraging companies to change their content moderation practices.
The memorandum observed that Biden and Murthy had “put tech and stakeholders alike on notice that health misinformation was a significant public health issue.”
The strategy developed during a period when administration officials were publicly criticizing social media companies for allowing inaccurate vaccine claims to circulate.
On July 14, 2021, Murthy issued a formal surgeon general’s advisory on health misinformation, describing misinformation as a serious public health concern and calling on technology platforms, researchers, educators and public institutions to help address the problem.
The advisory recommended that technology companies strengthen monitoring and enforcement of misinformation policies, provide researchers with greater access to data and reconsider features that could amplify misleading claims.
Two days later, President Joe Biden sharply criticized Facebook and other platforms when asked about false information concerning COVID-19 vaccines.
“They’re killing people,” Biden said on July 16, 2021, according to the White House exchange documented by Roll Call.
The remark became a central point of controversy over the administration’s relationship with social media companies, particularly as internal records later revealed discussions about removing or limiting content that officials considered harmful.
The newly disclosed records also show that Murthy’s office viewed the temporary suspension of Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s social media account as an indication that further enforcement action against other accounts might be possible.
The internal memorandum characterized the suspension as providing “momentum” for additional action.
That assessment emerged as Facebook, Twitter and other major platforms were facing sustained criticism from the White House over their enforcement of pandemic-related content policies.
Earlier disclosures had already shown that technology company employees expressed concerns about the administration’s demands.
A House Judiciary Committee investigation into government contacts with Facebook and other companies uncovered communications indicating that Meta employees questioned whether officials were requesting the removal of information that was accurate but politically or medically controversial.
“The Surgeon General wants us to remove true information about side effects,” one Meta employee wrote on July 21, 2021.
The congressional investigation also documented discussions involving Clegg, who recognized the legal and political complications of responding to government demands while seeking to preserve Meta’s broader relationship with federal authorities.
Clegg indicated that the company had “bigger fish we have to fry” with the administration and should consider “how we can be responsive to concerns.”
The committee’s findings included communications in which Facebook and Amazon personnel described experiencing government “pressure” concerning the handling of certain information.
The latest records are significant because they show officials within the surgeon general’s office using similar language while discussing their own strategies for influencing technology companies.
Other investigations have examined comparable relationships involving Twitter.
Following Elon Musk’s acquisition of the platform in 2022, a series of internal communications became public through the Twitter Files investigation involving COVID-19 content moderation.
Those disclosures examined how company employees, outside researchers and government officials interacted over policies involving pandemic information, including disputed medical claims and criticism of public health decisions.
Additional reporting on the Twitter Files explored how journalists, government agencies and technology companies assessed allegations concerning coordinated online activity and misleading political information.
The public presentation examining those disclosures contributed to a continuing debate over whether government involvement in content moderation amounted to legitimate communication about public safety or improper interference with constitutionally protected speech.
The newly obtained government records expand that discussion by documenting how officials considered their own role in applying pressure.
Another set of internal emails obtained through the records request indicates that Murthy’s office devoted substantial attention to misinformation ahead of the July 2021 advisory.
One communication described the office as “unilaterally focused on misinformation” for a period of approximately two to four weeks.
The correspondence also includes talking points prepared for Murthy’s media appearances and meetings with outside organizations during the summer of 2021.
Those materials addressed vaccination requirements, masking recommendations, the Food and Drug Administration’s approval process and criticism of the government’s efforts to influence online information.
In August 2021, prepared remarks concerning vaccine mandates stated:
“Simply put, vaccine requirements will stop the spread of variants and keep more people safe.”
Another talking point warned that “if you are unvaccinated, you present a problem to yourself, family, and those with whom you work.”
The statements reflected the administration’s emphasis on vaccination as a means of reducing COVID-19 transmission and serious illness. Subsequent evidence established that vaccines provided substantial protection against severe disease while their effectiveness at preventing infection and transmission varied with emerging variants and waned over time.
The documents also describe communications prepared after the FDA granted full approval to Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine in August 2021.
Murthy’s advisers recommended avoiding “providing minute details on the specifics of the FDA approval process” during discussions about the authorization.
Other prepared remarks encouraged parents to have their children wear masks, including in states where officials had declined to impose mandatory masking policies.
“Parents, have your kids wear masks,” the talking points stated.
The internal materials also anticipated questions about whether government-backed content moderation represented an attempt to silence dissenting views.
Under a section labeled “Tough Q&A,” advisers prepared a response to the question, “Isn’t this just a part of cancel culture?”
“No, it’s the opposite actually,” Murthy’s prepared reply stated.
The response illustrates how officials sought to distinguish their public health messaging campaign from accusations that the administration was encouraging censorship.
Those accusations eventually became the subject of litigation, congressional investigations and broader scrutiny of government communications with technology companies.
A central constitutional question in those disputes concerns the distinction between government officials expressing concerns about harmful information and using government authority to coerce private companies into suppressing lawful speech.
The First Amendment generally prevents government actors from restricting protected expression, but it does not prohibit officials from publicly criticizing information they consider inaccurate or communicating with private platforms about public health concerns.
Determining whether those interactions cross constitutional boundaries depends on the circumstances, including the nature of government requests, the authority of the officials involved and whether private companies were subjected to coercive pressure.
The Supreme Court addressed related issues in Murthy v. Missouri in 2024, a case challenging Biden administration communications with social media platforms. The justices dismissed the lawsuit on standing grounds, concluding that the plaintiffs had not sufficiently established the necessary connection between the challenged government conduct and their injuries.
The ruling did not determine that every interaction between federal officials and technology companies was constitutionally permissible.
The legal debate continued after Trump returned to office and directed federal agencies to end government practices he described as censorship of protected speech.
In May 2026, the Justice Department announced that it had settled Berenson’s lawsuit alleging that Biden administration officials improperly influenced Twitter’s decision to suspend his account.
Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward criticized the previous administration’s conduct in announcing the agreement, while Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said unlawful coercion of social media companies had no place under the Constitution.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon characterized the settlement as a significant development in protecting online expression.
“This settlement is an important milestone in the battle for free speech in our country, concerning a time when social media censorship encouraged by state and federal government actors suppressed wide swaths of protected speech,” Dhillon said. “The proper antidote to speech one doesn’t like, is more speech.”
The agreement ended that particular case without establishing a comprehensive judicial finding about all government-platform communications during the pandemic.
Nevertheless, the newly disclosed correspondence offers additional evidence that Murthy’s office considered technology company accountability, data access and pressure campaigns part of a broader approach to public health communication.
The records also indicate that officials understood the political and constitutional controversy their strategy could generate.
For Protect the Public’s Trust, the communications raise concerns about whether an office traditionally responsible for providing medical guidance became excessively involved in efforts to control the circulation of information.
For former administration officials and defenders of public health interventions, the broader context includes the challenges of addressing false medical claims during a pandemic that caused widespread illness and death.
The documents distinguish those competing concerns by showing what officials discussed internally, including strategies that went beyond public education and contemplated sustained pressure on private technology platforms.
Their disclosure adds to the record of how federal agencies, the White House and major social media companies interacted during the pandemic, while leaving questions about the implementation and legal consequences of individual proposals to continued examination.
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