Have you ever seen a post on Facebook both sponsored and censored at the same time? Neither have we. But that’s exactly what happened to one of PRI’s Facebook reels.
In mid-March, I recorded a reel describing the Pandemic Treaty and what PRI is doing to stop it.
In case you haven’t heard, the Pandemic Treaty is a project that the World Health Organization (WHO) has been working on since 2022. Allegedly a preparedness plan for the next pandemic, it is actually a major power grab. If the United States Senate gives its advice and consents to this accord, it would be legally binding on the U.S. and negate any state or federal laws that conflict with its provisions.
Basically, if passed, this treaty would infringe upon American Sovereignty and allow WHO leaders to dictate America’s health policies.
It would allow the WHO to put in place the same kind of unnecessary measures taken during COVID-19 pandemic. I know you haven’t forgotten what it was like to be forced to mask, locked out of your churches, and watch your children or grandchildren be barred from going to school during the Covid-19 pandemic, to name just a few examples. Well, this treaty would allow the WHO to put in place these same kinds of useless measures on its own authority, bypassing our elected representatives.
Equally alarming, the Pandemic Treaty would also increase the WHO’s power to censor “misinformation” and allow the WHO to extract billions of dollars from the U.S. treasury.
The leaders at the WHO want the Pandemic Treaty finalized and ready to pass while Joe Biden is still in office. Their current plan is to have it adopted at the next World Health Assembly, which starts on May 27, 2024, only a few weeks from now.
With that date bearing down on us, we at PRI created a petition to be mailed out to gather support for defunding the WHO. There is precedent for that action: former President Trump cut ties with the WHO due to its gross its mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. He also initiated the process to withdraw the United States from the organization altogether, but the Biden administration reversed that decision and restored full U.S. funding to WHO upon taking office in January 2021.
PRI’s petition received 500 mailed-in signatures to start, which we greatly appreciated. But we needed to go further. We needed to use our platforms to gather broader support. So, I turned our petition letter into a Facebook reel. In a little over 60 seconds, I was able to share the key facts about the Pandemic Treaty, revealing the dangers it poses, and ask viewers to electronically sign our petition.
Meta, the company that now owns Facebook and Instagram, had no problem allowing us to post this reel that openly criticized the World Health Organization and the Biden’s administration’s support for it. They even approved of us advertising this reel to reach more people across the platform.
But when the popularity of the reel skyrocketed, Meta dropped the hammer.
The Facebook fact-checkers swooped in. Our reel was not only blurred out but was also labeled with a warning. In other words, our reel that honestly reported the dangers of the Pandemic Treaty proposed by the WHO was subjected to the same kind of censorship usually reserved for graphic content containing violence and gore.
On top of this, the “fact checker” wrote an article on the left-wing website, Politifact, claiming that the reel was “misinformation.” (Unsurprisingly, you can also find this author’s work in The New York Times, CNN, and The Guardian.)
So, now the reel on Facebook occupies a kind of bizarre no-man’s land. It is still up, and continues to be sponsored, attracting more and more signatures. But at the same time, it is blurred out and carries a clearly unnecessary warning.
I almost find it amusing that Facebook’s fact checkers find the content disagreeable enough to censor but have stopped short of kicking it off the platform. Almost.
The higher ups at Meta still don’t get it. These days, fact-checking a post essentially serves as a bona fide seal of approval. Instead of warning people off, it has actually piqued the interest of viewers and led to more people clicking on the mysteriously censored reel.
We now get more and more comments like the following:
- “Facebook finds the information in this post to have no basis in fact. So, I guess I’ll be signing this now.” – Calvin
- “False information. Checked by independent fact checkers means…. ‘This is absolutely a fact, and no one can dispute it.’” – Charlie
- “If you [Facebook] say it is false that tells me it is 100% true.” – Larry
- “I see Zuckerberg is sticking to old tricks, deciding what is and isn’t true. Whatever FB says, the opposite is true.” – Brunilda
- “We are all aware that the Facebook independent fact-checkers are all liberally biased employees of Facebook.” – Brookes
Here’s the main takeaway: the WHO has been defunded before and it needs to be defunded again.
The United States must simply dump its membership in this global fiasco – and the WHO knows that’s quite possible, depending on the U.S. election in November. This is one reason that the WHO wants this treaty passed as soon as possible and will use its many connections in the social media platforms to squelch views that interfere with this goal, including PRIs.
As Rep. Chris Smith said in an interview, “They’re on a fast track. Much of this has been done without very much scrutiny or insight. … But what we do know from the draft of this pandemic treaty is that it will be binding.”
WHO Member States are planning to resume negotiations to finalize the pandemic agreement between April 29th and May 10th. The clock is ticking.
PRI is far from the only organization working to stop the Pandemic Treaty. Dozens of groups, including the Center for Family and Human Rights and the WashingtonStand, have been sounding the alarm about the treaty for the past year. A coalition has been formed to oppose the active threat the WHO, through the Pandemic Treaty, poses to national sovereignty.
And here’s the good news: despite Facebook’s attempts at censorship, I am happy to report that our reel has been viewed over 250,000 times. As of this article’s publication, we’ve received 29,000 likes, 6,000 comments, and 11,000 shares, on top of 25,000 petition signatures. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can watch it here. Feel free to share it too!
The more support we can mobilize against the organizations gunning for global dominance the better.
