by Sophia Flores source

This illustration picture taken on November 23, 2020 shows a bottle reading “Vaccine Covid-19” and a syringe next to the Pfizer and Biontech logo. (Photo by JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images)[/caption]

Pfizer partner BioNTech pushed for social media platforms to censor activists who demanded low-cost generic vaccines for low-come countries.
Global drug giants saw the pandemic as an opportunity to make an immense amount of profit. Unbeknown to the public, pharma launched a massive lobbying blitz in order to crush any effort to share patents for new COVID- related medicines. This included therapeutics and vaccines.
In 2021, BIO, the lobby group that represents Moderna and Pfizer, wrote to the newly inaugurated Biden administration demanding that the United States government sanctions any country that was attempting to violate patent rights and create generic low cost COVID medicine or vaccines.
In addition, the company reached out to Twitter to let the social media company know that they should censor users who asked about generic low-cost vaccines.
5. That brings us to Twitter. The global lobbying blitz includes direct pressure on social media. BioNTech, which developed Pfizer’s vaccine, reached out to Twitter to request that Twitter directly censor users tweeting at them to ask for generic low cost vaccines. pic.twitter.com/6cVIRcUDZV
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) January 16, 2023
Twitter quickly responded to the request. It’s not clear how the platform censored posts where people asked for poorer countries to get access to the vaccines, however, moderators kept moderating activist tweets.
6. Twitter’s reps responded quickly to the pharma request, which was also backed by the German government. A lobbyist in Europe asked the content moderation team to monitor the accounts of Pfizer, AstraZeneca & of activist hashtags like #peoplesvaccine pic.twitter.com/Bt9YNJUlN1
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) January 16, 2023
In a different push, BIO fully funded a special content moderation campaign designed by a contractor called Public Good Projects. Public Good Projects worked alongside Twitter to set content moderation rules around COVID “misinformation.”
The company provided $1,275,000 to that particular campaign. The campaign focused on tweets that had unhinged misinformation. They also focused on vaccine mandates, vaccine passports and policies that coerce vaccination.
10. BIO provided $1,275,000 to the campaign, part of which is revealed through tax forms. The PGP campaign, called “Stronger,” helped Twitter create content moderation bots, select which public health