‘A Lie’: Taylor Lorenz and Biden Advisor Neera Tanden Brawl Over Social Media Censorship

Today on Rising, @TaylorLorenz SLAMS Joe Biden, Neera Tanden, and other Democrats who have joined Republicans in backing terrible social media regulations.

“The Democrats have been so aggressively pro censorship,” she says. pic.twitter.com/A582oklERy

— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) December 17, 2025

Taylor Lorenz got into a war of words with an official from former President Joe Biden’s administration after describing a White House meeting she attended while slamming “aggressively pro-censorship” Democrats.

Lorenz, a former columnist for The Washington Post, joined The Hill’s Robby Soave on his show The Rising on Thursday, where she knocked many Democrats and their policies towards social media. While discussing Section 230 — a statutory provision that shields social media companies from liability for user content — Lorenz described attending a White House summit for content creators where she said Biden likely “didn’t know what room he was in,” and then-senior advisor Neera Tanden allegedly got the room excited by pushing for ending “anonymity” on the internet.

The problem is Tanden said the event in question never happened.

Lorenz told Soave:

The Democrats have been just so aggressively pro-censorship. I just have to say one more thing, which is — I think I’ve told this story many times now — but I was at this White House content creator summit last August that Joe Biden held right before leaving office. I don’t even know if he knew what room he was in, but Neera Tanden, who was one of his senior advisors, got up on stage in front of all these content creators and was like, don’t you hate these internet trolls? We’re going to remove anonymity from the web, you know, raise your hand if you want to remove anonymity from the web, remove anonymity from the internet. And all these stupid content creators are like, yeah, me, I want to, I wanna do that. And I’m just like, oh, you guys, do you have two brain cells to rub together?

Tanden responded to a clip posted by Soave by telling him to remove the clip because it is “a lie.” She claimed she was never in any meeting with Biden and content creators.

“I never went to that content creator event that President Biden went to. I never was in any meeting with content creators and Joe Biden. I don’t know who you are talking about it, but it wasn’t me. I also don’t know how you get these facts so very wrong,” she wrote to Lorenz. “And [Robby Soave] you may want to delete this post, which ironically enough, is a lie on social media.”

Lorenz did not back down, providing receipts for her story. She posted an August 2024 email inviting her to the summit, as well as a short video of Tanden. Also included were notes from the event, one of which mentioned the “anonymity” discussion.

Tanden continued denying the specific events Lorenz described took place, saying again that she has never attended a summit with both Biden and content creators. The summit in question, she said, was a mental health panel.

“I wasn’t at this with Joe Biden as I said. This was a mental health panel. Above you say I ‘asked people to raise their hands if they want to remove anonymity online.’ Any evidence for this anywhere? It’s not in your notes. Since this event is online I’m sure no problem to find some evidence for the claims you made in this podcast,” she wrote.

Lorenz’s notes do include a line that Tanden “wants to remove anonymity” on the internet.

According to the date of the email Lorenz posted, she would have been attending the White House’s “Creator Economy Conference.” The event brought together “a broad group of digital creators and industry professionals to discuss the most pressing issues within the creator economy.”

Under “participating individuals,” the White House listed both Biden and Tanden. According to CNBC and The New York Times, both spoke at the event. Tanden’s X post claiming she was never at the conference led to further reader “context” being provided to her post.

The event appears to be the same one where Lorenz posted an Instagram story calling Biden a “war criminal,” leading to an internal review by the Post. Lorenz provided links backing up her claim that Tanden spoke at the event.

“I was so shocked by Neera’s comments during that event that I spoke to other reporters there about it immediately after and called a WaPo colleague about it. KOSA/removing anonymity online would be devastating for the internet, & there’s no evidence Neera has changed her stance,” she wrote.

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