Reports of censorship during pandemic

[Pathfinder]

Court Orders Federal Government to Produce Records from Top White House, HHS Officials in Missouri AG’s Lawsuit

Sep 6, 2022, 15:18 PM by AG Schmitt

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt announced today that, in his lawsuit against top-ranking Biden Administration officials for allegedly colluding to suppress freedom of speech, the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana granted Missouri and Louisiana’s request to compel the federal government to produce records from top-ranking White House and Health and Human Services (HHS) officials. This ruling specifically allows the attorneys general to collect the communications between key White House and Department of Health and Senior Services officials, like Dr. Anthony Fauci and White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and Twitter, Meta, and others.

“Up until this point, the Department of Justice has refused to cooperate with our requests for discovery from top officials in the Biden Administration under the guise of ‘executive privilege.’ Today, the Court entered an order that requires that the federal government turn over the records we’ve long requested,” said Attorney General Schmitt. “The American people deserve answers on how the federal government has colluded with social media companies to censor free speech on these major platforms. We will continue to fight to uncover more of this vast censorship enterprise.”

The original lawsuit was filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry on May 5, 2022. Missouri and Louisiana filed a Motion for Expedited Preliminary Injunction-Related Discovery on June 17, 2022, and that motion was granted on July 12, 2022, clearing the way for Missouri and Louisiana to gather discovery and documents from Biden Administration officials and social media companies.

The attorneys general filed a Joint Statement on Discovery Disputes, asking the federal District Court to compel the Department of Justice to turn over communications between high-ranking Biden Administration officials from the White House, HHS, and others and major social media companies. That request was granted today, specifically for the communications of Dr. Anthony Fauci and White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre with social-media platforms.

The full ruling can be read here: https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-source/press-releases/free-speech-pitch-thread-docs/doc-72---order-re-discovery-disputes.pdf?sfvrsn=af653b4f_2


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https://ago.mo.gov/home/news/2022/09/06/court-orders-federal-government-to-produce-records-from-top-white-house-hhs-officials-in-missouri-ag-s-lawsuit

[Emily]

https://aaronkheriaty.substack.com/p/our-lawsuit-uncovers-army-of-federal?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

Our Lawsuit Uncovers Army of Federal Bureaucrats Coercing Social-Media Companies to Censor Speech

Recent evidence uncovered in our Missouri v. Biden suit suggests the most egregious, coordinated, massive violation of First Amendment free speech rights by the federal government in U.S. history.



Aaron Kheriaty, MD
Sep 1

[Emily]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10996987/Journalist-Alex-Berenson-reinstated-Twitter-suing-violation-Amendment.html

'The lil bird and I are now the best of friends': Journalist Alex Berenson returns to Twitter as social media giant admits he shouldn't have been banned for questioning COVID vaccines

• Alex Berenson has been reinstated to twitter following an almost 11-month ban
• Berenson, 49, filed a federal lawsuit challenging his ban for 'violating his First Amendment right'
• He was banned in August for questioning the effectiveness of COVID vaccines
• Suit argues that his tweet was a statement of fact, true then as well as now
• Former New York Times reporter had been a noted mask and lockdown skeptic
• Now back on the platform, Berenson wrote: 'All in the past, though! The lil bird and I are now the best of friends'

By James Gordon For Dailymail.com

Published: 22:23 EDT, 8 July 2022 | Updated: 11:30 EDT, 9 July 2022
__________________________________________________ ______________________

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/61630076/alex-berenson-v-twitter-inc/

[Emily]

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/corruption/florida-surgeon-general-silenced-by-twitter-young-men-are-dying-from-covid-vaccine/

Florida Surgeon General Silenced by Twitter – Young Men are Dying from COVID Vaccine
Blog/Corruption
Posted Oct 11, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo posted a warning on Twitter only to have the platform silence him. It is his responsibility to inform the public of potential health hazards. There should be a crackdown of Twitter for stifling free speech. The surgeon general’s tweet was reinstated after the weekend amid backlash. Hopefully, their desperate attempt to silence the truth backfired and brought more awareness to the problem...

[Emily]

https://sharylattkisson.com/2022/09/censored-google-censors-factually-accurate-info-about-covid-and-donald-trump-at-sharylattkisson-com/

(CENSORED) Google censors factually accurate info about Covid...
Dated: September 18, 2022 by Sharyl Attkisson

[Pathfinder]

Elon Musk
@elonmusk

Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy.

Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?

Yes 29.6%
No 70.4%

2,035,924 votes
·
Final results
1:34 AM · Mar 25, 2022·Twitter for iPhone

Elon Musk

@elonmusk
the bird is freed
9:49 PM · Oct 27, 2022·Twitter for iPhone

[Emily]

This article is very informative and sobering about the chances of Twitter being able to stop censoring doctors, scientists, journalists, etc, who deviate from the EU narrative. All large platforms, search engines and other services are being affected if they have a presence in the EU.

https://brownstone.org/articles/how-the-eu-is-forcing-twitter-to-censor-and-musk-cant-stop-it/

How the EU is Forcing Twitter to Censor (and Musk Can’t Stop It)


By Robert Kogon October 7, 2022 Technology

Twitter is obviously at the center of what is commonly known as “Big Tech censorship.” It has been busily using the censorship tools at its disposal – from removing or quarantining tweets to surreptitiously “deboosting” them (shadow-banning) to outright account suspension – for at least two years now. And those who have managed to remain on the platform will have noticed a sharp upturn in its censorship activities starting last summer.

For most of this time, the main focus of Twitter censorship has, of course, been supposed “Covid-19 disinformation.” By now, almost all the most influential advocates of early treatment or critics of Covid-19 vaccines on Twitter have had their accounts suspended, and most have not made it back.

The list of the permanently suspended includes such prominent voices as Robert Malone, Steve Kirsch, Daniel Horowitz, Nick Hudson, Anthony Hinton, Jessica Rose, Naomi Wolf, and, most recently, Peter McCullough.

And myriad smaller accounts have met the same fate for committing such thought crimes as suggesting that the myocarditis risk of both mRNA vaccines (Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer) outstrips any benefit or pointing to mRNA instability and its unknown consequences for safety and efficacy.

But why in the world would Twitter censor such content? The expression “Big Tech censorship” implies that Twitter et al. are censoring of their own accord, which invariably elicits the retort that, well, they are private companies, so they can do what they want. But why would they want to?

The notion that it is because the denizens of Silicon Valley are “leftists” or “liberals” is clearly not very helpful. They may well be. But whether mRNA vaccines are safe and effective, as advertised, is a factual matter, not an ideological one. And, in any case, the purpose of private for-profit corporations is, needless to say, to make a profit. The motto of the shareholder is not “Workers of the World Unite!” but “Pecunia non olet:” money doesn’t stink. Shareholders expect management to create value, not destroy it.

But what Twitter is doing by censoring is precisely subverting its own business model, thus undermining profitability and putting downward pressure on share price. Free speech is obviously the lifeblood of every social media. Censored speech – like the tweets of a Robert Malone or a Peter McCullough or, for that matter, a Donald Trump – translates into lost traffic for the platform. And traffic is, of course, the key to monetizing unrestricted online content.

We could call this the “Twitter conundrum.”...

[Pathfinder]

Mike Solana
@micsolana
·5h
... that fact check...





Elon Musk
@elonmusk
·4h
Replying to
@micsolana

The community notes feature is awesome.

Our goal is to make Twitter the most accurate source of information on Earth, without regard to political affiliation.

[Pathfinder]

Spike Cohen@RealSpikeCohen
·
26m
White House: seniors are getting the biggest SS increase in 10 years.

Context-checkers: That's because inflation is the highest it's been in decades.

White House: *deletes tweet*

Welcome to @elonmusk's Twitter.



Elon Musk@elonmusk
11m
Replying to
@RealSpikeCohen
The system is working 🤣

[Emily]

Good points. Even if there are EU restrictions on some free speech, Musk can still balance moderation around US national issues.
There might be a way in the future to create channels that EU originating IP's can't join. (They could still read them with VPN's.) That's what people do with other oppressive governments.) Then doctors and scientists who disagree with government narratives about pandemic control could post there. They'd probably be happy to pay a few dollars a month for protection from EU censorship on the platform.

[Pathfinder]

White House may have violated law by deleting fact-checked tweet: watchdog

By Victor Nava
November 4, 2022 8:45pm Updated

A watchdog group is calling for a federal investigation into a tweet that the White House deleted this week, arguing that the Biden administration may have violated the Presidential Records Act.

Protect the Public’s Trust, a nonpartisan organization, argued there are “serious questions” over whether presidential record-keeping protocols were properly followed before the White House on Wednesday deleted the widely mocked tweet taking credit for a boost in retirees’ Social Security checks.

The Nov. 1 tweet is “almost certainly a record that belongs to the public and subject to the Act’s destruction protocol,” the group wrote in a letter sent to the heads of the National Archives and Records Administration and the Office of Government Ethics on Friday.
...
According to the Presidential Records Act, a commander-in-chief can only dispose of White House records “once the views of the Archivist of the United States on the proposed disposal have been obtained in writing.”

Protect the Public’s Trust argues that the White House’s explanation for deleting the tweet, claiming that it was “not complete” and missing “context,” leaves “serious questions whether it was deleted to save the Administration embarrassment or avoid criticism and whether the proper protocols were followed.”
...

https://nypost.com/2022/11/04/white-house-may-have-violated-law-by-deleting-fact-checked-tweet-watchdog/

[Pathfinder]

Open Access

Published: 01 November 2022

Censorship and Suppression of Covid-19 Heterodoxy: Tactics and Counter-Tactics

Yaffa Shir-Raz, Ety Elisha, Brian Martin, Natti Ronel & Josh Guetzkow

Abstract

The emergence of COVID-19 has led to numerous controversies over COVID-related knowledge and policy. To counter the perceived threat from doctors and scientists who challenge the official position of governmental and intergovernmental health authorities, some supporters of this orthodoxy have moved to censor those who promote dissenting views. The aim of the present study is to explore the experiences and responses of highly accomplished doctors and research scientists from different countries who have been targets of suppression and/or censorship following their publications and statements in relation to COVID-19 that challenge official views. Our findings point to the central role played by media organizations, and especially by information technology companies, in attempting to stifle debate over COVID-19 policy and measures. In the effort to silence alternative voices, widespread use was made not only of censorship, but of tactics of suppression that damaged the reputations and careers of dissenting doctors and scientists, regardless of their academic or medical status and regardless of their stature prior to expressing a contrary position. In place of open and fair discussion, censorship and suppression of scientific dissent has deleterious and far-reaching implications for medicine, science, and public health.
...

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11024-022-09479-4#Sec23

[Emily]

https://reclaimthenet.org/rumble-france-blocked/

• Issue: November 1, 2022

Rumble says it won’t move its policy goalposts to appease France’s censorship demands

Rumble has exited France while it looks to challenge the legality of its censorship orders.

• By Christina Maas
• Posted 5:22 pm

Growing video platform Rumble, based in the US, has refused to cave to France’s demands to censor Russian news sources such as RT France and Sputnik.

Rumble has instead chosen to pull its services from France rather than comply with the order.

“The French Government has demanded that Rumble @rumblevideo block Russian news sources. Like @elonmusk, I won’t move our goal posts for any foreign government,” Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski tweeted...

[Emily]

https://theintercept.com/2022/10/31/social-media-disinformation-dhs/

Ken Klippenstein, Lee Fang
October 31 2022, 9:00 a.m.

The Department of Homeland Security is quietly broadening its efforts to curb speech it considers dangerous, an investigation by The Intercept has found. Years of internal DHS memos, emails, and documents — obtained via leaks and an ongoing lawsuit, as well as public documents — illustrate an expansive effort by the agency to influence tech platforms.
...

In June, the same DHS advisory committee of CISA — which includes Twitter head of legal policy, trust, and safety Vijaya Gadde and University of Washington professor Kate Starbird — drafted a report to the CISA director calling for an expansive role for the agency in shaping the “information ecosystem.” The report called on the agency to closely monitor “social media platforms of all sizes, mainstream media, cable news, hyper partisan media, talk radio and other online resources.” They argued that the agency needed to take steps to halt the “spread of false and misleading information,” with a focus on information that undermines “key democratic institutions, such as the courts, or by other sectors such as the financial system, or public health measures.”

To accomplish these broad goals, the report said, CISA should invest in external research to evaluate the “efficacy of interventions,” specifically with research looking at how alleged disinformation can be countered and how quickly messages spread. Geoff Hale, the director of the Election Security Initiative at CISA, recommended the use of third-party information-sharing nonprofits as a “clearing house for information to avoid the appearance of government propaganda.”

Last Thursday, immediately following billionaire Elon Musk’s completed acquisition of Twitter, Gadde was terminated from the company...

[sharon sanders]

WHO, YouTube and funding

John Campbell's channel

https://www.youtube.com/c/Campbellteaching

[Pathfinder]

Elon Musk@elonmusk

The Twitter Files on free speech suppression soon to be published on Twitter itself. The public deserves to know what really happened …

3:09 PM · Nov 28, 2022·Twitter for iPhone

[sharon sanders]

I am really looking forward to this. While they are at it, look at the google search results algorithm too. The google situation, imho, is really a huge manipulation of the internet.

[Pathfinder]

COVID-19 Misinformation

About this report


As the global community faces the COVID-19 pandemic together, Twitter is helping people find reliable information, connect with others, and follow what’s happening in real time.

Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy.

...

https://transparency.twitter.com/en/reports/covid19.html#2021-jul-dec

[sharon sanders]

John Campbell has been censored at you tube with a "warning".

He makes an apology in advance that he has contraints about what he can discuss.

[Emily]

Comments on one of his recent videos:

"We, who were born on the wrong side of the iron curtain, recognize what is going on. I would like to express my gratitude for what you are doing by providing solid information for our decision making."

"I was born on the "right" side of the iron curtain. That has decidedly changed the last couple decades."