Journalists, Medical Groups, Big Business Emerge as Biden Allies in Social Media Censorship Case

Journalists Press

President Joe Biden’s administration is getting some big-name allies as it defends against a landmark free speech infringement lawsuit. Their argument: protecting Americans from indirect censorship by government officials undermines the First Amendment, national security, and public health.

Advocacy groups for journalists, academics, doctors, technologists, and big business, and a powerful senator, made various forms of these arguments in friend-of-the-court briefs to the Supreme Court in the days before and after Christmas. 

Read More

Montana AG Asks SCOTUS to Take Up Case Challenging State Agency That Encouraged Social Media Censorship

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen asked the Supreme Court Friday to hear a case that challenges a state agency’s efforts to police election-related “misinformation” on Twitter.

A group of nine attorneys general led by Knudsen filed an amicus brief Friday urging the Supreme Court to hear O’Handley v. Weber, a lawsuit challenging the California Secretary of State’s Office of Election Cybersecurity’s practice of flagging “false or misleading” election information for removal by Twitter. The states call the agency’s actions an “anathema” to the First Amendment and argue they reflect similar conduct occurring at the federal level.

Read More

Planned Parenthood Demands Social Media Censorship Despite Past ‘Outrage’ over the Issue

Although it has decried censorship in the past, Planned Parenthood has recently advocated for social media suppression of “misinformation,” including on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Tuesday.

Planned Parenthood experienced “outrage” over abortion and “sexual health” content censorship less than a decade ago and signed onto a letter calling information access a “human right” in 2022. More recently, however, it has taken action to push social media to censor what it considers to be misinformation, disinformation and hate speech.

Read More

FBI Agent’s Testimony Implicates Headquarters Brass in Social Media Censorship

An FBI agent’s testimony in a freedom of speech case confirms that the bureau ran an operation during the 2020 election that requested social media companies remove content as disinformation, suggesting the government’s requests succeeded about half of the time and were conducted with a “headquarter stamp of approval.”

Elvis Chan, the FBI assistant special agent in charge of the Cyber Branch in San Francisco, told lawyers for the Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general in a lawsuit over social media censorship that he supervised a “command post” in his home city that helped the nationwide disinformation censorship operation function in fall 2020.

Read More

Feds Reeling from New Vax Study, Lawsuits on Social Media Censorship and COVID Stat Manipulation

Public health agencies are facing perhaps the most serious threats to their control over information since the COVID-19 pandemic started, playing defense in lawsuits that have already exposed substantial federal involvement in censorship and could next uncloak alleged manipulation of data that has driven COVID policy from the start.

Read More

LinkTree Cancels LibsOfTiktok After WaPo Doxxing

One of the most popular right-wing Twitter accounts Wednesday said that it has been banned from using an online link-sharing service.

“Linktree just deleted my account citing ‘inappropriate use of this service,'” said Twitter account LibsOfTikTok. “When I try to log in it says my account is no longer accessible. Why am I suddenly being censored?”

Read More