USA 2020 Elections: Thread

[grarpamp]

States Sue Biden Administration For 'Pressuring And Colluding' With
Big Tech To Censor Free Speech

https://www.theepochtimes.com/2-gop-led-states-sue-biden-administration-for-pressuring-and-colluding-with-big-tech-to-censor-free-speech_4449673.html
https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-source/press-releases/mo-la-v-biden-filed-petition.pdf

Two Republican-led states have filed a lawsuit against President Joe
Biden, White House press secretary Jen Psaki, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and
other top administration officials for allegedly pressuring and
colluding with social media giants with the aim of censoring and
suppressing free speech.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks as Assistant to the President & Chair
of the Council of Economic Advisers Cecilia Rouse listens during an
event at the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, on May
4, 2022. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General
Jeff Landry filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the
Western District of Louisiana on April 5, they announced in separate
statements on Thursday.

The attorneys claim that Biden and other government officials worked
with big tech companies like Meta, Twitter, and YouTube to censor
conversation around matters relating to everything from COVID-19 and
election integrity to the Hunter Biden laptop story, doing so under
the guise of combating “misinformation.”

Others named in the lawsuit include Surgeon General Vivek Murthy,
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and the
executive director of DHS’s newly established “Disinformation
Governance Board,” Nina Jankowicz.
Nina Jankowicz [ZH]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra, and Director
of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Jen Easterly
are also listed as defendants.

In announcing the lawsuit on Thursday, attorney Schmitt stressed the
importance of freedom of speech which he said is “paramount to a
healthy society,” adding that “discourse, debate, and discussion have
been the cornerstone of our country since the Founders codified that
right in the Bill of Rights.”

Schmitt stated that Americans use social media platforms to discuss an
array of topics, noting that those topics have more recently, in light
of the global COVID-19 pandemic, conversations regarding whether or
not face coverings are effective in preventing the virus from
spreading and whether the virus origins came from a lab leak in Wuhan,
China.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki speaks during a White House
daily press briefing at the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the
White House in Washington on May 04, 2022. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases, responds to questions during a congressional
hearing in Washington in a file image. (Greg Nash/Pool via Reuters)

“In direct contravention to the First Amendment and freedom of speech,
the Biden Administration has been engaged in a pernicious campaign to
both pressure social media giants to censor and suppress speech and
work directly with those platforms to achieve that censorship in a
misguided and Orwellian campaign against ‘misinformation,'” said
Schmitt, referencing George Orwell’s dystopian novel about a
totalitarian state, 1984.

The lawsuit filed on Thursday specifically accuses Biden and other
government officials of working with big tech companies to remove
“truthful information related to the lab-leak theory, the efficacy of
masks, election integrity, and more,” Schmitt said.

It also accuses Biden and other officials of “falsely” attacking the
Hunter Biden laptop story as “disinformation” along with tech giants
like Twitter.

The story, which was first published by the New York Post in October
2020, detailed the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop that was
abandoned in a Delaware computer repair shop, and which included
compromising pictures and emails regarding allegedly corrupt foreign
business deals.

Twitter labeled the story as “potentially harmful” and locked the New
York Post’s main Twitter account while simultaneously blocking Twitter
users from publishing the link to the story.
Hunter Biden attends his father Joe Biden’s inauguration as the 46th
President of the United States on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol
in Washington on Jan. 20, 2021. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool/Reuters)

The New York Times and the Washington Post have since acknowledged the
existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop and emails.

“Big Tech has become an extension of Biden’s Big Government, and
neither are protecting the freedoms of Americans; rather, they are
suppressing truth and demonizing those who think differently,” said
Attorney General Landry.

“Ripped from the playbook of Stalin and his ilk, Biden has been
colluding with Big Tech to censor free speech and propagandize the
masses. We are fighting back to ensure the rule of law and prevent the
government from unconstitutional banning, chilling, and stifling of
speech.”

The lawsuit alleges that the federal government violated Missourians’,
Louisianans’, and Americans’ First Amendment rights and “coerced,
threatened, and pressured social-media platforms to censor disfavored
speakers and viewpoints by using threats of adverse government
action.”

As a result of those threats, the lawsuit states, the defendants “are
now directly colluding with social-media platforms to censor
disfavored speakers and viewpoints, including by pressuring them to
censor certain content and speakers, and ‘flagging’ disfavored content
and speakers for censorship. These actions violate the First
Amendment.”

The attorneys asked the court to declare that Biden and other
defendants violated the First Amendment, exceeded their statutory
authority, and to stop the officials from continuing to engage in
their “unlawful” conduct.

Furthermore, they claim that the DHS and HHS officials’ conduct
violates the Administrative Procedure Act.