We’ve just witnessed the biggest attack on freedom of speech in U.S. history. And it appears the writing is on the wall for “the most important free speech lawsuit of this generation,” in which the federal government was sued for working with social media companies to censor Americans.1
U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty issued a preliminary injunction, siding with the plaintiffs that the U.S. government colluded with social media companies to censor free speech.
“If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history,” Doughty wrote. “In their attempts to suppress alleged disinformation, the federal government, and particularly the defendants named here, are alleged to have blatantly ignored the First Amendment’s right to free speech.”2
Government Tried to Get Case Dismissed, but Failed
The lawsuit — Missouri et al v. Biden et al — was filed May 2022 by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, and plaintiffs Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya and Dr. Martin Kulldorff — co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which scientifically critiqued the effects of prolonged lockdowns in response to COVID-19.3
The lawsuit alleges the Biden administration “colluded with social media giants Meta, Twitter and YouTube to censor free speech in the name of combating so-called ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation.’” In so doing, it suppressed and censored the truth “on a scale never before seen” on topics relating to COVID-19 shots, COVID-19’s potential laboratory origins and Hunter Biden’s laptop.4
Judge Doughty denied a motion from the government to dismiss the case,5 which called on Dr. Anthony Fauci and other officials, including CISA director Jen Easterly and former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, to testify under oath.6 The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), which represents Bhattacharya and Kulldorff in the case, stated:7
“Social media platforms, acting at the federal government’s behest, repeatedly censored NCLA’s clients for articulating views on those platforms in opposition to government-approved views on Covid-19 restrictions. This insidious censorship was the direct result of the federal government’s ongoing campaign to silence those who voice perspectives that deviate from those of the Biden Administration.
Government officials’ public threats to punish social media companies that did not do their bidding demonstrate this linkage, as do emails from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to social media companies that only recently were made public.”
In a July 16, 2021, White House press briefing, press secretary Jen Psaki actually admitted the Biden administration is violating the First Amendment by alerting social media companies to posts and accounts it believes is peddling “misinformation” about COVID injections.8 This includes banning the 12 individuals, including yours truly, who were falsely deemed the “disinformation dozen” during the pandemic, from all available social medial platforms.9
US Government Assumed Role as ‘Orwellian Ministry of Truth’
Doughty didn’t mince words when it came to the severity of the government’s censorship efforts, writing:10
“The evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’”
Topics that were clearly censored by the government, which “used its power to silence the opposition,” included:11
Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines | Opposition to COVID-19 masking and lockdowns |
Opposition to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19 | Opposition to the validity of the 2020 election |
Opposition to President Biden’s policies | Statements that the Hunter Biden laptop story was true |
Opposition to policies of the government officials in power |
Doughty added:12
“All were suppressed. It is quite telling that each example or category of suppressed speech was conservative in nature. This targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech. American citizens have the right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country.
Although this case is still relatively young, and at this stage the Court is only examining it in terms of Plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on the merits, the Plaintiffs have presented substantial evidence in support of their claims that they were the victims of a far-reaching and widespread censorship campaign. This court finds that they are likely to succeed on the merits of their First Amendment free speech claim against the Defendants.”
On Twitter, journalist Glenn Greenwald called the judge’s ruling vital to not only acknowledge the “systemic program of the US Govt to pressure/coerce Big Tech to censor for it,” but also to “apply established 1st Am principles that the state is barred from pressuring private actors to censor for it.” What’s more, he added, the ruling even banned the practice from continuing.13
Judge Blocks US Government From Policing Social Media
As part of the preliminary injunction, Doughty limited the U.S. government from meeting with social media companies to discuss content online.14 Already, the U.S. State Department canceled its regular meetings with Facebook, during which it planned to discuss “safeguards” for the 2024 election — “pending further guidance.”15
In a commentary for WSJ Opinion, Bret Swanson, technology and global economy analyst, states COVID censorship proved to be deadly in that “government and social-media companies colluded to stifle dissenters who turned out to be right.”16 This led to effective COVID-19 treatments being silenced early on, leading to an unknown number of deaths that might have been prevented if censorship hadn’t prevailed.
“Legions of doctors stayed quiet after witnessing the demonization of their peers who challenged the COVID orthodoxy. A little censorship leads people to watch what they say. Millions of patients and citizens were deprived of important insights as a result,” Swanson wrote.17 He tweeted:18
“For three years, pandemic public relations mocked nature, generating fear, illness, inflation and excess death beyond what the virus caused. Digital censorship supercharged the effort to hide reality, but reality is getting its day in court.”
While much of the damage has already been done, the ruling restrains the government and other named defendants from engaging with social media via 10 key measures, including:19
Meeting with social-media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms |
Specifically flagging content or posts on social-media platforms and/or forwarding such to social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech |
Urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner social-media companies to change their guidelines for removing, deleting, suppressing or reducing content containing protected free speech |
Emailing, calling, sending letters, texting, or engaging in any communication of any kind with social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech |
Collaborating, coordinating, partnering, switchboarding, and/or jointly working with the Election Integrity Partnership, the Virality Project, the Stanford Internet Observatory, or any like project or group for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner removal, deletion, suppression or reduction of content posted with social-media companies containing protected free speech |
Threatening, pressuring, or coercing social-media companies in any manner to remove, delete, suppress or reduce posted content of postings containing protected free speech |
Taking any action such as urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress or reduce posted content protected by the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution |
Following up with social-media companies to determine whether the social-media companies removed, deleted, suppressed, or reduced previous social-media postings containing protected free speech |
Requesting content reports from social-media companies detailing actions taken to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce content containing protected free speech |
Notifying social-media companies to Be on The Lookout (“BOLO”) for postings containing protected free speech |
A Globalist Agenda
When organizations talk about tackling “misinformation” and “disinformation,” it’s a code phrase for censorship. It’s also part of a globalist agenda to control free speech, alter the perception of truth and reality, and spread its carefully orchestrated propaganda. July 4, 2023, the United Nations tweeted the following statement from Melissa Fleming, its communications chief, with the above graphic:20
“Our information ecosystem is now so polluted with lies & hate that voices for positive change are seriously struggling to make themselves heard.”
It’s a classic example of globalist propaganda, but the policing of “wrongthink” on social media also has deep roots stemming from the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA),21 which are mentioned in the lawsuit.
In addition, in June 2023, the House Judiciary Committee released a report detailing how CISA “colluded with Big Tech and ‘disinformation’ partners to censor Americans.”22 “The 36-page report raises three familiar issues,” the Brownstone Institute reported.
“First, government actors worked with third parties to overturn the First Amendment; second, censors prioritized political narratives over truthfulness; and third, an unaccountable bureaucracy hijacked American society.”23
The United Nations’ propaganda above has a familiar ring to it because it’s the same rhetoric being spouted the world over. Much of the new world order’s plans are based on crisis management, and the idea that a great crisis will occur that will lead to the great transition, where globalists will swoop in to save the day, transforming society into the promised paradise, which is actually a totalitarian society.
But in order for their plans to succeed, they must control the narrative. Technology and digitization have allowed this to occur at an unprecedented level compared to in the past, largely due to censorship online.
What’s the endgame? In 2019, the United Nations and the World Economic Forum entered into a strategic alliance, which called for the U.N. to “use public-private partnerships as the model for nearly all policies that it implements, most specifically the implementation of the 17 sustainable development goals, sometimes referred to as Agenda 2030.”24
Soon after the COVID-19 pandemic began, global leaders and WEF began calling for The Great Reset.25 Embedded in this future world order will be widespread digitization, data collection and digital IDs intended to track and trace the global population. The United Nation’s Summit of the Future is scheduled for 2024, honing in on “the triple planetary crisis,” the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war to instill fear and propel their agenda forward.
Described as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to enhance cooperation on critical challenges and address gaps in global governance, reaffirm existing commitments including to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the United Nations Charter, and move towards a reinvigorated multilateral system that is better positioned to positively impact people’s lives,”26 — this is but one more checkmark toward reaching the new world order.
And a big part of the plan will involve readying for the next crisis — and obeying their orders on how to react when it occurs. Again, censorship is necessary for this to work, lest people start to question what’s really going on. They’ll put emergency platforms into place under the promise that they’ll dissolve once the crisis is solved. But if the crisis never ends, neither will their new authoritarian regime.27
Will truth and free speech ultimately prevail? Doughty’s ruling is a large step in the right direction, bringing hope that, at least in the U.S., freedom has not yet been lost.