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US states sue Biden over Big Tech ‘collusion’ — Analysis

The Missouri and Louisiana Attorneys General have accused the US president and several high-ranking officials of ‘colluding’ with Big Tech to censor information

Fox News reported that the Biden administration has been sued by two Republican-led US states: Louisiana and Missouri. The states are accusing high-ranking officials, including President Joe Biden, of having “Colluded with and pressured” with social media companies to censor and suppress information on a number of big stories over the past two years.

Among the officials named as defendants are White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki and the President’s Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci. Their actions and those of others were to exert undue pressure or work together with many Big Tech companies, such as Meta and Twitter, in order suppress information on the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, Covid-19 origins and security concerns related to mail-in voting during pandemic.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry claim the Biden Administration has been doing so “Under the pretense of fighting misinformation

US government defends 'Ministry of Truth'

The lawsuit, filed on Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, describes the  administration’s supposed efforts to hush up certain information as “One of the most significant assaults on federal officials by this nation in its history” on Americans’ constitutional right to free speech.

The filing goes on to claim that “Having threatened and cajoled social-media platforms for years to censor viewpoints and speakers disfavored by the Left, senior government officials in the Executive Branch have moved into a phase of open collusion with social-media companies to suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content on social-media platforms under the Orwellian guise of halting so-called ‘disinformation,’ ‘misinformation,’ and ‘malinformation’.

In an exclusive statement to Fox News Digital, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt explained the decision to file the lawsuit by saying that he would “Not sit idly while the Biden administration tries to infringe on Missourians’ First Amendment rights.

His colleague from the state of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, went so far as to characterize Big Tech as an “extension of Biden’s Big Government,” which is busy “It is a way of suppressing truth, and demonizing people who are not in agreement.” Landry compared Joe Biden to Joseph Stalin over the president’s policies that allegedly aim to “It is important to censor all speech and spread the word.” The Attorney General said the lawsuit was seeking to “You must ensure the rule and respect the rights of others and keep the government away from any unconstitutional banning or chilling of speech.

Among the cases brought up in the filing are Twitter’s decision to disable the sharing of a 2020 New York Post story revolving around the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop that was recovered from a repair shop in Delaware. Two Attorneys General noted that the Washington Post, New York Times and other news agencies later confirmed the accuracy of the report.

Facebook also censored posts that suggested Covid-19 might have leaked accidentally from Wuhan’s laboratory, China. The Attorneys General claim that it was Anthony Fauci who orchestrated an effort to “Discredit” the narrative while “Exchange of emails with Mark Zuckerberg the CEO of Facebook regarding Covid-19 information control and dissemination.” The campaign only began to wind down after more media outlets started reporting on the viability of the theory, the lawsuit alleges.

The filing also states that YouTube effectively blocked Rand Paul, a Republican senator, and Ron DeSantis from Florida for calling into question whether cloth masks were effective during the Covid pandemic.

Another major case where “Social media platforms aggressively blocked” speech, as Schmitt and Landry allege, was the run-up to the November 2020 presidential race. The Attorneys General claim that Donald Trump’s concerns regarding the security of mail-in voting were stifled by Big Tech at the time. Trump’s tweets were flagged, with a notice directing users to the facts surrounding the practice.

As further proof that the Biden administration has been exerting undue pressure on social media platforms to suppress free speech, the filing mentions Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s statement back in June 2021, where he said “we expect more from our technology companies… We’re asking them to monitor misinformation more closely.” Moreover, the latest launch of the new DHS disinformation board just goes to show that the current US political leadership is intent on ramping up its “Campaign for Censorship” the Attorneys General warn.

Fox News covered the suit filing and reached out to Meta (Twitter, YouTube, as well as White House) for comments. However, none have responded.



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