Chris Lange, FISM News

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Big Tech censorship of COVID-19 information is at the center of a new lawsuit filed against the Biden administration.

A group of prominent doctors and scientists on Tuesday joined a lawsuit filed by the states of Missouri and Louisiana alleging that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) colluded with Big Tech social media giants to censor Americans discussing the pandemic on their platforms.

Drs. Jayanta Bhattacharya, Aaron Kheriaty, and Martin Kulldorff joined the suit, alleging that their voices were silenced for expressing opinions on the pandemic that differed from the narrative pushed by the federal government. Specifically, social media platforms booted the doctors and banned their accounts for asserting that natural immunity could be superior to vaccinations in terms of preventing COVID infections and warning against the long-term negative effects of lockdowns and mandates.

The doctors are being represented by The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA).

I am suing the government (@POTUS, @CDCgov, Fauci, etc) for colluding with @Twitter, @facebook, @LinkedIn and @YouTube to censor our free speech during the pandemic, jointly with @Eric_Schmitt, @JeffLandry, @DrJBhattacharya, @akheriaty & @HealthFreedomLA.https://t.co/g2YvCv9wCA

— Martin Kulldorff (@MartinKulldorff) August 3, 2022

“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,” NCLA said in a press release announcing the suit.

“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.” The release continued, citing public threats made by “government officials” to “punish social media companies that did not do their bidding” as well as emails sent by the CDC and DHS to social media companies “that only recently were made public.”

Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, and Kulldorff, a former professor of medicine at Harvard University and member of the CDC’s Vaccine Safety Subgroup, co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration in which they expressed “grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies” and recommended a targeted approach that prioritizes the protection of the most vulnerable Americans.

They also warned against widespread mandates and lockdowns they believed would bring about more harm than good. Both men were subjected to intense pushback and public ridicule from government officials and other pro-mandate figures. 

NCLA legal counsel Jenin Younes pointed out the administration’s overreach.

The Biden Administration’s involvement in silencing the voices of those who have critiqued its responses to Covid-19, through pressure exerted on social media companies, is unprecedented in nature and degree. Two of the plaintiffs, Drs. Bhattacharya and Kulldorff, are among the world’s most renowned epidemiologists and had crucial insights to share on the flawed reasoning and science underlying lockdowns and mask and vaccine mandates.

Newly discovered documents obtained by America First Legal Foundation reveal that top U.S. health officials worked hand-in-hand with big tech companies to moderate content related to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report by The Daily Caller.

America First Legal sued the CDC to obtain the documents after the group filed a FOIA request for documents related to communications with big tech firms. The documents reportedly show that social media giants like Facebook and Twitter were frequently issued directives by the CDC on what to flag as “misinformation” and how to moderate pandemic-related content.

According to the report, evidence shows that Big Tech removed, suppressed, or slapped warning labels on thousands of pieces of content that did not align with CDC guidance.

The massive and open campaign to censor pandemic-related content that did not meet the Biden administration’s approved-language requirements was at one point so widespread that it became something of a joke. It has since taken on greater and more sobering significance with the emergence of evidence that supports the plaintiffs’ medical opinions – information that could well have saved lives and prevented the unprecedented socio-economic hardships created by lockdowns and mandates, including the toll it took on American children who bore the brunt of forced isolation.

A study by Johns Hopkins University released in January showed that COVID-19 lockdowns in the spring of 2020 had “little to no effect” on mortality rates and, instead, “imposed enormous economic and social costs,” including “reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy.”

Later the same month, the CDC released a study concluding that natural immunity provides sufficient, if not superior, protection against reinfection, severe illness, and hospitalizations, versus vaccine-induced immunity.