The Republican attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana accused President Joe Biden and other top government officials in a lawsuit Thursday of colluding with social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to censor and suppress speech under the guise of combating dangerous misinformation.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry filed the suit in an attempt to demonstrate the Biden administration’s alleged work with Big Tech companies to suppress speech pertaining to COVID-19-related information, election integrity, and other topics unfairly.
The lawsuit claims that Biden and his supporters, during the 2020 election campaign and now in office, have directly worked with executives and employees of Big Tech companies to censor content related to controversial political debates over the past two years.
CONSERVATIVES WARN OF BIG TECH-FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ‘COLLUSION’ ON CENSORSHIP
“We allege that government officials in the Biden Administration, including President Biden, Press Secretary Jen Psaki, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, and others colluded with social media companies like Meta, Twitter, and Youtube to remove truthful information related to the lab-leak theory, the efficacy of masks, election integrity, and more,” Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said in a press release. “I will not stand idly by while the Biden Administration attempts to trample on the First Amendment rights of Missourians and Americans.”
The lawsuit alleges that the federal government violated people’s First Amendment rights in colluding with social media companies. The suit also alleges that the Biden administration has broken the law in its communications with Big Tech platforms and that officials within the departments of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security violated the Administrative Procedures Act to suppress speech.
As an example, the suit notes that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, exchanged emails with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg regarding the dissemination of information related to COVID-19 on the platform. It also mentions comments by White House press secretary Jen Psaki and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy calling on social media platforms to do more to combat “misinformation.”
“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 Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry.
In the past few months, conservatives have rallied against what they claim is collusion between Big Tech and the federal government with the aim of censoring the Right under the rationale of preventing domestic terrorism.
Large tech platforms, from Facebook and YouTube to Spotify and GoFundMe, ratcheted up bans and the censorship of users and organizations earlier this year.
The companies, once viewed as neutral platforms and marketplaces, are increasingly behaving as left-wing activist organizations because of cancel culture, conservatives say.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Conservatives are perhaps most concerned about a February bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security saying the federal government plans to work with public and private sector partners to reduce the “proliferation of false or misleading narratives, which sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions.”
