Biden sued for “collaborating” with Big Tech to suppress free speech on the Hunter laptop

Two Republican-led states have reportedly filed a lawsuit against President Joe Biden and other top government officials, alleging they “pressured and colluded with big tech companies” to get The Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story to suppress and censor information related to the laboratory origins of COVID-19.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, accuses top government officials of conspiring to share information with social media giants Meta, Twitter and YouTube “under under the guise of fighting misinformation,” Fox News reported.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, Dr. Anthony Fauci and Nina Jankowicz — the head of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) new and controversial “Disinformation Governance Board” — were among the other senior officials and federal agencies named as defendants in the lawsuit, which was brought before the US District Court for was filed in the western district of Louisiana.

The 86-page lawsuit accuses the federal government of violating the right to free speech by threatening big tech companies to silence conservative viewpoints.

“After years of threatening and coaxing social media platforms to censor positions and speakers disapproved by the Left, senior government officials in the executive branch have entered a period of open collusion with social media companies to control unfavorable speakers, positions and content to suppress social media platforms under the Orwellian guise of banning so-called “disinformation”. ‘Misinformation’ and ‘misinformation,'” claims the fill.

“To label unpopular statements as ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’ does not strip her of First Amendment protections…with the common understanding that some false statements are inevitable if there is to be frank and vigorous expression of opinion in public and private conversations …the First Amendment is trying to guarantee.”

The lawsuit specifically accuses the government of suppressing in the case of The Post’s laptop story about Hunter Biden, the theory that COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan lab, the effectiveness of mask-wearing to limit the spread of COVID-19 stop, and the security of mail. in voting during the pandemic.

“Perhaps most notorious is that social media platforms shared an October 14, 2020 New York Post disclosure about the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop that had been left at a Delaware repair shop and compromising photos and email communications about corrupt foreign deals, aggressively censored,” the filing said.

After the Post’s report on then-candidate Biden’s son was published, Twitter suspended the newspaper from its account for more than two weeks over baseless allegations that the exposé used hacked information.

Twitter also blocked users from sharing the link to The Post’s article, which called the link “potentially harmful.” Facebook also said it would limit the distribution of The Post’s story on its own platform. Just last month – 17 months after the Post’s report was published – both the Washington Post and the New York Times quietly confirmed the existence of Hunter Biden’s laptop and emails.

In addition, the two attorneys general said that Facebook had censored posts mentioning the COVID-19 lab leak theory – which claimed the virus may have originated in a lab in Wuhan, China. The lawsuit alleges that Dr. Fauci “managed a campaign to falsely discredit the lab leak theory,” with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stopping censorship of the theory on the platform only after media reports suggested it was feasible.

Landry and Schmitt found that YouTube blocked videos posted by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul that questioned the effectiveness of wearing cloth masks during the pandemic — which the CDC later found less effective than other face coverings confirmed.

The lawsuit further accuses social media platforms of “aggressively censoring language that has raised concerns about the security of voting by mail, a key issue of election security.”

“All of these instances of false censorship share a common theme: Each involved censoring truthful or reliable information that contradicted left-wing political narratives,” the lawsuit reads.

The attorneys asked the court to state that the defendants violated the First Amendment and that the defendants exceeded their statutory authority. They have also asked the court to stop officers from “continuing to engage in unlawful conduct” in a bid to stifle freedom of expression.