A new lawsuit alleges that the Biden administration held regular meetings with social media companies to discuss what Americans should be allowed to say online. The supposed aim was to suppress any comments about the COVID pandemic that didn’t fit the official narrative. Now, free speech advocates want to know exactly what was going on.
On August 31, the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) and the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana filed a suit against President Joe Biden, alleging serious violations of the First Amendment right to free speech. Court documents reveal that the Biden administration has built very close links with tech companies in an effort to control what people say on the internet, and an alarming array of government agencies have been contributing to the process. According to the plaintiffs, monthly “USG-industry meetings” included platforms like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as representatives from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, Justice Department, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The CDC was also involved, openly discussing ways to control the COVID narrative online.
Now, the state attorneys and the NCLA are calling on the administration to reveal “all meetings with any Social-Media Platform relating to Content Modulation and/or Misinformation.” Missouri AG Eric Schmitt says the Justice Department is “cowering behind executive privilege” and won’t hand over records of its conversations with social media companies.
Americans have a right to know about government censorship attempts; this lawsuit could break the information loose.
