Rational Ground

Free Speech in the Age of Covid

April 22, 2022

April 20, 2022 — Managing Attorney Daniel Suhr joined Justin Hart on his Rational Ground podcast to delve into the myriad of cases (including Hart’s own) in the fight for free speech during the Covid pandemic.

Listen to the podcast.

One would hope that companies like Facebook and Twitter created and launched in America might adhere to the basic tenants of American democracy – like free speech – especially if they crow about being the modern digital equivalent of the Town Square. Everything changed on July 15th however when the press secretary to the President of the United States admitted that they were actively targeting, censoring and silencing Americans with opinions they disagreed with and using Facebook and Twitter to do so!

In a July 15, 2021, press briefing, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki revealed that senior White House staff “is in regular touch” with Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms regarding posts about COVID-19, while the Surgeon General’s office is “flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread” what the administration has declared as “disinformation.” The administration simultaneously released a blacklist of individuals it declared as “super-disseminators” of so-called COVID “disinformation“ or “misinformation.”

Now these dominant social media platforms and the White House are openly collaborating to eliminate social media posts about COVID-19 that the administration finds objectionable, and to cancel or suspend the Facebook and Twitter accounts of people who raise issues about COVID they don’t want the public to see.

You can read about the lawsuit here.