Missouri and Louisiana filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration Thursday for allegedly colluding with Big Tech companies.
Fox News reported that the lawsuit claimed that the Biden administration “pressured and colluded” with companies like Facebook and Twitter to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story. The plaintiffs also alleged that stories that discussed the origins of COVID-19 and potential fraud in mail-in votes were also censored.
The suit named the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Department of Homeland Security, Nina Jankowicz in her official capacity as director of the “Disinformation Governance Board,” and others as defendants.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry alleged that the censorship occurred "'under the guise of combating misinformation' in order to achieve greater censorship,” Fox reported. Schmitt and Landry issued a press release that further explained their complaint.
The lawsuit also alleged that the Biden administration "coerced, threatened, and pressured social media platforms to censor disfavored speakers and viewpoints by using threats of adverse government action,” according to the article.
"Having threatened and cajoled social-media platforms for years to censor viewpoints and speakers disfavored by the Left, senior government officials in the Executive Branch have moved into a phase of open collusion with social-media companies to suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content on social-media platforms under the Orwellian guise of halting so-called ‘disinformation,' ‘misinformation,’ and ‘malinformation,’" the pleading said.
Schmitt told Fox News that the lawsuit was aimed at preserving free speech.
"In direct contravention to the First Amendment and freedom of speech, the Biden Administration has been engaged in a pernicious campaign to both pressure social media giants to censor and suppress speech and work directly with those platforms to achieve that censorship in a misguided and Orwellian campaign against ‘misinformation,’" he told Fox News.
"I will not stand idly by while the Biden Administration attempts to trample on the First Amendment rights of Missourians and Americans," he added.
Landry claimed that Big Tech companies acted as “an extension” of the Biden administration.
"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," Landry told Fox News. "Ripped from the playbook of Stalin and his ilk, Biden has been colluding with Big Tech to censor free speech and propagandize the masses. We are fighting back to ensure the rule of law and prevent the government from unconstitutional banning, chilling, and stifling of speech."
The suit further referenced YouTube's censorship Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis because they criticized cloth masks' efficacy at combating COVID-19. The plaintiffs said former President Donald Trump and his campaign were also targeted.
"Notoriously, social-media platforms aggressively censored core political speech by then-President Trump and the Trump campaign raising concerns about the security of voting by mail in the run-up to the November 2020 presidential election," the suit added.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the CensorTrack contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
