A landmark preliminary injunction delivered by U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty on Tuesday has brought to light substantial evidence of collusion between the Biden administration and Big Tech, according to the injunction details.
The ruling unequivocally forbids the aforementioned parties from violating Americans’ First Amendment rights by instructing social media platforms to censor users, which until now, has been disregarded as a “conspiracy theory” by critics.
The injunction cites a series of alarming instances revealing the depth and breadth of this alleged partnership, which spans across several powerful social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook (now Meta), and WhatsApp. The evidence provided by Judge Doughty discloses how the White House actively sought content removal and account bans on several occasions.
For instance, on January 23, 2021, the White House requested Twitter to delete a tweet from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which was critical of Covid-19 vaccines. Following this, on February 6, 2021, the White House urged Twitter to ban a parody account linked to President Biden’s granddaughter, Finnegan Biden, which was swiftly executed within 45 minutes.
Judge Doughty’s injunction further unveils how Twitter created a “Partner Support Portal” for the White House on February 7, 2021, aiming to streamline the significant volume of censorship requests it received. This was followed by a pledge from Twitter on March 1, 2021, to augment efforts to suppress what they termed as “misleading information.”
Around the same period, Facebook reportedly collaborated closely with the White House to censor alleged Covid-19 misinformation and promote vaccine advocacy. Emails between the White House and a senior Meta executive between May and July confirmed Meta’s commitment to fulfill White House requests to censor and penalize accounts sharing misinformation.
The allegations extended to shadow banning on WhatsApp, content demotion on Facebook, and significant account de-platforming on Twitter, demonstrating the administration’s widespread influence on social media censorship. On several occasions, posts or accounts that did not violate community guidelines were still subject to suppression due to White House intervention.
Particularly highlighted was Facebook’s attempt to appease White House censorship demands to regain its favor, especially following intense public and internal pressure. In response, Facebook executed a large-scale censorship campaign against the so-called “Disinformation Dozen” and anyone related to them, while expressing a mutual intent to fight misinformation in collaboration with the White House.
The injunction further indicates the Biden administration’s alleged attempts to suppress narratives surrounding controversial subjects such as the Hunter Biden laptop story, 2020 election integrity, voting by mail security, climate change skepticism, pro-life advocates, those supporting the gender binary, economic criticisms, and general presidential disapproval.
Judge Doughty sternly stated, “If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”
