Tag: social media censorship

Journalists, Medical Groups, Big Business Emerge as Biden Allies in Social Media Censorship Case

Just the News
Journalists Press

President Joe Biden’s administration is getting some big-name allies as it defends against a landmark free speech infringement lawsuit. Their argument: protecting Americans from indirect censorship by government officials undermines the First Amendment, national security, and public health.

Advocacy groups for journalists, academics, doctors, technologists, and big business, and a powerful senator, made various forms of these arguments in friend-of-the-court briefs to the Supreme Court in the days before and after Christmas. 

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Montana AG Asks SCOTUS to Take Up Case Challenging State Agency That Encouraged Social Media Censorship

Virginia Star Staff

Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen asked the Supreme Court Friday to hear a case that challenges a state agency’s efforts to police election-related “misinformation” on Twitter.

A group of nine attorneys general led by Knudsen filed an amicus brief Friday urging the Supreme Court to hear O’Handley v. Weber, a lawsuit challenging the California Secretary of State’s Office of Election Cybersecurity’s practice of flagging “false or misleading” election information for removal by Twitter. The states call the agency’s actions an “anathema” to the First Amendment and argue they reflect similar conduct occurring at the federal level.

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Planned Parenthood Demands Social Media Censorship Despite Past ‘Outrage’ over the Issue

Virginia Star Staff

Although it has decried censorship in the past, Planned Parenthood has recently advocated for social media suppression of “misinformation,” including on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Tuesday.

Planned Parenthood experienced “outrage” over abortion and “sexual health” content censorship less than a decade ago and signed onto a letter calling information access a “human right” in 2022. More recently, however, it has taken action to push social media to censor what it considers to be misinformation, disinformation and hate speech.

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FBI Agent’s Testimony Implicates Headquarters Brass in Social Media Censorship

Just the News

An FBI agent’s testimony in a freedom of speech case confirms that the bureau ran an operation during the 2020 election that requested social media companies remove content as disinformation, suggesting the government’s requests succeeded about half of the time and were conducted with a “headquarter stamp of approval.”

Elvis Chan, the FBI assistant special agent in charge of the Cyber Branch in San Francisco, told lawyers for the Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general in a lawsuit over social media censorship that he supervised a “command post” in his home city that helped the nationwide disinformation censorship operation function in fall 2020.

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Feds Reeling from New Vax Study, Lawsuits on Social Media Censorship and COVID Stat Manipulation

Just the News

Public health agencies are facing perhaps the most serious threats to their control over information since the COVID-19 pandemic started, playing defense in lawsuits that have already exposed substantial federal involvement in censorship and could next uncloak alleged manipulation of data that has driven COVID policy from the start.

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LinkTree Cancels LibsOfTiktok After WaPo Doxxing

Peter D'Abrosca

One of the most popular right-wing Twitter accounts Wednesday said that it has been banned from using an online link-sharing service.

“Linktree just deleted my account citing ‘inappropriate use of this service,'” said Twitter account LibsOfTikTok. “When I try to log in it says my account is no longer accessible. Why am I suddenly being censored?”

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Texas Governor Signs Law Preventing Social Media Companies from Banning People for Their Views

Virginia Star Staff
Gov. Greg Abbott signs law

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law Thursday preventing social media companies from banning users for their political views.

The law, known as HB 20, prohibits social media platforms from banning or suspending users, and removing or suppressing their content, based on political viewpoint. The bill was introduced by state Sen. Bryan Hughes partly in an effort to combat perceived censorship of conservatives by Facebook, Twitter, Google-owned YouTube, and other major tech companies.

“Social media websites have become our modern-day public square,” Abbott said in a statement. “They are a place for healthy public debate where information should be able to flow freely — but there is a dangerous movement by social media companies to silence conservative viewpoints and ideas.”

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Former New York Times Journalist Alex Berenson Permanently Suspended by Twitter

Virginia Star Staff
Alex Berenson

Twitter has permanently banned Alex Berenson, a former New York Times journalist who has become a major critic of Big Tech censorship and coronavirus lockdowns and mandates.

Responding to an inquiry from Fox News, where Berenson has been a frequent guest during the pandemic, a spokesperson for Twitter replied that “The account you referenced has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation rules.”

Berenson responded on his Substack page, where he posted a message titled “Goodbye Twitter.”

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Twitter Suspends Accounts Documenting Arizona Audit

Corinne Murdock

Twitter permanently suspended several accounts dedicated to documenting the Arizona audit. The social media giant also permanently suspended other similar or affiliated accounts covering the audit or calls for an audit in Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.

The suspended accounts were: @arizonaaudit, @AuditWarRoom, @AuditMichigan, @AuditWisconsin, @AuditNevada, @AuditGeorgia, @Audit_Arizona and @Audit_PA. The latter 7 accounts are associated with an Instagram account, @auditwarroom, that hasn’t been suspended from the Facebook-owned platform. That account notified the public that it joined GETTR, a social media platform created by former President Donald Trump’s aide Jason Miller.

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