Censored Under Pressure

Journalist Alex Berenson is suing members of the Biden administration — and others, inluding Pfizer officers — for pressuring Twitter to ban him for what he wrote about the COVID-​19 vaccines.

The best-​known of his heretical tweets says, “It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission. And we want to mandate it? Insanity.”

In the months since August 2021, when Twitter expelled him “for repeated violations of our COVID-​19 misinformation rules,” such hardly intemperate observations have become less controversial. Vaccine proponents have retreated, typically claiming, at most, that the putative vaccines reduce the risk of severe illness and death.

Berenson first sued Twitter to challenge its ban. The suit succeeded; eleven months after Twitter banned him, it reinstated his account.

But Twitter had not been acting independently; it had succumbed to a lengthy campaign by the Biden administration to censor Berenson. Any such actions by government officials are, of course, unconstitutional.

The defendants in Berenson’s new lawsuit include President Biden, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Director of Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty, and former White House official Andrew Slavitt (“at the center of the conspiracy”). Two Pfizer officers are also named: board member Scott Gottlieb and CEO Albert Bourla.

Berenson’s detailed complaint alleges that “after months of public and secret pressure, Defendants succeeded” in getting Twitter to ban him.

The private pressure is attested by internal documents released by Twitter and government documents produced during the course of Missouri and Louisiana’s lawsuit against censorship by the Biden administration.

In defending his rights, Alex Berenson is helping us all retrieve freedoms we lost in the pandemic panic.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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