Censorship Industrial Complex
Assistant AG tells House committee she’s ‘not familiar’ with major social media censorship lawsuit
From LifeSiteNews
“If the allegations made by the plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack on free speech in United States history”
The assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division stunned a Republican lawmaker in a Tuesday hearing when she said she hadn’t heard of a major First Amendment lawsuit currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case alleges that members of the Biden administration colluded with social media companies to suppress content deemed to be “misinformation,” including COVID-19-related content and information related to Hunter Biden.
In a Tuesday hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, Assistant AG Kristen Clarke said she was “not familiar” with the ongoing litigation in the first amendment lawsuit Missouri v. Biden, a major case that LifeSiteNews has extensively covered.
Clarke made the remarks after Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina cited a July 4 opinion by Judge Terry Doughty stating that the plaintiffs “are likely to succeed on the merits of their First Amendment claim.”
“If the allegations made by the plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack on free speech in United States history,’” Doughty said in his opinion, which Rep. Bishop referenced in the Tuesday hearing. The U.S. Supreme Court has subsequently agreed to take up the case, now dubbed Murthy v. Missouri.
READ: Supreme Court will decide whether Biden admin illegally pushed Big Tech to censor conservatives
Noting that the litigation has been strictly civil to date, Bishop asked Clarke whether “any criminal investigation or criminal prosecution of the persons responsible for that activity” is “underway in the [DOJ] civil rights division?”
“Congressman, I’m not familiar with this litigation, but [I’m] happy to bring your question back,” Clarke said.
Bishop asked Clarke to confirm whether she was saying she was “not aware of the Missouri v. Biden litigation that is currently being taken up by the United States Supreme Court.”
“Is that correct?” Bishop said.
“Unfortunately, I’m not, Congressman,” Clarke said.
The Assistant AG for Civil Rights at the DOJ has ZERO awareness of the Missouri v. Biden case, which is set to be heard by SCOTUS.
A US District Court called the Biden admin's actions in the case “the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history."
Wow. pic.twitter.com/61hJBjwr2I
— Rep. Dan Bishop (@RepDanBishop) December 5, 2023
As LifeSiteNews has reported, the First Amendment lawsuit argues that numerous Biden administration officials had “colluded with and/or coerced social-media platforms to suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content.”
“In their attempts to suppress alleged disinformation, the Federal Government, and particularly the Defendants named here, are alleged to have blatantly ignored the First Amendment’s right to free speech,” the lawsuit claims.
The plaintiffs in the case are two states, Missouri and Louisiana, along with three doctors who have publicly spoken out against the prevailing COVID-19 narrative: Aaron Kheriaty, Dr. Martin Kulldorff, and Dr. Jayanta “Jay” Bhattacharya. Co-Director of Health Freedom Louisiana Jill Hines and Jim Hoft, owner of the news site The Gateway Pundit, are also plaintiffs in the case.
RELATED: This Supreme Court case could strike a blow against the Deep State and Big Tech
In September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit allowed the suit to proceed against the Surgeon General as well as members of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, the CDC, and the FBI.
According to the filing, the plaintiffs allege that government officials employed “public pressure campaigns, private meetings, and other forms of direct communication” against so-called “disinformation,” “misinformation,” and “malinformation,” and “colluded with and/or coerced social-media platforms to suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content on social-media platforms.”
Per the Fifth Circuit, the plaintiffs “had posts and stories removed or downgraded by” social media companies that government officials had “urged … to remove disfavored content and accounts from their sites.”
The federal court noted that the plaintiffs said the content that was “removed or downgraded” had “touched on a host of divisive topics like the COVID-19 lab-leak theory, pandemic lockdowns, vaccine side effects, election fraud, and the Hunter Biden laptop story.”
“The Plaintiffs maintain that although the platforms stifled their speech, the government officials were the ones pulling the strings,” the ruling stated.
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed in late October to take up the case, though it has allowed the Biden administration to continue its communications with social media companies in the meantime.
Censorship Industrial Complex
Global media alliance colluded with foreign nations to crush free speech in America: House report
From LifeSiteNews
By Dan Frieth
The now-defunct ad coalition GARM shared insider data and urged boycotts of Twitter to punish non-compliance with its ‘harmful content’ standards, a US House Judiciary report shows.
A new report from the U.S. House Judiciary Committee has shed light on what it describes as an alarming collaboration between powerful corporations and foreign governments aimed at suppressing lawful American speech.
The investigation focuses on the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), an initiative founded in 2019 by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), which the committee accuses of acting as a censorship cartel.
According to the report, GARM, whose members control about 90 percent of global advertising spending, exploited its market dominance to pressure platforms like Twitter (now X) into compliance with its restrictive content policies.
A copy of the report can be found HERE.
The committee highlighted how GARM sought to “effectively reduce the availability and monetization” of content it deemed harmful, regardless of public demand for free expression.
Documents obtained by the committee reveal direct coordination between GARM and foreign regulators, including the European Commission and Australia’s eSafety commissioner.
In one exchange, a European bureaucrat encouraged advertisers to leverage their influence to “push Twitter to deliver on GARM asks.”
Similarly, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant praised GARM’s “significant collective power in helping to hold the platforms to account” and sought updates to “take into account in our engagement and regulatory decisions.”
Robert Rakowitz, GARM’s co-founder and initiative lead, expressed a chilling goal in private correspondence, stating that silencing President Donald Trump was his “main thing” and likening the president’s speech to a “contagion” he aimed to contain “to protect infection overall.”
The report outlines how GARM distributed previously unavailable non-public information about Twitter’s adherence to its standards, fully aware this would prompt advertisers to boycott the platform if it failed to conform. According to the House report, Rakowitz admitted that this information sharing was designed to encourage members not to advertise on Twitter.
He went as far as to draft statements urging GARM members to halt advertising on the platform, telling colleagues he had gone “as close as possible” to saying Twitter “is unsafe, cease and desist.”
Despite the widespread impact of GARM’s actions, including what the committee describes as coerced “concessions” from platforms, internal polling circulated within GARM showed that “66 percent of American consumers valued free expression over protection from harmful content.”
Still, GARM pressed ahead with efforts to “eliminate all categories of harmful content in the fastest possible timing,” ignoring consumer preferences.
Even after GARM dissolved in 2024 amid legal challenges, similar efforts persisted.
A new coalition led by Dentsu and The 614 Group briefly attempted to revive GARM’s mission before disbanding under scrutiny. Gerry D’Angelo, a former GARM leader, reflected on the initiative’s overreach, stating, “Did we go too far in those first rounds of exclusionary restrictions? I would say yes.”
The Judiciary Committee warns that despite GARM’s downfall, the threat of collusion to stifle free expression remains.
It pledged to continue oversight to defend “the fundamental principles” of the Constitution and ensure that markets, not coordinated censorship efforts, shape the flow of information in the digital age.
Reprinted with permission from Reclaim The Net.
Censorship Industrial Complex
FBI urged to release withheld records on Hunter Biden laptop, other ‘Twitter Files’
From LifeSiteNews
By Dan Frieth
Judicial Watch initiated the lawsuit in April 2023, targeting the DOJ, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence
A hearing took place Wednesday, before U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan, in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch against the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The case seeks records related to the “Twitter Files,” particularly those involving Hunter Biden’s laptop and allegations of censorship.
The only matter still pending is the FBI’s withholding of records detailing two meetings between agency officials and Twitter representatives from the Biden administration.
Judicial Watch initiated the lawsuit in April 2023, targeting the DOJ, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The legal action followed the FBI’s failure to respond to a December 2022 FOIA request for communications between FBI personnel and key Twitter figures, including Yoel Roth, Vijaya Gadde, and Jim Baker, from June 2020 to December 2022.
These individuals were involved in discussions about suppressing the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story, as disclosed in journalist Matt Taibbi’s December 2022 “Twitter Files.”
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, expressed strong disappointment: “It is frustrating beyond belief for Judicial Watch to have to go to federal court for basic information on Biden’s abuse of the FBI, using Twitter to censor and monitor Americans.”
Through a mix of FOIA requests and legal action, Judicial Watch continues to document extensive censorship efforts that affected tens of millions of Americans.
In November 2024, it obtained DHS records showing a widespread campaign, by both government and private groups, to police and suppress social media posts concerning election fraud in 2020.
Additional records from June 2024, released through Judicial Watch litigation, revealed that just before and after the 2020 election, state officials flagged alleged misinformation and sent it to entities like the Center for Internet Security, CISA, and the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), a DHS-backed nonprofit known for targeting online election discourse.
In December 2023, DHS documents exposed coordination between CISA and the EIP to conduct “real-time narrative tracking” on major social media platforms in the run-up to the 2020 vote.
Similar records surfaced in November 2023, showing EIP’s influence over platforms such as Google, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, and Reddit to suppress “disinformation.”
Reprinted with permission from Reclaim The Net.
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