Winning: Noted COVID Response Critic Alex Berenson Reinstated by Twitter Following Lawsuit

Red State ^ | 07/06/2022 | Bob Hoge

[SeekAndFind]

COVID response critic and former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson was reinstated by Twitter Wednesday, after suing the social media company in the wake of his August 2021 banishment from the platform. Berenson and Twitter settled the lawsuit in late June, with most of the terms undisclosed. The tech giant was forced to eat a little crow, though, admitting that his “tweets should have not led to [his] (Berenson’s) suspension at that time.”

Shady's back.

Tell a friend.

For the full story of my reinstatment, including @Twitter's acknowledgment of error, see my Substack.


https://t.co/SgXfocIFiQ

— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) July 6, 2022

Berenson was a loud and early voice in expressing concerns about the mRNA COVID vaccines, and he used Twitter as his main tool to communicate with his 351,000 followers. Often pithy, even more often controversial, he was one of the trusted sources for the crowd that didn’t particularly believe in Chief Medical Advisor to the President, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Berenson often came into conflict with Twitter’s mysterious and censorious rules of conduct, and after his fifth “strike,” he was permanently banned. I guess it wasn’t so permanent after all.

It was this Tweet that finally did him in:

It doesn’t stop infection.
Or transmission.

Don’t think of it as a vaccine.

Think of it – at best – as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS.

And we want to mandate it?
Insanity.

— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) July 6, 2022

That tweet had been deleted since his suspension last August, but he re-posted Wednesday morning. “It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission,” Berenson writes. Those are obviously true statements, but at the time Joe Biden, Tony Fauci and Big Tech did not want you saying them.

Infamously dubbed “the Pandemic’s Wrongest Man” by The Atlantic, Berenson explains the ban on his Substack site, “Unreported Truths“:

To recap: last August, Twitter banned me after I got five strikes under its Covid-19 misinformation policy. Which meant I’d supposedly made “claims of fact” that were “demonstrably false or misleading” and “likely to impact public safety or cause serious harm” (that’s the policy, that’s what it takes to get a strike, look it up).

The problem with the Twitter ban is that every single thing Berenson posits in his “fifth strike” tweet is true. COVID vaccines don’t stop infection, don’t stop transmission, and they are basically “therapeutic[s] with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS.” Most of those claims are, by now, accepted facts. The only quibble one could take with him is his claim of a “terrible” side effect profile—some vax advocates might argue that the side effects aren’t so terrible. But that’s just his opinion, and it’s not misinformation.

It’s a beautiful day when Twitter has to admit that, too.

Berenson took a victory lap on another Substack post, dreaming up alternate tweets that he could have posted but didn’t. Many of them are hysterical; here’s a few:

Permanent suspensions aren’t what they used to be.

My “permanent suspension” lasted 10 months. About twice as long as “immunity.”

I love the smell of victory in the morning.

Does the potential Elon Musk ownership of Twitter have anything to do with the company settling? Berenson doesn’t think so:

But I want to say this: At least from my point of view, Elon Musk had nothing to do with what’s happening here. I emailed Musk briefly about the suit in April, after Twitter accepted his offer and before Judge William Alsup rejected Twitter’s motion to dismiss and allowed my lawsuit to proceed…

Musk didn’t email back.

Berenson is no stranger to censorship; he wrote a 2021 book called “Pandemia: How Coronavirus Hysteria Took Over Our Government, Rights, and Lives” which was inexplicably banned by Amazon (a decision they later reversed after outcry from Elon Musk and others). You don’t have to agree with the “Pandemic’s Wrongest Man,” you don’t have to buy his books or read his tweets. But he deserves to be allowed to speak.

The crush of the censorship efforts from government, Big Tech, and the mainstream media during these past few years has been scary for freedom-lovers to watch, but this win—even if it’s only a settlement—is a big step forward in the push to fight back.

[humblegunner]

Imagine filing a lawsuit over being kicked off Twitter.
What a little bitch.

[Reno89519]

WTF? You should be cheering this guy!

[consult]

Nice to hear about a win for the good guys ... and truth tellers. Hope he got lot’s of $$$

[Theo]

humblegunner used to be kinda helpful in pointing out blog pimps. Now he’s just an old curmudgeon, more of a poop stain than anything helpful.

[olivia3boys]

I’m Gen X and read Free Republic daily since I was in my 20s in the 1990s—lots of old curmudgeons here now. We need younger blood. I feel like I’m a younger Freeper and I’m now in my 50s!

[rightwingcrazy]

“Twitter’s mysterious and censorious rules of conduct”

I hate to get pedantic, but “censorious” means “censuring”, not “censoring”.

[zeestephen]

gunner,

The guy who got kicked off Twitter mostly writes about science and technology issues.

The Covid Tweet that got him kicked off actually quoted two peer reviewed Medical journals.

At the time, most of his income came from Twitter, so it was a significant legal issue.

[ReaganGeneration2]

There better be a much bigger story coming, or this is all about $$$:

“And I was well aware that no one would forget my Substack on June 6, the one where I promised all of you there would be no settlement without third-party discovery. So you can choose to believe I went back on my word for 30 pieces of silver, or you can choose to believe I meant what I said. Anyone who wants a donation back is welcome to it, just let me know.”

— Alex Berenson (June 30)
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/add-judge-alsup-to-the-folks-who/comments?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo3NDY1MzMzNCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NjE5NjQwMjEsImlhdCI6MTY1NjYzMzQzNywiaXNzIjoicHViLTM2MzA4MCIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.sm0W5Q5pSyCYReYLLD65Hozk8440zZzlHnnUgt-eNF0&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

[Caipirabob]

It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission. Don’t think of it as a vaccine. Think of it – at best – as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS.

This is exactly what our primary doctor and our natural medicine doctor say. Both are Chinese and the best doctor's I've ever had.

[.30Carbine]

Thanks for this post. I cheer this man for fighting for his rights and for the truth about the so-called vaccine! Everything he asserted was reasonable, intelligent, based on scientific fact, and has been proven over and over. Censorship is pure evil; thank God for heroes who are courageous enough to face it head on and defeat it.

[JoJo354]

Yes...he’s a “hit and runner” gunner.

[humblegunner]

At the time, most of his income came from Twitter

So he couldn't get a real job anywhere?

[zeestephen]

Re: "So he couldn't get a real job anywhere?"

He worked at the New York Times for more than 10 years.

They fired him when he started to challenge the neo-Marxist mind set.

[humblegunner]

He worked at the New York Times for more than 10 years.

So he probably had the ability to get a real job but chose
to be a clickbait Twitter scammer or a thief of free advertising
from Twitter?

I'm not sympathetic. Looks to me like he was trying to scam a
living by twiddling on his phone and was mad when he got shut down.

[SunkenCiv]

Berenson is no stranger to censorship; he wrote a 2021 book called “Pandemia: How Coronavirus Hysteria Took Over Our Government, Rights, and Lives” which was inexplicably banned by Amazon (a decision they later reversed after outcry from Elon Musk and others).