States expand lawsuit alleging government collusion with social media firms to censor speech

justthenews.com ^ | 10/10/2022 | staff

[bitt]

Officials from White House, CDC, FBI and 11 other federal agencies are being added to the litigation.

Officials from the White House, Centers for Disease Control, the FBI and 11 other federal agencies are being added to a lawsuit alleging collusion with social media companies to censor speech.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry announced Monday the filing of a 164-page second amended complaint against 47 additional defendants, bringing the total to 67.

The two are seeking authority to take depositions of the defendants.

Schmitt and Landry filed a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit against President Joe Biden and other officials earlier this year. The motion argued social media platforms are the equivalent to the public square from decades ago.

U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty in July allowed Schmitt and Landry to begin a discovery phase, giving five social media companies and top government officials 30 days to respond to subpoenas.

Additions to the list of defendants are Andy Slavitt, a White House senior advisor for the COVID-19 response and the former leader of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Rob Flaherty, the White House director of Digital Strategy. Laura Dehmlow, the FBI section chief for the foreign influence task force, also was added along with Elvis Chan, who oversees cyber-related issues for the FBI’s San Francisco Division near Silicon Valley.

[bitt]

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[Nextrush]

With COVID social media is also bending the knee to the Pharma industry which provides $$$$ to political campaigns.

The tech companies pressured by Pharma according to Robert Kennedy Jr. so why not go after Pharma as well.

[NWFree]

No wonder favorite companies get special government privileges - they’re willing lackeys pushing propaganda and canceling free speech

[HKMk23]

Pharma execs aren’t public officials, so legal constraints on their relationships with social media companies are about microscopic compared to the constraints put upon public officials.

So, any case seeking to prosecute them would have to be argued very differently than this one, because it would hinge upon different statutes with different standards of proof for ascertaining the guilt of the accused.

Might get better mileage going after them with complaints to the SEC about how such coordination with social media companies transgresses pharma executives’ fiduciary duty to investors, or something along that line.