White House to Twitter: "Ban this guy."

George K · "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08

The White House privately demanded Twitter ban me months before the company did so

Biden Administration officials asked Twitter to ban me because of my tweets questioning the Covid vaccines, even as company employees believed I had followed Twitter’s rules, internal Twitter communications reveal.

In a White House meeting in April 2021, four months before Twitter suspended my account, the company faced “one really tough question about why Alex Berenson hasn’t been kicked off from the platform,” a Twitter employee wrote.

The employee recounted the meeting discussion afterwards on Twitter’s internal Slack messaging system. The message, and others, make clear that top federal officials targeted me specifically, potentially violating my basic First Amendment right to free speech.

The First Amendment does not apply to private companies like Twitter. But if the companies are acting on behalf of the federal government they can become “state actors” that must allow free speech and debate, just as the government does.

Previous efforts to file state action lawsuits against the government and social media companies for working together to ban users have failed. Courts have universally held that people who have been banned have not shown the specific demands from government officials that are necessary to support state action claims.

In my case, though, federal officials appear to have gone far beyond generically encouraging Twitter to support Covid vaccines or discourage “misinformation” (i.e. information that the government does not like).

Instead, top officials targeted me personally.

More at the link, including screenshots which I'm too lazy to link.

Catseye3

@George-K said in White House to Twitter: "Ban this guy.":

top officials targeted me personally.

I am also too lazy to look further . . . my first question is: why would the White House care enough about this guy to go to all the trouble?

Horace

@Catseye3 said in White House to Twitter: "Ban this guy.":

@George-K said in White House to Twitter: "Ban this guy.":

top officials targeted me personally.

I am also too lazy to look further . . . my first question is: why would the White House care enough about this guy to go to all the trouble?

Maybe they thought that saving even a single human life from disinformation campaigns is important.

Catseye3

@Horace

I'll bet you're right, LOL.

Jolly

The government leaning on private companies to censor people does not anger anyone?

Remember, the Biden Whitehouse is most likely gone in by the end of 2024. Now, just for shits and giggles, let's say Donald J. Trump is the next POTUS. Is everybody here comfortable with Mr. Trump silencing dissident voices by leaning on private communication platforms?

Horace

@Jolly said in White House to Twitter: "Ban this guy.":

The government leaning on private companies to censor people does not anger anyone?

Remember, the Biden Whitehouse is most likely gone in by the end of 2024. Now, just for shits and giggles, let's say Donald J. Trump is the next POTUS. Is everybody here comfortable with Mr. Trump silencing dissident voices by leaning on private communication platforms?

Personally I was only joking, parroting what I believe to be the dumbest sounding common justification possible. I'm not a life is priceless guy.

Axtremus

@Jolly said in White House to Twitter: "Ban this guy.":

The government leaning on private companies to censor people does not anger anyone?

Joe Biden, whilst Obama‘s Vice President at the time, leaned on PayPal to cut off service to Wikileaks. I protested at the time.

As for this allegation of the White House telling Twitter to ban someone, I want to see an admission by the White House or some credible evidence before believing this allegation. As it is, this allegation does not appear credible to me.