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Nearly a year ago, former New York Times Journalist Alex Berenson was permanently banned from Twitter for writing the following lines about the Covid shot: “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.”
From the beginning of the Covid hysteria, we followed and cited Berenson many times on the Ron Paul Liberty Report. Berenson took government and mainstream media rhetoric about the pandemic the way journalists used to take it: with a heavy dose of skepticism. And not long after he was banned for saying so, even the CDC Director admitted what he wrote is true.
But at the time, he was a danger to the government narrative on Covid, and the “private” social media company Twitter silenced him. They did not only silence one reporter who was a thorn in their side, however. They preemptively silenced anyone else who might might question the narrative. The message was clear to all the would-be Alex Berensons out there: do you want to follow him to the digital gulag?
So not only was Berenson’s free speech under attack – free speech itself was under attack.
Many, especially libertarians, might respond that Twitter as a private company has the right to do business with anyone they wish. That is true, but only to the extent that Twitter is actually acting as a private entity. The real question is to what degree has Twitter and the other social media companies been directly doing the bidding of government?
After nearly a year-long legal battle with Twitter over the ban, Berenson settled with Twitter and was reinstated earlier this month. Writing about his reinstatement, he hinted at something very ominous: “The settlement does not end my investigation into the pressures that the government may have placed on Twitter to suspend my account. I will have more to say on that issue in the near future.”
Elon Musk, who had been in a deal to purchase Twitter until a few days ago, responded to Berenson on Twitter: “Can you say more about this: ‘… pressures that the government may have placed on Twitter …’”
Berenson replied, “I wish I could, but the settlement with Twitter prevents me from doing so. However, in the near future I hope and expect to have more to report.”
Questions about the vaccine were silenced just as were questions about the origins of the virus. Was it possible that the outbreak originated in a Chinese lab that just happened to be funded by the US government? And if so, how far would powerful people in the government wish to suppress any discussion or investigation into this possibility?
At a critical time – just as authoritarians were locking the country down and threatening anyone who refused the shot – all public discussion about the matters was shut down by “private” companies that just happened to have very close ties with the US government.
This raises fundamental questions about the First Amendment that hopefully might be explored by Congress after the November elections. The American people deserve to know who is trying to shut them up…and why.
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very interesting that musk contacted berenson. i honestly feel musk made his outrageously overpriced bid to force the twitter board to accept it due to their fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders. this gave him a look into their books and now he can back out and if they sue him he has the right to discovery and to depose their board members. he will be able to drag all their skeletons out of the closet and maybe even get out of the billion dollar penalty for withdrawing from the deal.
if this is what happens he will be able create his own social media platform for a fraction of purchase price after having eviscerated twitter, not that i trust musk but he’s got to be better than twitter.
The Twitter play by Musk may just be revenge for not being invited to the EV circle jerk party at the White House.
Obviously Twitter and all the other Tech fuqs were obsequiously obeying whatever orders were being sent from the Controllers.
Twitter being the most prominent of the proganda outlets, Musk is relishing the take down.
Die Twitter, die!
This 2nd part is widely known, and the 1st part is by far the most likely, due to Chinese-style quality control, Ron Unz’s pet theory notwithstanding.*
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* After many many thousands of words and lots of views of his videos and such, he sure ain’t backing off it now.
You can exploit the plebians and give them a good kicking but don’t upset the criminals called “elite.”
Bernie Eccleston is now finding that out.
Nice statement from Berenson.
And Hope springs eternal – from Ron Paul.
The First Amendment text reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
I think Musk got very cold feet when he began to discover just how dependent Twit and all these “social media” gathering places are on the continuing sponsorship and control by Federal agencies.
I look forward to a report from Alex Berenson on the Feral Gov’t involvement in this important* sector of the Tech Totalitarian “industry”. I am not of such a high opinion of Mr. Berenson as I might have been from this Ron Paul column alone. E.H. Hail, of the Hail to You blog, reviewed Mr. Berenson’s book on the PanicFest – Review of PANDEMIA by Alex Berenson.
Mr. Hail is nothing if not thorough. Going by his opinion, as I haven’t read that book, Mr. Berenson seems all about what’s good for Mr. Berenson, that’s all. If I am proven wrong on this opinion, more’s the better…
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* Apparently, but I’m having none of it, personally.
You can acknowledge the necessity of some degree of market forces in an economy, without worshipping it as God.
The big internet companies should be regulated as common carriers – as natural monopolies. That sort of regulation has a long track record of working in the national interest without leading to Stalinist-type stagnation.
One is reminded: an unregulated monopoly is essentially Stalinist. How is rule by a small handful of unaccountable billionaires any different from rule by a handful of unaccountable party apparatchiks? It is not private profit that that creates wealth, but competition.
Ya, wrong. A government message board would be as usless as listening to NPR. Sure, a few woke fuqs would find it useful being as it would be government propoganda non stop. Otherwise it’s usefulness would be as a torture mechanism for those with critical thinking skills.
Social media companies are integrating with feds, and will become feds.
https://sputniknews.com/20220708/trading-the-white-house-for-snapchat-us-secret-service-chief-resigns-to-work-for-social-media-giant-1097105692.html
The problem here is that the government has the power to use tax and regulatory policy to harm companies that don’t fall in line with what the politicians in power want. Increasing regulation would just make matters worse. Just the opposite should be done. In addition to this, the best thing to do is to expose how the government is pressuring companies. This can be difficult to do in some cases because the government often doesn’t need to explicitly tell a company to do something. These companies will do what they think government officials want without being told to do so because they know the government has the power to harm them. Opponents of government censorship need to make this clear to the public.
I agree. It gets complicated to prove such a thing though.