{"id":1682913,"date":"2022-10-11T07:54:57","date_gmt":"2022-10-11T11:54:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1682913"},"modified":"2022-10-11T07:55:18","modified_gmt":"2022-10-11T11:55:18","slug":"states-expand-lawsuit-alleging-federal-collusion-with-social-media-companies-to-censor-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/states-expand-lawsuit-alleging-federal-collusion-with-social-media-companies-to-censor-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"States Expand Lawsuit Alleging Federal Collusion With Social Media Companies to Censor Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fstates-expand-lawsuit-alleging-federal-collusion-with-social-media-companies-to-censor-speech%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1682913&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The two are seeking authority to take depositions of the defendants.<\/p>\n<p>Schmitt and Landry filed a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecentersquare.com\/missouri\/louisiana-missouri-ags-want-judge-to-block-biden-from-pressing-social-media-to-censor\/article_92bdfb80-ecdf-11ec-985a-6fbb24e202c4.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">preliminary injunction<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty in July allowed Schmitt and Landry to begin a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecentersquare.com\/missouri\/fauci-biden-officials-served-subpoenas-in-lawsuit-over-collusion-to-suppress-free-speech\/article_29d5a5a0-07ab-11ed-afee-ef19381f2671.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">discovery phase<\/a>, giving five social media companies and top government officials 30 days to respond to subpoenas.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s San Francisco Division near Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2026 Chan has performed a critical role in communicating with social media platforms on behalf of the FBI relating to censorship and suppression of speech on social media,\u201d the complaint states.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMissouri and Louisiana filed a landmark lawsuit, seeking to expose that the federal government has worked hand-in-hand with social media companies to censor freedom of speech on their platforms,\u201d said Schmitt, a Republican running against Democrat Trudy Busch Valentine for the seat of retiring Republican U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt. \u201cOur lawsuit has done exactly that \u2013 we\u2019ve found a staggering \u2018censorship enterprise\u2019 that extends to a multitude of federal agencies and implicates government officials at the highest levels of government, but we\u2019re not done yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The complaint alleges the defendant\u2019s censorship \u201csquelches plaintiffs\u2019 core political speech on matters of great public concern. This includes speech relating to COVID-19 policies \u2013 especially speech criticizing the government\u2019s response to COVID-19. \u2026 It also extends to speech about election security and integrity, including core political speech. \u2026 and the censorship targets speech simply because it is critical of the President of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Throughout this case, we have uncovered a disturbing amount of collusion between Big Tech and Big Government,&#8221; Landry said in a statement. &#8220;This egregious attack on our First Amendment will be met with an equally full-hearted defense of the rights of the American people.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1441253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1682913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1682913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1682913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1682913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1441253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1682913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1682913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1682913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}