{"id":1923059,"date":"2023-05-02T23:42:21","date_gmt":"2023-05-03T03:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lawsuit-against-key-speech-silencers-threatens-to-blow-open-the-censorship-industrial-complex\/"},"modified":"2023-05-02T23:46:37","modified_gmt":"2023-05-03T03:46:37","slug":"lawsuit-against-key-speech-silencers-threatens-to-blow-open-the-censorship-industrial-complex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lawsuit-against-key-speech-silencers-threatens-to-blow-open-the-censorship-industrial-complex\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit targets speech silencers, exposes censorship industry."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/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%2Flawsuit-against-key-speech-silencers-threatens-to-blow-open-the-censorship-industrial-complex%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=1923059&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--><h2>The Censorship-Industrial Complex: Lawsuit Alleges Government Actors Conspired with Big Tech to Violate First Amendment<\/h2>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/trans-people-exist-oreo-cookie-virtue-signals-while-parent-company-faces-child-slave-labor-lawsuit\/\" title=\"\u2018Trans People Exist\u2019: Oreo Cookie Virtue Signals While Parent Company Faces Child Slave Labor Lawsuit\">class-action lawsuit filed<\/a> on Tuesday alleges that members of the Election Integrity Partnership and Virality Project conspired with government actors to censor speech at Big Tech companies in violation of the First Amendment. The case, <em>Hines v. Stamos<\/em>, promises to blow open the Censorship-Industrial Complex.<\/p>\n<p>The plaintiffs, Jim Hoft, founder of The Gateway Pundit, and Jill Hines, co-director of Health Freedom Louisiana, filed suit in a federal court in Louisiana against the organizations and individuals behind the EIP and Virality Project. The 88-page complaint alleged four claims against the defendants, all of whom held roles in the EIP and Virality Project\u2019s efforts to censor the plaintiffs\u2019 speech.<\/p>\n<h3>The Allegations<\/h3>\n<p>The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants caused the censorship of Hines, Hoft, and other similarly situated individuals, based on their viewpoints related to the 2020 election and Covid-19. The complaint also detailed the extensive connections between, and involvement with, the government and the individual defendants and private entities. <\/p>\n<p>According to the complaint, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lawsuit-against-key-speech-silencers-threatens-to-blow-open-the-censorship-industrial-complex\/\" title=\"Lawsuit targets speech silencers, exposes censorship industry.\">government actors helped coordinate<\/a> the establishment of the EIP, funded its activities, and fed it complaints of supposed election and Covid disinformation and misinformation that the EIP then forwarded to the social media companies for censorship. The complaint also alleged the defendants viewed the EIP as a way to skirt the First Amendment and do for the government what the Constitution prohibited the government from doing for itself: censor speech.<\/p>\n<h3>What This Means for the Censors<\/h3>\n<p>While it is early days, Tuesday\u2019s lawsuit proves promising for several reasons. First, the detailed allegations, which include the words of the defendants themselves, establish multiple connections among the government, the EIP, and the Virality Project, providing a solid basis for the First Amendment claims. <\/p>\n<p>Second, attorney John Sauer is one of the plaintiffs\u2019 named attorneys and has already cut his teeth in the <em>Missouri v. Biden <\/em>lawsuit against the government defendants who coordinated with the social media companies to censor speech. Most prominently, Sauer represents many of the plaintiffs in that case and deposed, among others, Elvis Chan, the FBI agent who coordinated many of the government\u2019s censorship efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Further, this class-action lawsuit was filed in the same court as the <em>Missouri v. Biden<\/em> lawsuit, the Western District of Louisiana, Monroe Division, which is where Hines resides. There is only one active federal judge in the Monroe Division \u2014 Trump appointee Terry A. Doughty \u2014 so it is likely the case will be assigned to him.<\/p>\n<p>Judge Doughty\u2019s handling of the <em>Missouri v. Biden <\/em>case suggests he will allow the plaintiffs in <em>Hines v. Stamos<\/em> to obtain some initial discovery before considering any motion by the defendants to dismiss the lawsuit. Similarly, it seems likely that, after the initial discovery, Doughty will deny a motion to dismiss just as he did in the <em>Missouri v. Biden <\/em>case, which will then allow full discovery.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s when things will become really interesting. But Tuesday is the first step to getting there.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n<p>Margot Cleveland is The Federalist&#8217;s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize\u2014the law school\u2019s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/5-media-lies-about-the-latest-special-counsel-revelations\/\" title=\"5 Media Lies About The Latest Special Counsel Revelations\">full-time university faculty member<\/a> and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-tags bdr-top-black mt-30 mt-sm-60 pt-15 pt-md-45\">\n<ul class=\"list-unstyled d-flex flex-wrap align-items-center mb-0 mx-n10 p-0\">\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/atlantic-council\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">atlantic council<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/big-tech\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">Big Tech<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/censorship\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">censorship<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/censorship-complex\/\" class=\"btn btn-black btn-small\">censorship complex<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"mt-10 mx-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/tag\/censorship-industrial \n<br \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The members of the Election Integrity Partnership and Virality Project conspired with government actors to censor speech at Big Tech companies in violation of the First Amendment, a class-action lawsuit filed on Tuesday alleges. The case, Hines v. Stamos, promises to blow open the Censorship-Industrial Complex. Jim Hoft, founder of The Gateway Pundit, and Jill<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":499,"featured_media":1923060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[6371,6897,6984,4585,25640,4554,4841],"class_list":["post-1923059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-censorship","tag-exposes","tag-industry","tag-lawsuit","tag-silencers","tag-speech","tag-targets"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1923059","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\/499"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1923059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1923059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1923060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1923059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1923059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1923059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}