The war for free speech is far from over, but we just scored a significant victory in our ongoing battle against Big Tech censorship.
Less than a month after we (Ty and Charlene Bollinger) filed a historic lawsuit against the “Censorship Industrial Complex” and just one day after Children’s Health Defense (CHD) appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in its censorship case against Meta, Mark Zuckerberg revealed the company is shutting down its third-party “fact-checking” program and taking major steps towards curtailing censorship in general.
Our lawsuit alleges that the U.S. Government, Big Tech, and NGOs suppressed dissenting voices and censored us and our companies (The Truth About Cancer and The Truth About Vaccines) under the guise of combating “misinformation.” The lawsuit alleges collaboration between federal agencies and tech giants like Meta and Google to silence critics of COVID-19 policies, vaccines, and other public health issues.
The timing of Meta’s decision has raised eyebrows and underscores the growing pressure on Big Tech to address its heavy-handed approach to content moderation. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, admitted in a recent statement that the company’s earlier efforts to combat “misinformation” often led to mistakes and overreach. “It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression on Facebook and Instagram,” Zuckerberg told viewers in a press release video.
For years, Meta’s fact-checking partners, often funded by entities with ties to Big Pharma, labeled our content as “misinformation.” This systemic suppression extended beyond us. It became emblematic of a larger effort to silence dissenting voices, manipulate public perception, and enforce ideological, philosophical, political, medical, and et cetera conformity.
In May 2024 (on Memorial Day, in fact), our friend and colleague, Mike Adams, founder of Natural News and Brighteon, also filed a pivotal lawsuit against Big Tech’s censorship. The suit alleges a coordinated effort to suppress free speech by censoring content from Brighteon and Webseed, including Natural News. The complaint contends that the U.S. Government engaged in “censorship laundering” by collaborating with and funding overseas organizations to indirectly censor American citizens, thereby violating constitutional rights. In actuality, the Adams’ suit is very much like ours, but with a slightly different cast of characters (namely the overseas NGOs involved in the censorship).
Meta’s new “Community Notes V2” system (akin to that of X) is designed to empower users to provide context without resorting to outright censorship. While this shift is promising, we remain vigilant, knowing that the battle for free speech requires constant vigilance and knowing that much of what Big Tech says can only be believed when we actually see it happen. Zuckerberg has apparently had a “moment of clarity” on the importance of free speech, but will Meta’s future actions reflect his words? Until they fully restore all our accounts, their censorship continues. It’s not enough to simply forge a new path forward—they must also repair the damage they’ve caused.
Winning this battle is a big deal, but we recognize it is only one battle in a much larger war for free speech and against the entrenched forces of censorship. Has Zuckerberg finally recognized the Constitution (namely the First Amendment) means something? Only time will tell …
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