Alex Berenson, journalist and author sued Twitter for being banned over COVID comments. Twitter eventually reinstated him with an acknowledgment that it shouldn’t have banned him. As we reported, he gave us a hint about the “pressures” that Twitter may have put on him to be suspended. Elon Musk was intrigued by the information and wanted to find out what they were.
We may now know at least some of his words.
Berenson now highlights documents from the suit against Twitter. He claims that in private communications with Twitter, the Biden White House requested that they ban Berenson months before he was banned. Berenson now claims that the White House violated the First Amendment and that state action was involved with his ban.
My new Stack, on the White House’s explicit demand that Twitter ban me, months before it did.
This is state action and a violation of my First Amendment rights, period.
Berenson v. Biden (and Slavitt), coming soon to a federal court near you. https://t.co/IVBWspnKoo
— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) August 12, 2022
He explains:
A Twitter employee said that in April 2021, four years before Twitter had suspended my account, the company was confronted with “one really difficult question about why Alex Berenson wasn’t being kicked off the platform.”
An employee recalled the meeting on Twitter’s Slack messaging platform. This message and others make it clear that I was targeted by top federal officials, possibly violating my First Amendment right to free speech.
— Dr. Nickarama (@nickaramaOG) August 12, 2022
Twitter is a private site and can ban anyone, but if the government intervenes to get him banned, that could raise a First Amendment issue.
— Dr. Nickarama (@nickaramaOG) August 12, 2022
I was instead targeted by top officials.
Andrew Slavitt was a senior advisor to President Biden’s Covid response group. He complained about me specifically, according to a Twitter employee who spoke out in another Slack conversation regarding the White House meeting.
The employee stated that they wanted to know more about Alex Berenson. “Andy Slavitt suggested that they had seen DataViz [visualization] which had shown that he was at the epicenter for disinformation that radiates outwards to any persuadable audience.”
Berenson points out that Twitter in April, at the time of the pressure, said that he was not in violation of any rules.
After Joe Biden had publicly decried social media’s inability to clamp down on COVID “misinformation”, Berenson claimed that he was suspended immediately after Biden’s remarks. From August 2021, he was expelled until he was reinstated in the last month.
Berenson claims that Twitter asked “other reporters” to take action against Berenson and that he would be reporting on them in the future.
Berenson tweets that he is threatening to sue Biden and Slavitt in a lawsuit.
This goes well beyond Berenson. It also includes the nature of the relationship between Twitter and the White House, as well as who might have been targeted or other things they tried to influence.
Justin Hart, Chief Data Analyst at Rational Ground and founder of Rational Ground, stated that the “DataViz” being used might include Elon Musk and him.
Wow. This is big. The visualization that Slavitt was referring to was probably the MIT web project from summer of 2020. I’m there as well as El Gato. pic.twitter.com/DZeMTpZiLu
— Justin Hart (@justin_hart) August 12, 2022
https://t.co/en0QsENL5c pic.twitter.com/DzqUMOUvUF
— Justin Hart (@justin_hart) August 12, 2022
It sounds like this is going to be an interesting lawsuit. Just imagine the fascinating information and secret conversations that could result from that suit.
