Facebook is censoring Americans at the behest of President Joe Biden’s administration in violation of the First Amendment, a new lawsuit alleges.
As evidence of the collusion, the class-action complaint quotes White House press secretary Jen Psaki’s recent admission that the administration is “flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.”
“When she said that they were working with Big Tech then it changes everything because then it’s the government censoring, so that obviously can’t stand,” Richard Rogalinski, the plaintiff, told The Epoch Times.
Rogalinski made several posts about COVID-19 this year, including on April 6 remarking how he has seen data showing masks do not prevent the spread of the virus that causes the disease.
He has seen those posts appended with statements directing people to articles by so-called fact-checkers.
In one instance last month, Rogalinski posted an image of a tweet by Dr. David Samadi positing that “hydroxychloroquine worked this whole time.”
Hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug that has been around for decades, has shown some success against COVID-19 as both a treatment and prophylactic.
But Facebook hid the post from public view and deemed it “false information,” citing a USA Today article from July 2020 that claimed hydroxychloroquine is not effective in treating COVID-19.
“They’re fact checking me with articles that are a year before that aren’t even relevant,” Rogalinski said.
The USA Today article included studies that indicated hydroxychloroquine isn’t effective and others that suggest it does help in some scenarios, but focused on how the latter ones attracted criticism and downplayed them. Experts have told The Epoch Times that many of the studies were flawed.
More recent studies have also indicated that hydroxychloroquine can be effective, but only in some instances.
Facebook, under pressure last year, “formed a dogmatic narrative about COVID-19,” even as it became “the last bastions of public forum” amid widespread lockdowns, the suit charges.
