Did government overstep on COVID ‘misinfo’? Courts weigh in.
A few weeks after he was dubbed “The Pandemic’s Wrongest Man” by The Atlantic, Alex Berenson’s name came up in an April 2021 White House meeting with Twitter representatives.
Officials were keen to address how people were being influenced online against the COVID-19 vaccine, with only about 4 in 10 people having gotten the shot. Senior White House adviser Andy Slavitt said it didn’t seem like Twitter was enforcing its rules against Mr. Berenson, citing an MIT data visualization that showed him as the “epicenter” of misinformation around the vaccine.
A former New York Times investigative journalist turned COVID-19 contrarian, Mr. Berenson frequently linked to scientific studies and government data. But critics said his posts were dangerously misleading, often leaving out key context.
Twitter followed up a week or two later. They would not be removing Mr. Berenson.
Government officials’ frustration with Twitter and other social media platforms intensified, boiling over in mid-July 2021 when President Joe Biden said “they’re killing people” – though he later said he meant specific users, not the platforms themselves. Hours later, Mr. Berenson’s Twitter account was suspended for the first time. By August, he was kicked off entirely.
Mr. Berenson sued Twitter, and was later reinstated after a settlement. But now, he isfor allegedly working together to get him censored. His case also argues that he lost out on the opportunity to promote his November 2021 book, “Pandemia,” to his Twitter audience of more than 300,000.
