Biden Administration is sued, accused of pressuring Twitter to censor journalist Alex Berenson

Independent journalist Alex Berenson has filed a lawsuit against President Joe Biden, a Pfizer board member, and others for pressuring Twitter to ban his account. His account was banned after posting a tweet questioning COVID-19 vaccines. Initially, Twitter resisted the calls to ban Berenson. However, eventually the social media platform caved to the pressure. Berenson sued Twitter in a federal court in California, accusing the company of violating its contract with him. The lawsuit resulted in a settlement and Twitter admitting it should not have banned him. The defendants in the new lawsuit, filed on April 12, are President Biden, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, former White House COVID-19 official Dr. Andrew Slavitt, Pfizer board member Dr. Scott Gottlieb, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, and the White House Director of Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty. In a meeting with Twitter, Slavitt and other White House officials asked why Berenson had not been “kicked off” Twitter. Slavitt has previously called Berenson a conspiracy theorist. Flaherty recently said that he remembered Slavitt “expressing his view that Twitter was not enforcing its content guidelines with respect to Alex Berenson’s tweets, and that employees from Twitter disagreed with that view.” Gottlieb also asked Twitter to suspend Berenson. He has also previously called for the suspension of other people, including former acting FDA commissioner Dr. Brett Girior. In the offending tweet, Berenson wrote, “It doesn’t stop infection. Or Transmission. And we want to mandate it? Insanity.” According to his lawsuit, the defendants violated his First Amendment rights. We…Biden Administration is sued, accused of pressuring Twitter to censor journalist Alex Berenson