The Trump administration has settled with journalist Alex Berenson over the Biden White House’s role in getting him banned from Twitter during the summer of 2021.
The settlement includes a payment and a written admission that “the Government did in fact violate the First Amendment by exerting substantial coercive pressure on social media companies such as Twitter to suppress disfavored speech like Plaintiff’s.”
Not “encouraged.” Not “suggested.” The federal government put its name on a document saying it silenced a journalist because it didn’t like what he was saying about COVID-19 vaccines. Berenson’s lawyer, James Lawrence, believes this is the first time an individual American has received a cash payment to resolve a lawsuit over government coercion of social media companies.