America First Legal (AFL) continues its work that the group says is aimed at lifting the veil of secrecy from the Big Tech-government internet censorship collusion.
AFL has now announced a nationwide investigation in the US into the role of foreign-based organizations in the process and inner mechanisms of online speech suppression, which has been ongoing for a while.
AFL chose the rout of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to shed light on these First Amendment issues – and what prompted this was a letter from 12 US state attorneys-general, who signed it to address Twitter and Facebook, and, according to an AFL press release – all demanding censorship of speech of US citizens.
These state AG’s also happen to all be Democrats, AFL revealed. And the alleged collusion in question involved a foreign entity – UK-based Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).
CCDH’s perhaps single “claim to fame” thus far has been to be over and over associated with pro-censorship efforts – no less, in another country.
(Do we still call that “meddling in internal affairs” – or has the narrative shifted, especially where legacy media are concerned?)
Either way, AFL claims that the state attorney-generals (AGs) went out of their way to directly try to influence social media to “root” – and do so “effectively” – anything they didn’t like posted about Covid vaccines. And that would have been pretty much anything that didn’t fully conform with the (authoritarian?) authorities’ line.
Whether it was a “conspiracy theory,” simply a “theory” – or a skeptical take by a medical/science professional, made no difference, back in the heady days of figurative Covid fever.
But then there’s the issue of CCDH. An NGO that say its goal is to prevent “spread of online hate and disinformation through innovative research, public campaigns and policy advocacy” – and yet there are those who are now out to expose it see simply as “an NGO cut-out engaged in brazen smearing, attacking of dissenting views, deplatforming, censoring.”
In case none of this rings the bell – it was CCDH who came up with the frankly preposterous idea in 2021 that there were a total of “12 anti (Covid) vaxxers, who spread misinformation.”
A classic case of propagandist activity – downplaying legitimate questions and qualms.
The AGs now in AFL’s crosshairs had this to say at the time:
“Twitter and Facebook have yet to remove from all their platforms the accounts of prominent ‘anti-vaxxers’ such as the ’12 anti-vaxxers’ personal accounts and their associated organizations, groups and websites responsible for 65% of public anti-vaccine content on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.”
And now, AFL hopes, those state AG’s will have to explain – that.
“In 2021, in an extraordinarily anti-American move, twelve state attorneys general did the bidding of an organization with extraordinary foreign ties to pressure social media companies to censor Americans’ speech. We are going to obtain any and all communications between those offices and anyone associated with CCDH so that the American people can see for themselves the extent of this foreign-influence operation at the state level,” said Gene Hamilton, AFL VP and General Counsel.
