America First Legal (AFL) filed a class action lawsuit Tuesday against private entities allegedly conspiring with the government to surveil and censor millions of conservative Americans.
According to the nonprofit, this federal lawsuit is historic because it alleges that the government conducted an operation to suppress conservative political speech through digital platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
"They created a regime of surveillance, censorship and control fit for communist China," said AFL president Stephen Miller, adding that they flagged content for government entities to, in turn, pressure platforms to remove content or those who uploaded it.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Jill Hines, co-director of Health Freedom Louisiana, and Jim Hoft, founder of the news website "The Gateway Pundit." Both claim that they experienced "widespread censorship" on important issues for the public, such as electoral integrity and anti-covid-19 measures.
The defendants are Alex Stamos and Renée DiResta, director and research manager of the Stanford Internet Observatory, Dr. Kate Starbird of the University of Washington, and Graphika and the Atlantic Research Council's Digital Forensics Lab.
America First Legal Files Landmark Federal Class-Action Lawsuit Against Private Entities that Conspired With the Federal Government to Censor Speech https://t.co/mEPOxkWy3a
— James Hirsen (@thejimjams) May 3, 2023
However, AFL claims in its lawsuit that those involved worked with senior government officials, including federal members of Homeland Security, so "if proven, this is an overt, intentional, and explosive violation of the Constitution at the hands of the government."
Through its website, America First Legal claims that the defendants admitted that through Twitter during 2020 alone, they monitored more than 800 million posts and tracked nearly 22 million tweets for possible censorship.
"Americans who dared to speak out against the woke liberal orthodoxy that has infiltrated every sector of corporate America would face the threat of censorship and de-platforming by Big Tech giants and these elusive surveillance organizations acting together with the federal government," the organization said.
