The first amendment recognizes the right to freedom of expression and prohibits public authorities from censorship. However, this prohibition does not affect the private sphere. The federal government has resorted to the privatization of censorship, a mechanism that allows private associations to censor content that the government cannot silence.
One such partnership is the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) consortium. It consists of the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public, the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research, and the social network analysis firm Graphika.
Pro-democratic associations
According to Just the News, their job is to identify content that can be reported to institutions such as the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency or the Global Engagement Center, so that they can place labels that can be used by Big Tech, which is in charge of censorship. It is a machinery that starts with the EIP identifying the contents and condemning them to the Administration. The social networks are the ones who carry out the censorship.
Another way of privatizing censorship is for the federal government to give various organizations linked to the Democratic Party the power to label content. Tags enable social networks to execute censorship. Just the News reports that among the pro-Democrat organizations empowered to tag content are NACCP, Common Cause and the Democratic National Committee.
Target: 2022 and 2024
Mike Benz, from the Foundation for Freedon Online, has been looking into this censorship scheme, and while speaking to Just the News, he stated that he believes that:
If you trace the chronology, you find that there were actually 18 months of institutional work to create this very apparatus that we now know played a major role in censoring millions of messages for the 2020 elections and has ambitious sights for 2022 and 2024.
On their website they already warn of the work they will be doing in the 2022 elections. Breitbart reports that:
Media outlets targeted by the EIP included Breitbart News, Fox News, the New York Post and the Epoch Times, as well as the social media accounts of prominent conservatives Charlie Kirk, Tom Fitton, Jack Posobiec, Mark Levin, James O'Keefe and Sean Hannity, among others.
Lawsuit in court
Another conservative who has been censored is Charlie Kirk from Turning Point USA. Kirk says he knew he had been censored in 2020, but did not know that the federal government had paid a private association to conduct the censorship. JtN reports that he is considering suing the EIP:
We saw our revenues decrease in correlation with that. This is a direct monetary and financial loss with which damages could be proven, thanks to the federal government coming in and paying money to a third party company to restrict First Amendment rights. So we are looking very carefully at the possibility of taking legal action. I think we have a great case.
Another person who has been censured is Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, and she is also considering suing:
I was a private citizen. And I am owed damages. They have no right to do this to me. I just have to figure out how many people I have to name in lawsuits and social media companies. I've had enough.
