Stanford Covid lockdown skeptic Dr Jay Bhattacharya touts court ruling that Biden administration censored criticism about masks, school closures
- Appeals Court Rules Biden Administration Censored Skeptics on Social Media
- These skeptics argued that their petition criticizing the lockdowns had been rejected.
- READ MORE: Lockdowns have had a ‘catastrophic’ impact on children’s social skills
A Stanford doctor silenced for challenging the Biden administration’s lockdown policies says the government violated his First Amendment rights.
A federal court ruled earlier this month that the Biden administration forced social media sites to censor him and other dissidents who wrote a controversial petition criticizing the government’s efforts to shut down the economy, including schools.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, an epidemiologist and health policy researcher, said the move was “akin to the second century of the Enlightenment.”
He was named in a lawsuit as one of the Covid-19 epidemiologists whose Twitter and Facebook accounts were scrubbed and removed from Google results during the pandemic.
The Louisiana appeals court that heard the case determined that the Biden administration wrongly pressured social media companies to silence critics, although that ruling was narrow compared to an earlier lower court ruling by Trump-appointed Judge Terry Doughty that barred the administration from contacting social media companies.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya called the latest court ruling in his favor “akin to an enlightenment.” The call revealed that the Biden administration illegally pressured social media companies to censor Covid lockdown dissenters.
Drs Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University, Sunetra Gupta of Oxford University and Martin Kulldorff of Harvard University, lead authors of the Great Barrington Declaration.
Dr. Bhattacharya is also Director of the Stanford Center for Demography and Health Economics and Aging.
He added: “It is a decision which says that there is a democracy of ideas. The question is not whether the ideas are wrong or right. The question is who controls the ideas expressed in the public square?
This is not the first time that critics of confinement have reported being censored and sidelined.
Former National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins sent an email to Dr. Anthony Fauci in October 2020, saying the ideas of the “fringe” epidemiologists who wrote the statement required “a rapid and published retraction.” devastating.”
Although the latest decision by a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court in New Orleans, which vindicated skeptics, marked a major victory for people like Dr. Bhattacharya, it was reduced compared to an earlier ruling by Trump-appointed judge Terry Doughty, who barred the administration. to contact social media companies.
Dr Bhattacharya said: “The government has carried out a massive censorship exercise. It has been systematically used to threaten, coerce and tell all these social media companies, “You better listen to us: censor these people, censor these ideas, or else.”
The Great Barrington Declaration called for “targeted protection,” an idea that would mean that the bulk of efforts to increase immunity would be focused on the most vulnerable groups – the elderly and the immunocompromised – with few restrictions on the general healthy population.
Without these restrictions, more people would develop Covid which would confer antibodies against the infection, thus producing herd immunity.
As more people become infected and then become immune for a period of time, the virus has less opportunity to spread and infect vulnerable people.
But the idea has been rejected by many mainstream scientists, including those like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Collins who worked in the Biden administration. Many have criticized the idea as dangerous and would lead to many preventable deaths.
But Dr Bhattacharya continues to defend this theory, which has reportedly received thousands of signatures.
He said: “We were simply acting as scientists, but almost immediately we were censored. Google deboosted us. Our Facebook page has been deleted. It was just a crazy time.
“The kinds of things the federal government was asking social media companies to censor included us and millions of other posts from countless others who were critical of the government’s COVID policy.”
Widespread lockdowns implemented in 2020 were deemed extremely disruptive to the economy, which began a downward spiral, as well as to students’ ability to learn.
Lockdowns also fueled a crisis of poor mental health among adolescents, who were suddenly thrust into a world of isolation, far from leisure and time with friends, as well as in-person classes.