Group files suit against legacy media for censoring news on COVID-19, U.S. 2020 presidential election

A collection of media practitioners has filed a lawsuit challenging the Trusted News Initiative (TNI), a self-created “industry partnership”, set up  in March 2020 by some of the world’s largest news organizations, that partnered with Big Tech firms to unilaterally censor online news.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., chairman and chief litigation counsel for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), disclosed that he partnered with several others to file a groundbreaking novel lawsuit, challenging the antitrust and unconstitutional actions of legacy media outlets which censored news contents on COVID-19 and the U.S. presidential election that did not conform to their media agenda.

The Trusted News Initiative (TNI) of the world’s largest news organizations, was said to include the BBC, The Associated Press (AP), Reuters and The Washington Post, which were identified as defendants in the lawsuit.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include CHD, Kennedy, Creative Destruction Media, Trial Site News, Ty and Charlene Bollinger (founders of The Truth About Cancer and The Truth About Vaccines), independent journalist Ben Swann, Erin Elizabeth Finn (publisher of Health Nut News), Jim Hoft (founder of The Gateway Pundit), Dr. Joseph Mercola and Ben Tapper, a chiropractor.

The plaintiffs in the suit filed at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas-Amarillo Division, protest that the TNI partnered with several Big Tech firms to “collectively censor online news,” including stories about COVID-19 and the 2020 U.S. presidential election that were not aligned with official narratives regarding those issues.

The plaintiffs contested that they were censored, banned, de-platformed, shadow banned or otherwise penalized by the Big Tech firms partnering with the TNI, because the views and content they published were deemed “misinformation” or “disinformation.” This, they said, resulted in a major loss of visibility and revenue for their platforms.

The plaintiffs also protested that Big Tech firms, having partnered with the TNI, based their decisions on determinations jointly made by TNI, which touted its “early warning system” by which each partner organization is “warned” about an individual or outlet that is disseminating purported “misinformation.”

They argued that the TNI’s legacy media and Big Tech firms, then, acted in concert, described in legal terms as a “group boycott”, to remove such voices and perspectives from their platforms. This formed the basis of the lawsuit’s antitrust and First Amendment claims.

They protested that the censorship further put in the dark the side effects of COVID-19 vaccines that later caused more havoc on the live of people than the virus itself, among others.

According to one of the plaintiffs, “To have a free society, you have to have free speech, you have to have a diversity of views. We don’t have the same views as all of the other plaintiffs by far … but we want to protect the marketplace of ideas.

“If in fact the government and the corporations they collaborate with can engage in censorship and propaganda nonstop, and there are no alternative voices, democracy is dead.”

Another plaintiff declared: “This lawsuit is about preserving our free speech rights as Americans and holding those involved in violating antitrust laws accountable, like the TNI.

“My husband and I remain steadfast in our commitment to highlighting the well-documented risks of COVID-19 vaccines and the myriad of dangers to those who are not informed by their healthcare providers of the side effects of harsh pharmaceutical treatments for life-threatening illnesses.”

The plaintiffs demanded a jury trial and treble damages, contesting:  “alleging per se and “rule of reason”, violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act on the basis of direct and circumstantial evidence of horizontal agreement and economic collusion among the defendants and Big Tech firms.

The plaintiffs further demanded orders declaring the defendants’ conduct unlawful and enjoining further such actions on their part.

The lawsuit states, “There are two main categories of TNI members, playing different but often complementary roles in the online news market: (A) large legacy news organizations (hereafter the TNI’s ‘Legacy News Members’) and (B) Big Tech platform companies (hereafter the TNI’s ‘Big Tech Members’).”

Legacy news organizations are publishers of original news content and include the defendants named in the lawsuit.

“By contrast,” the lawsuit states, “the TNI’s Big Tech members — Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Microsoft — are first and foremost Internet companies, each of which is, owns or controls one or more behemoth Internet platforms, including social media platforms and search engines.”

“Core partners” of the TNI include the AP, Agence France Press, the BBC, CBC/Radio-Canada, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the Financial Times, First Draft, Google/YouTube, The Hindu, The Nation Media Group, Meta, Microsoft, Reuters, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Twitter and The Washington Post.

The lawsuit’s executive summary states:

“The TNI exists to, in its own words, ‘choke off’ and ‘stamp out’ online news reporting that the TNI or any of its members peremptorily deems ‘misinformation.’

“TNI members have targeted and suppressed completely accurate online reporting by non-mainstream news publishers concerning both COVID-19 (on matters including treatments, immunity, lab leak, vax injury, and lockdowns/mandates) and U.S. elections (such as the Hunter Biden laptop story).”

The lawsuit also alleges:

“By their own admission, members of the [TNI] have agreed to work together, and have in fact worked together, to exclude from the world’s dominant Internet platforms rival news publishers who engage in reporting that challenges and competes with TNI members’ reporting on certain issues relating to COVID-19 and U.S. politics.

“While the ‘Trusted News Initiative’ publicly purports to be a self-appointed ‘truth police’ extirpating online ‘misinformation,’ in fact it has suppressed wholly accurate and legitimate reporting in furtherance of the economic self-interest of its members.”

According to the lawsuit, “this is an antitrust action,” and specifically, “Federal antitrust law has its own name for this kind of ‘industry partnership’: it’s called a ‘group boycott’ and is a per se violation of the Sherman Act.”