PUBLIC ADVOCATE TELLS FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR OF BIG TECH
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PERMISSION GRANTED IN ADVANCE TO QUOTE IN PART OR WHOLE JUNE 4 2025
Eugene Delgaudio said "Public Advocate was joined by 22 other major conservative pro-family groups to testify to the Federal Trade Commission on wrongdoing over the years against conservative groups by the Big Tech Giants."
DELGAUDIO TESTIFIED AS FOLLOWS:
The Commission is seeking public input on how consumers have been harmed by efforts by information technology companies to suppress content and restrict various viewpoints in the public arena. These Comments highlight the First Amendment infringement resulting from the previous administration's effort to coerce and to collude with giant media companies to restrict speech critical of that administration and its policy preferences.
These commenters urge the FTC to issue a report and take other appropriate action detailing the dangers associated with federal government censorship and manipulation of social media companies. In Murthy v. Missouri, 604 U.S. 43 (2024), the Supreme Court determined that Missouri did not have standing to challenge the federal government, but such considerations about standing have no bearing on the FTC report which 2 should provide the American People with a true and complete explanation on the abuses committed by federal government during the last administration.
COMMENTS I. THE GOVERNMENT CANNOT BE TRUSTED AS THE ARBITER OF "TRUTH" VS. "MISINFORMATION."
The First Amendment speech and press rights forbid the government from directly or indirectly censoring the views of Americans. Here, the indirect censorship occurred through coercion or through subsidies to silence voices with which the government disagrees. The past four years have taught Americans a number of critical lessons.
The first lesson is that governments cannot be trusted to tell the truth when it is inconsistent with its own agenda. The government should never decide which information may be made available to the public or promoted because it is "reliable," and which should be suppressed because it is "misinformation," "disinformation," or "malinformation."
The second lesson is that governments are all too willing, and - with the assistance of Big Tech companies - all too effective at, silencing dissenting speech that opposes the government's preferred messaging. The third lesson is that the courts cannot be relied on to protect free speech, as the judiciary can only decide cases and controversies brought to it.
Thus, all branches and agencies of government must do what is in their power to give effect to the protections of the First Amendment. In July 2021, President Biden exploded on social media companies for not doing more to censor COVID narratives that questioned the government's official story on COVID "science." "They're killing people. The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated.
And they're killing people," Biden said. And at her daily press briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki "told reporters that the White House is 'regularly' coordinating with Facebook and other social media giants on the 'latest narratives dangerous to public health' that the administration thinks should be censored." But the government's so-called "science" was not just wrong, but catastrophically wrong. A New York Post article in February 2023 by Dr. Marty Makary, currently head of the Food and Drug Administration, chronicled just how wrong "the science" was.
Dr. Makary, who was derided as a "science denier" in 2021, pointed out a laundry list of actual misinformation pushed on millions of Americans in the name of "science," including the following: " Misinformation #1: "Natural immunity offers little protection compared to vaccinated immunity." In fact, "[a] Lancet study [which] looked at 65 major studies in 19 countries on natural immunity ... concluded that natural immunity was at least as effective as the primary COVID vaccine series."
" Misinformation #2: "Masks prevent COVID transmission." In fact, an Oxford study published in January 2023 "found that masks had no significant impact on COVID transmission."
" Misinformation #3: "School closures reduce COVID transmission." In fact, "[t]he CDC ignored the European experience of keeping schools open, most without mask mandates. Transmission rates were no different, evidenced by studies conducted in Spain and Sweden."
" Misinformation #4: "Myocarditis from the vaccine is less common than from the infection." In fact, "[a] flurry of well-designed studies" showed that "myocarditis is six to 28 times more common after the COVID vaccine than after the infection among 16- to 24-year-old males. Tens of thousands of children likely got myocarditis, mostly subclinical, from a COVID vaccine they did not need because they were entirely healthy or because they already had COVID."
" Misinformation #5: "Young people benefit from a vaccine booster." In fact, "the evidence was never there that they lower COVID mortality in young, healthy people.... White House pressure to recommend boosters for all was so intense that the FDA's two top vaccine experts left the agency in protest, writing scathing articles on how the data did not support boosters for young people."
" Misinformation #6: "COVID originating from the Wuhan lab is a conspiracy theory." Indeed, "Google admitted to suppressing searches of "lab leak" during the pandemic." But "[u]ltimately, overwhelming circumstantial evidence points to a lab leak origin." In December 2024, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic concluded that the most likely origin was in fact a leak from a Chinese lab conducting "gain of function" research on the virus. The committee "conducted more than 30 interviews, held numerous hearings, ... reviewed more than 1 million pages of documents [and] heard from scientists on both sides of the debate about the origins of the virus" in reaching its conclusion. (CONTINUED)
II. THE UNHOLY MARRIAGE OF GOVERNMENT AND BIG TECH CONSTITUTES AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO A FREE SOCIETY.
Although the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed on standing grounds a lawsuit by Missouri, Louisiana and several individual plaintiffs against collusion between the Biden administration and the Big Tech companies to stifle dissenting speech, the lower courts examined the merits and found a profound threat to free speech. (CONTINUED)
III. THE COURTS CANNOT BE TRUSTED TO PROTECT FREE SPEECH. THUS, THE FTC, EVERY GOVERNMENT AGENCY, AND ALL THREE BRANCHES MUST ENSURE IT IS PROTECTED.
The Supreme Court in Murthy ultimately permitted the Censorship Enterprise to continue, reversing the Fifth Circuit's decision with the copout that the states lacked "standing" to sue, since they could not prove the censorship would continue. (CONINUED)