Twitter has permanently banned the account of lockdown, mask, and vaccine skeptic Alex Berenson, the soft-spoken former New York Times investigative journalist who appears regularly on Tucker Carlson Tonight and other media platforms.
Data-tracking Berenson is the author of “Unreported Truths about COVID-19 and Lockdowns,” which is still available on Amazon (at least for now), as well as an upcoming book called “Pandemia: How Coronavirus Hysteria Took Over Our Government, Rights, and Lives.”
In a statement provided to various media outlets, Twitter indicated, “The account you referenced has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation rules.”
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective, and free.”
As alluded to in the Twitter statement, the powers that be were probably never happy with Berenson’s content.
The controversial tweet that got Berenson into trouble in the end, however, read as follows: “It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission. Don’t think of it as a vaccine. Think of it — at best — as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS. And we want to mandate it? Insanity.”
Alex Berenson has been banned from Twitter. The tweet that resulted in his permanent suspension is below. It is entirely within the range of reasonable discussion. https://t.co/uTca3wvuOP
— Byron York (@ByronYork) August 29, 2021
Berenson appears to have perhaps been referencing, in part, the increasing number of fully vaccinated persons who are reportedly testing positive for the Delta variant of the coronavirus.
The independent journalist provided a screenshot of the tweet in question in a post headlined “Goodbye Twitter” on his Substack page and strongly implied that he may take legal action against the social media network.
“This was the tweet that did it. Entirely accurate. I can’t wait to hear what a jury will make of this. Meantime, guess you’ll be getting more Substacks,” Berenson wrote.
He separately expressed gratitude for the outpouring of support, adding that his pandemic-related reporting will continue:
“I expected this day was coming. And Twitter can’t touch my Substack…Censorship is dumb, and I am reviewing my legal options. But in the meantime, data around Covid continues to pour out, and I promise you I will stay focused on that first and foremost.”
Berenson similarly told the New York Post that he may lawyer up: “We have reached a dangerous moment. Social media companies that have audiences which dwarf any other are now actively censoring reporters at the behest of governments. I will continue to fight to get out the truth and am considering all legal options.”
At the risk of oversimplification, although Twitter is a private company, should it be conclusively determined in court that it is operating as an arm of the federal government, users would be subject to the freedom-of-speech protections of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Although left-wing, settled-science social media users are celebrating, many free-speech advocates are lamenting Alex Berenson’s Twitter ban. Here is a sampling:
People with Twitter accounts:
• The Taliban
• Louis Farrakhan
• Iran’s leader
• Communist China’s repsPeople suspended or banned by Twitter:
• Donald Trump
• Alex Berenson
• Carpe Donktum
• Mike Lindell
• Marjorie Taylor Greene
• Dan BonginoDo you sense a pattern?
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) August 29, 2021
They suspended Alex Berenson for saying the vaccines can’t prevent transmission? https://t.co/1m2F4NnZj9
— Greg Pollowitz (@GPollowitz) August 29, 2021
His tweet was actually the definition of how rational discourse has been laid out among reasoning people for several thousand years now. Present some basic facts, then introduce a challenge to one’s own thinking of how they perceive those basic facts. That’s dangerous now?
— Bob McGovern (@mcgovern_bob) August 29, 2021
Alex Berenson permanently suspended by Twitter. Nobody has been more courageous reporting unpopular truths & questioning Big Pharma & Big Govt anti-science than Alex. Subscribe to his substack here: https://t.co/W8eoac2gm1 pic.twitter.com/WzKGePWvSm
— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) August 29, 2021
Look who is Blue Checked.
This and people who hashtagged ShutItDown against the US Senate and people who organized riots.
But at least we are safe from Alex Berenson’s takes of a rushed vaccine; many takes which turned out accurate such as that it lasts less time than sold. pic.twitter.com/NYwmM4nlP0
— Yossi Gestetner (@YossiGestetner) August 29, 2021
The Taliban, Iranian dictators, Chinese leaders putting religious minorities in concentration camps, all of these people can have Twitter accounts, but not Alex Berenson, a reporter covering covid policy, or Donald Trump, the democratically elected president of the US. Insanity.
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) August 29, 2021
Virtually everything Alex has shared has been based on data. Over the past several months his covid data from Israel and England has been weeks or months ahead of changed CDC directives. It’s a major failure of Twitter that they banned him.
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) August 29, 2021
Alex Berenson suspended from Twitter, maybe permanently, for telling the simple truth. He intends to sue and, we should hope, will win. Big Tech censorship at the behest of the Democratic Party and thus federal government must stop. pic.twitter.com/PCidJZ6rLB
— James Lindsay, went off on TV (@ConceptualJames) August 29, 2021
For those of us who have dared to question the “experts” on Covid, and their destructive cavalcade of mistakes, Alex Berenson has been a fearless advance guard. That the fight for liberty and freedom goes on owes much to his tireless work.
— David Marcus (@BlueBoxDave) August 29, 2021
🚨 COVID-19 lockdowns caused massive weight gain in the population which leads to underlying health conditions that causes people with those conditions to likely suffer more if hit by Coronavirus.
But at least we are safe her from reading Alex Berenson. https://t.co/gaxyBpZDoi
— Yossi Gestetner (@YossiGestetner) August 29, 2021
I really don’t think that Twitter should be curating what people are allowed to tweet about vaccines, masks, or the pandemic generally. I’m no fan of Alex Berenson or his brand of grifting, but people should be allowed to express opinions that disagree with CDC "guidance."
— Ken Gardner (@KenGardner11) August 29, 2021
Banning and erasing Alex Berenson is digital book burning. https://t.co/L4bN82mK98
— Steve (@opustestaceum) August 29, 2021
Twitter banned @AlexBerenson for just stating truths, defaming him in the process.
— Robert Barnes (@barnes_law) August 29, 2021
We’ve normalized censorship in the land of the free. And there are people who think this is a good thing. #AlexBerenson
— Jason Whitlock (@WhitlockJason) August 29, 2021
On day when @AlexBerenson gets suspended from Twitter, highly-vaccinated Israel (the country where Alex went dramatically against the grain), set new all-time record for average news cases.
They’re now averaging 5.5 times as many new cases & over 2X as many deaths as a year ago. pic.twitter.com/pFqGePoLQ5
— John Ziegler (@Zigmanfreud) August 29, 2021
I always found that Alex Berenson character extremely obnoxious, but as usual I find cheering the expulsion of people from social media platforms based on increasingly arbitrary and capricious criteria a whole lot more obnoxious
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) August 29, 2021
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