Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter, claimed that a prominent Pfizer Board Member and a former top Biden Administration adviser pressured Twitter to censor him over his questions regarding the COVID-19 vaccination.
Berenson believes he was banned by Twitter due to the influence of a senior member of Pfizer’s board. Berenson claimed that Scott Gottlieb pressured him to suspend his Twitter account permanently, citing emails obtained in his lawsuit against Twitter.
Gottlieb served as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner from 2017 to 2019. He resigned and was appointed to the board of directors at Pfizer three months later.
Berenson wrote on Thursday in his “Unreported Truths” Substack, “Gottlieb, whom Pfizer charges almost $400,000 per year to serve on its board including its highest-ranking ‘executive committee,’ began the final act of a secret, months-long conspiracy against my fundamental American right to freedom speech.”
Berenson claimed federal, corporate, and private conspirators “wanted me to stop my reporting about the failures of the mRNACOVID vaccines,” adding that “they wanted to suppress the debate about the necessity or mandates for vaccine boosters.”
Berenson claimed that Twitter, the world’s most important platform for journalism, wanted to ban Berenson. However, Twitter repeatedly found that my posts were not in violation of its rules. “They wanted to ruin my reputation as a journalist and cause financial damage to me and my family.”
Berenson wrote an August 2021 Substack article titled “Quite frankly: Anthony Fauci’s arrogance and what it means to the rest of us.” According to Berenson, Gottlieb sent the article via email within hours of it being published. Substack includes a screenshot of the allegedly leaked email in its Substack article.
Gottlieb purportedly stated in an email that “This is what’s promoted via Twitter.” Tony has a security detail because of this.
Gottlieb insinuated that Berenson was putting Fauci at risk, but the journalist maintained, “My Substack article about ‘Tony” did not threaten or harass Fauci in any way. It called him an ‘arrogant’, a skilled courtier’, and mocked his famous comment that criticizing science was attacking science.
Berenson wrote: “Four days following Gottlieb’s email and only 24 hours after he held a secret conference call about me with Twitter employees, Twitter permanently banned me. It claimed that I had violated its COVID misinformation rules.”
A spokesperson for Twitter stated that Berenson’s account had been “permanently suspended” due to repeated violations of COVID-19 misinformation rules.
Berenson claimed that the tweet was “entirely correct” and said, “I can’t wait to hear how a jury will view this.”
Berenson filed a federal suit against Twitter in December. He claimed that the tech giant “acted on behalf” of the federal government by censoring and banning him from its platform.
Twitter settled the case in July and Berenson’s official Twitter account was restored.
Berenson observed, “Twitter acknowledged that my tweets shouldn’t have led to my suspension at the time.”
Berenson claimed that his lawsuit exposed internal Slack messages among Twitter employees about a meeting they held with members of President Joe Biden’s Administration in August 2021.
According to one Twitter employee, the question that Alex Berenson was not kicked off of the platform was “They had one really difficult question.”
Another screen capture shows a conversation between Twitter employees. “They really wanted information about Alex Berenson.” “Andy Slavitt suggested that they had seen data visualization [visualization] that showed that he was at the epicenter disinformation that spread outwards to all who would listen.”
An employee of Twitter allegedly told a colleague that Berenson’s reporting about the pandemic was a hindrance to persuading the public to get COVID-19 vaccines.
Andy Slavitt was a White House senior COVID-19 advisor at the time of the meeting. He resigned from the Biden administration in June 2021.
Berenson stated that “Slavitt & Gottlieb are good friends.” “They co-authored a letter to Congress in April 2020 requesting increased COVID contact trace efforts. They appeared in interviews together, including Slavitt’s podcast “In The Bubble”, which Pfizer sponsors.
Gottlieb spoke out about social media platforms in July 2021 with CNBC. He said that “if they give someone a very large platform to distribute information they have an obligation to look at what’s being distributed.” They have an affirmative responsibility, but in some cases, they aren’t.
The White House acknowledged that in July 2021, senior staffers were working with Facebook to flag “problematic” posts regarding COVID.
Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary, stated that “this is a huge issue of misinformation on the pandemic.”
Psaki declared that “In terms of actions…that we have taken, o we’re currently working on, I should add, from the federal government,” he said. We are flagging disinformation-promoting posts on Facebook.
In mid-July 2021 President Biden also accused social media companies, accusing them of “killing people” because they failed to take action against COVID misinformation. He said, “The only pandemic that we have is among those who are not vaccinated.”
Berenson wrote: “Following Biden’s comment, Twitter locked my account for the second time.” It gave me a second strike on July 27 and the third one on July 30 – for a tweet that accurately reflected the results of a Pfizer clinical study.
Slavitt wrote an email on July 31, 2021, to a Twitter employee, which read: “If [he] doesn’t go permanent after this, then the outcry will have been justified.”
Berenson was banned permanently from Twitter on August 28, 2021.
Thursday night saw Berenson appear on “Tucker Carlson Tonight”, to talk about his Twitter censorship accusations, which he attributes to Gottlieb and Slavitt.
Tucker Carlson was interviewed by Berenson. He said that Slavitt, Biden’s White House senior adviser for the COVID response, had been in contact with Twitter about Berenson back in April 2021. Berenson claimed that Slavitt had told Twitter that he was a problem to the White House. He then asked the social media network why it hadn’t banned him.
Berenson accused Gottlieb then of banning him from Twitter.
“And then Scott Gottlieb, who is a director at Pfizer and is on the executive committee, made tens and billions of dollars selling these vaccines. He went to Twitter and stated, ‘This guy’ and then they banned him,” Berenson told Carlson.
Berenson, who announced Thursday that he will file a new suit, has sent “demand letters to Gottlieb, Pfizer and Slavitt.”
He stated, “We have many grounds, likely including an interference with my civil rights-in this case, my First Amendment right of free speech.”
