White House pressured Twitter to silence journalist Alex Berenson, documents show

Shocking internal messages between Twitter employees reveal the White House pressured the social media giant to silence journalist Alex Berenson for challenging the government’s COVID-19 vaccine narrative. 

Berenson learned of the messages during his recent lawsuit against the company after the tech platform suspended his account in August 2021 for an unapproved tweet about the COVID-19 vaccine. 

The communications reveal an unidentified Twitter employee recounting a conversation with White House officials, including then-White House Coronavirus Response Team Senior Advisor Andy Slavitt in which Slavitt pointedly asked why Berenson had not been removed from the platform. 

“They had one really tough question about why Alex Berenson hasn’t been kicked off from the platform,” the employee wrote in Twitter’s internal Slack messaging system. “Otherwise their questions were pointed but fair – and mercifully we had answers.” 

“[Just wondering] - any high level takeaways from the meeting?” responded another employee. “Anything we should keep an eye out for?” 

“They really wanted to know about Alex Berenson,” the first employee responded. “Andy Slavitt suggested they had seen data viz [visualization] that had showed he was the epicenter of disinfo that radiated outwards to the persuadable public.” 

Berenson writes in his Substack newsletter that “the pressure on Twitter to take action against me and other mRNA vaccine skeptics steadily increased after that April meeting, and especially in July and August, as the government began to consider the unprecedented step of mandating Covid vaccines for adults.” 

In July, a day after Joe Biden accused social media companies of “killing people” by tolerating vaccine hesitancy, Twitter suspended Berenson for the first time. 

While a private company is not bound by free speech laws, taking action on behalf of the U.S. government effectively makes it a “state actor” and binds them to the First Amendment. 

“On August 28, 2021, barely four months after the meeting, Twitter banned me - for a tweet that it has now acknowledged ‘should not have led to my suspension,’” says Berenson. 

“It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission,” Berenson wrote in the offending tweet. “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.” 

As reported by America’s Frontline News, none of Berenson’s statement about the vaccine is disputed by Pfizer, the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) nor any other official body, yet it prompted Twitter to suspend the former New York Times journalist in violation of Twitter’s own five-strikes rule. The tweet was Berenson’s first “strike”. 

After bringing a lawsuit against the social media giant for the violation and “specific commitments” made to him by a Twitter PR executive, Berenson and Twitter are now engaged in mediation and settlement talks, the details of which the journalist said he is unable to disclose.  

 But Berenson may have already been granted an unprecedented win in the form of a ruling by U.S. District Judge William Alsup entitling Berenson to discovery. The order requires Twitter Inc to hand over any and all communications regarding Berenson, even “nonparty complaints or inquiries about plaintiff” which include “all texts, emails, voicemails, statements, and other documents pertaining to plaintiff.”  

 This means that if any party, whether in the U.S. government, a pharmaceutical company or otherwise contacted Twitter and complained about Berenson, Twitter is obligated to show that. Furthermore, Berenson is allowed to publicize whatever he finds.  

 “As we debate the power and political influence of social media companies, this discovery offers a unique opportunity to see how Twitter and the federal government and others may have colluded against my voice,” wrote the journalist in his Substack newsletter. “No one else has this chance. No one. And I am not going to give it up.”  

 Berenson added that while he will make some sacrifices, he refuses to concede his rights to discovery.  

 “Not for reinstatement, not for money, not for all the viruses in China. I will NOT agree to any settlement that does not preserve my discovery rights about third-party communications AND give me the right to publicize them. There are other things I will (and have) given up, you have to give to get, but this is the reddest of lines.”