Stanford University professor faced censorship for warning of COVID lockdown risks

Bhattacharya joined Twitter to share his belief that lockdowns and school closures weren't necessary in managing the pandemic, and to inform the American population that there are other ways to protect vulnerable people.

Stanford University professor faced censorship for warning of COVID lockdown risks
Fox News
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On Thursday, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor at Stanford University, spoke out against Twitter's censorship of his message against COVID lockdowns. Bhattacharya revealed on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" that he was "blacklisted" on the platform shortly after joining in August 2021.

Bhattacharya joined Twitter to share his belief that lockdowns and school closures weren't necessary in managing the pandemic, and to inform the American population that there are other ways to protect vulnerable people.

However, he was immediately put on a trend blacklist, meaning his followers could see his tweets, but those outside of his followers could not.

"I was put on a trend blacklist the moment I joined," Bhattacharya told Carlson. "What that means is that I write a tweet, my followers see the tweet, but the trend blacklist makes sure that people outside of my followers don't see the tweet."

Bhattacharya was invited to Twitter's headquarters by Elon Musk, where he learned he was blacklisted at the request of "unspecified agents" – either inside or outside of Twitter.

Bhattacharya argued that there was "robust" debate among scientists about the right way to manage the pandemic, but the government wanted to create an "illusion of consensus" about the science.

"It was a policy designed to make sure the American public did not hear that there were other alternative scientific views than just lockdown, lockdown, lockdown," he said.

"People suffered as a consequence of this censorship," Bhattacharya added. "I believe that had that honest debate taken place, none of those policies would have been put in place and all of that suffering could have been avoided."

The professor believes this censorship was a violation of his civil and First Amendment rights, but more importantly, it prevented Americans from hearing honest debate about COVID policies.

He is now involved in a case with the Attorneys General offices in Missouri and Louisiana as well as the New Civil Liberties Alliance, which found that government actors were in contact with Twitter and told social media platforms who and what to censor regarding COVID information.

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