Four years ago, U.S. state, local, and federal goverments pushed “social-distancing” policies separating Americans six feet away from other people everywhere they went. Now former National Institute of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins has admitted no “science or evidence” ever backed these heavy-handed, comprehensive restrictions — another key proof the left’s war on so-called “disinformation” is so dangerous.
A memo National Review obtained, from the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, details Collins’ closed-door testimony earlier this year. It reveals that Collins had not seen evidence on March 22, 2020, to support the widely obeyed federal policy when the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) instituted six-foot social distancing rules.
“Do you recall science or evidence that supported the six-foot distance?” Collins was asked.
“I do not,” Collins said. “I did not see evidence, but I’m not sure I would have been shown evidence at that point.”
“Have you seen any evidence since then supporting six feet?”
“No,” Collins responded.
So Collins admits the federal government lacked any scientific basis for this massive social policy it pushed on Americans, including by colluding with Big Tech to shut down public debate about Covid-19 responses. Such debate could have revealed that many Covid policies weren’t backed by good research. Instead, numerous federal officials pressed Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to shut down skepticism and contrary information it falsely labeled “misinformation” and “disinformation,” including articles from The Federalist.
This censorship effort effectively secured an information monopoly for federal agencies, including the CDC and NIH, to spread false information. As the lawsuit Murthy v. Missouri and other investigations later revealed, these government officials then used their information monopoly gained through accusing others of “misinformation” to spread actual misinformation, including that “social distancing” was scientifically proven necessary to “save lives.”
What The ‘Experts’ Said
Numerous so-called “experts” publicly regurgitated false government talking points about the virus, including the imperative “need” for social distancing. In fact, this government-pushed false information dominated public discussions for years.
Dr. Peter Hotez said on MSNBC that he tried to get people “to understand social distancing and wearing masks” but he could “not overcome that massive disinformation campaign” coming from the Trump White House that “downplayed it and said it was a hoax or attributed deaths to other causes… or discrediting masks.”
Anthony Scaramucci begged people to read the highly partisan Brookings Institute’s study on “disinformation” and “social distancing.”
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Dr. Anthony Fauci in an email that he wanted people to get “authoritative information from reliable sources” and “encourage people to practice social distance and give people ideas for doing this using internet tools.”
California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom posted on X that “CA can only keep flattening the curve if we stay home and practice physical distancing. You have the power to literally save lives.”
None of these talking heads knew — or said publicly — that the government’s “authoritative information” on many Covid-19 policies such as social distancing had little genuine scientific grounding. In fact, the only real purpose the guidance served was as a justification to suppress Americans’ free speech.
Big Tech Throttles Truth About COVID
Former Harvard University vaccine expert Dr. Martin Kulldorff, Stanford University epidemiologist Dr. Jay Battacharya, and epidemiologist Dr. Sunetra Gupta of Oxford University issued The Great Barrington Declaration in 2020, an open letter criticizing prominent government approaches to the pandemic such as mass lockdowns. Instead of separating all Americans constantly, they recommended focusing protections on the limited people most at risk from a Covid-19 infection. Nearly 1 million health professionals across the world signed the letter in support. Facebook deleted the letter.
Podcast host Joe Rogan saw his interviews with Dr. Robert Malone and Dr. Peter McCullough on experimental Covid treatments such as hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin stripped from YouTube. Malone, who patented technology key to the mRNA technology, was banned from Twitter in December 2021 after he questioned the mRNA injections’ potential side effects and risks.
Even then-President Donald Trump was a victim of Big Tech’s and Big Brother’s monopoly on Covid information. Twitter and Facebook removed Trump’s post in which he said schools should be reopened since children are “almost immune from this disease.”
Since Biden took office, his administration has badgered social media companies to censor “misinformation superspreaders” about the virus. Former White House Press Sec. Jen Psaki admitted in 2021 that the Democrat-run administration was working to stifle any speech that questioned vaccines and had pressured Facebook to suppress posts federal officials deemed to be Covid “misinformation.”
For example, Biden administration officials flagged posts critical of Covid injections to Facebook for removal. Biden claimed that without censoring posts expressing skepticism about the vaccines, Facebook and Big Tech were essentially “killing people.” This censorship apparatus has since expanded to other topics than Covid, including global warming claims and LGBT sexual politics.
Murthy v. Missouri
The Biden administration’s censorship efforts were temporarily blocked during the lawsuit Missouri v. Biden, now known as Murthy v. Missouri. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, temporarily permitted the government to continue its internet censorship.
The federal government has claimed its censorship that made government misinformation dominate the airwaves was necessary to save American lives. U.S. Principal Deputy Solicitor General Brian Fletcher argued, as explained by Benjamin Weingarten, that “deputizing social media companies as speech police was a necessity as part of ‘an effort to get Americans vaccinated during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic’.”
In other words, the government believes it had every right to make its official views dominate American public affairs, while quashing all critiques and dissent. The government’s justification for its war on so-called “disinformation” is, as Collins’ admission shows, simply an excuse for allowing government disinformation to dominate American airwaves.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist.
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