A lawsuit filed today by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and multiple other plaintiffs, alleges the Trusted News Initiative, a self-described “industry partnership” launched in March 2020 by several of the world’s largest news organizations, partnered with Big Tech firms to collectively censor online news.

The lawsuit targets the Trusted News Initiative (TNI), a self-described “industry partnership” launched in March 2020 by several of the world’s largest news organizations, including the BBC, The Associated Press (AP), Reuters and The Washington Post — all of which are named as defendants in the lawsuit.

Filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas-Amarillo Division, the lawsuit alleges these outlets partnered with several Big Tech firms to “collectively censor online news,” including stories about COVID-19 and the 2020 U.S. presidential election that were not aligned with official narratives regarding those issues.

All of the plaintiffs allege they were censored, banned, de-platformed, shadow banned or otherwise penalized by the Big Tech firms partnering with the TNI, because the views and content they published were deemed “misinformation” or “disinformation.” This resulted in a major loss of visibility and revenue for the plaintiffs.

The lawsuit further alleges that Big Tech firms, having partnered with the TNI, based their decisions on determinations jointly made by TNI, which touted its “early warning system” by which each partner organization is “warned” about an individual or outlet that is disseminating purported “misinformation.”

The TNI’s legacy media and Big Tech firms then acted in concert — described in legal terms as a “group boycott” — to remove such voices and perspectives from their platforms. This forms the basis of the lawsuit’s antitrust and First Amendment claims.

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/lawsuit-trusted-news-initiative-antitrust-first-amendment-censoring-covid-content/?