Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., hosted a press conference on Thursday with Republican colleagues to discuss the coordination between Big Tech companies and federal bureaucrats to censor information about COVID-19‘s origins.
?LIVE NOW? Tune in to the @SenateGOP press conference on big tech censorship of COVID-19 origins. @RogerMarshallMD @SenatorBraun @SenRonJohnson @SenatorWicker https://t.co/K76ToY6WEQ
— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) June 10, 2021
Blackburn said Facebook—whose CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, personally pledged his support to assist coronavirus czar Anthony Fauci in his messaging—censored now-validated posts that suggested that the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
She said Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, may have coordinated with Facebook to censor certain views about the coronavirus scare.
“I think it is appropriate that Dr. Fauci step aside from his responsibilities at the NIAID and that he make himself available to Congress to find out exactly how was he in cahoots with Mark Zuckerberg and big tech,” she said. “What transpired there? Did American people hear some truth but not the whole truth?”
Blackburn called on Fauci to resign for repeatedly lying about his support for gain-of-function research, and for destructive and inhumane policies like masking, physical distancing and lockdowns.
Blackburn also condemned the baseless censorship of other cyber-publishers, such as the Google-owned video-streaming platform YouTube.
“YouTube had previously announced it would ban any content that contradicted the Beijing-run and China-funded World Health Organization,” Blackburn said. “YouTube even took down a video from some medical doctors who were questioning the value of these lockdowns.”
She said Big Tech “stepped over the line” in censoring evidence-based opinions about the coronavirus and its origins, and that the Senate must act to ensure that this never again “happens to the American people.”
Fellow Republican Sens. Roger Marshall of Kansas, John Cornyn of Texas, Mike Braun of Indiana, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Roger Wicker of Mississippi also spoke at the press conference.
Marshall exposed the conflict of interest and dishonesty among scientists, bureaucrats, Big Tech companies, and regime journalists who coordinated to suppress evidence of the Wuhan lab leak.
He referred to this shameful collusion, censorship and dishonesty as “batgate,” a jab at the Chinese propagandist narrative that the pandemic originated from eating a wild animal at a Wuhan wet market.
“I learned in 10th grade science—everything I learned as a doctor—about the scientific method, about hypothesis and developing theories,” he said. “And the next thing I see was this letter signed by scientists who have ignored even the possibility that this virus could have risen from the laboratory. They totally ignored it.”
The scientists did not examine the evidence before rejecting the hypothesis. Fauci’s emails show that scientists and bureaucrats colluded to suppress the story to protect their own pocketbooks.
“Then, come to find out most of those scientists, if not all of them, were receiving some type of funding then and in the future from the [National Institutes of Health],” Marshall said.
“And our CDC sat there and nodded their head in agreement,” he continued. “And then national journalists, big-tech companies—they worked together to suppress this story, to censor those of us who thought this virus may have originated there.”
Johnson said the evidence for the Wuhan lab leak and for the federal government’s funding of dangerous gain-of-function virus research “has been hiding in plain sight for months.”
“Shame on the media, shame on the social media for not paying attention to it, for completely ignoring it,” he said.
The delay in investigating COVID-19’s origins means that, like a criminal cold-case, “we’ll never get to the bottom of it,” he said.
“China’s had 18 months to destroy this evidence, but have no doubt about it, China is guilty. They are culpable,” Johnson said. “We already know they have to be held to account.”
He added that the corporate news media bears blame for the failures surrounding the coronavirus, too.
“I think we also need to hold the news media and social media accountable as well. This isn’t the only area of suppression,” Johnson said.
“I could list a long list of false narratives, false stories that the drive-by media promotes and then never really adequately retracts,” he added. “But when it comes to COVID, I have personal experience with censorship and suppression that I believe has cost tens of thousands of Americans their lives.”
