America First Legal expands lawsuit against private censorship partners

America First Legal, who in may sued two notorious private partners of the censorship industrial complex, now has added a third defendant. The Aspen Institute joins the Election Integrity Project and the Virality Project as defendants in First Amendment violations. In doing so, America First Legal at last goes beyond Stanford University, which created the first two.

America First Legal makes an announcement

CNAV mentioned America First Legal before, directly after the Big Injunction came down in Missouri v. Biden. In May 2023 they filed their lawsuit against private partners of the State actors that social media had then become. Hines v. Stamos, 3:23-cv-00571, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, Monroe Division.

Yesterday they announced the addition of the Aspen Institute to their lawsuit. Benjamin Wetmore at The Gateway Pundit has some details, but America First Legal explains everything in this new thread:

Essentially, the lawyers for the plaintiffs have discovered new emails directly linking the Aspen Institute, and the University of Washington, with the censorship activities of the Election Integrity Partnership and the Virality Project. CNAV has covered the Virality Project here, and an overview of the Censorship Industrial Complex here. AFL’s most important discovery were notes by an attendee at a “strategy session” to plan censorship before 2022 Midterms.

America First Legal actually filed their Amended Complaint on Tuesday, October 17. It mentions the Aspen Institute (“the mountain retreat for the liberal elite”) for the first time.

Judge Terry A. Doughty already has before him motions to compel arbitration and dismiss the complaint. The first two defendants want the case either thrown out, or transferred to the Northern California District. By no coincidence, this is where the Big Tech platforms have their headquarters – and where Stanford University has its central campus.

Who else is involved?

Mr. Wetmore discusses the censorship campaign extensively, including the Aspen Institute’s role in it. Among other things, he describes the specific harms done to The Gateway Pundit and its editor-in-chief Jim Hoft. He also discusses the “workflow” for these private partners in censorship, especially the Election Integrity Partnership.

But this public-private partnership has a problem. The Fourth Arab-Israeli War provoked a spate of content taking the side of HAMAS – and excusing their atrocities. Some Trust and Safety teams are acting – on their own – to remove such content. That has the original beneficiaries of the censorship regime crying, “Foul!” It also places the architects of this regime in the uncomfortable position of having to make distinctions they never thought they’d have to make.