SAN FRANCISCO (Legal Newsline) - Five doctors who say they were unfairly suspended from Twitter after making controversial Covid-related posts have sued the platform for breach of contract, saying Twitter bowed to political pressure instead of following the science.
The most prominent among them, Dr. Robert Malone, has claimed he was an inventor of the mRNA technology behind the most effective Covid-19 vaccines and gained widespread publicity after a Dec. 31 appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, in which he made controversial claims including that Covid vaccines were experimental and had significant side effects and natural immunity was superior to vaccine-induced immunity.
The other plaintiffs are Drs. Vladimir Z. Zelenko, George C. Fareed, Brian M. Tyson and Peter A. McCullough. They all are seeking a court order reinstating their Twitter privileges along with attorney fees and costs.
In the June 26 lawsuit filed in state court in California, they say they are highly trained experts with numerous publications whose Twitter posts were based on firm science. They filed suit after Twitter apparently rejected their request in a May 21 to be reinstated, in which they said Twitter suspended them out of fear government officials would retaliate against the platform or revoke its protection under Section 230 of the communications law, which restricts liability for user comments on social media platforms.
This was a financial decision for Twitter,” the plaintiffs said in their May letter. “For the sake of profits, it chose to abandon its role as a neutral internet service provider and instead openly and intentionally collude with government to silence lawful speech.”
They cited Twitter’s suspension of former President Donald Trump as another example of stifling First Amendment speech for political and economic reasons. Trump has been unsuccessful in his court challenges to his suspensions on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.
Malone’s claims of inventing mRNA technology have been challenged by many scientists, although other remarks that once were highly controversial have since been shown to be true. He was criticized for saying natural immunity from covid infection was more powerful than vaccines, for example. In a June article in the New England Journal of Medicine, however, researchers concluded that protection against reinfection was higher from natural immunity than a booster shot.