The Censorship of Mercola -- A Timeline

Jun 23, 2023

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Source: GreenMedInfo

The Censorship of Mercola -- A Timeline

Monday, January 30th 2023

Written By: Dr. Joseph Mercola

Originally published on www.mercola.com

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

While the drug and chemical industries have attacked and tried to discredit me for years, blatant censorship didn't begin until 2020, after the outbreak of the COVID pandemic
The timeline of censorship and free-speech right violations against me began in the summer of 2020, when the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) called on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to take action against me for recommending vitamin D
The attacks against me really heated up though after I published a peer-reviewed scientific paper on the benefits of vitamin D at the end of October 2020. Christmas Eve 2020, attorney general Letitia James sent a cease and desist notice, demanding we stop sharing information about how immune-boosting nutritional supplements might lower your risk of COVID. The FDA also issued us a warning letter about the same
Fabrications by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) have been the primary "evidence" cited by government officials intent on censoring me. The CCDH is linked to a number of technocratic centers within the globalist network through its board members
In August 2021, after conducting an internal investigation, Facebook's content policy director called out the falsehoods in the CCDH "Disinformation Dozen" report. CCDH preselected the 12 individuals listed in the report, and the narrative was based on nothing more than "a narrow set of 483 pieces of content over six weeks from only 30 groups, some of which are as small as 2,500 users"

While the drug and chemical industries have attacked and tried to discredit me for years, blatant censorship didn't begin until 2020, after the outbreak of the COVID pandemic.

For legal and historical purposes, I am sharing a timeline of events with you that document a chain of coordinated events and attacks against me and this website. My first article about the pandemic came out February 4, 2020, in which I predicted that it was a grossly exaggerated threat that would enrich pandemic vaccine makers.

March 8, 2020, I published an interview with bioweapons expert Francis Boyle, Ph.D., in which he warned that SARS-CoV-2 had all the hallmarks of a genetically engineered bioweapon. Boyle was among the first, if not the first, to suspect the outbreak was the result of a lab leak.

While every health authority on the planet insisted there was no treatment, and that patients simply go to the hospital to be placed on mechanical ventilation and die, I interviewed medical experts working on early treatment options and published articles detailing the potential benefits of vitamin D, zinc, quercetin and other nutraceuticals that boost immune function, as well as decades-old drugs like hydroxychloroquine.

I also published the testimony of whistleblowers such as Erin Marie Olszewski, a frontline nurse, who warned that patients were being intentionally killed on ventilators as it quickly proved to be a deadly intervention for COVID-19.

Summer of 2020 -- The Suppression of Vitamin D Begins

Early on, it became apparent that vitamin D levels and spending time outdoors played an important role in the risk of infection and the ultimate outcomes. This has been true for all respiratory infections, so it should come as no surprise it is also true for coronavirus infections. Despite that, health authorities insisted vitamin D was useless.

The only way out of the pandemic, they said, would be a vaccine -- and this despite the fact that no previous attempts at creating a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine had ever succeeded because of its rapid ability to mutate.

In June 2020, I launched an information campaign, StopCovidCold, about vitamin D. I released a downloadable scientific report detailing how and why optimizing vitamin D levels among the general population could minimize the impact of the next wave of COVID. Optimizing vitamin D is a rational, safe and inexpensive measure that no sane health official would object to. And yet, they all did.

July 21, 2020, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) issued a press release¹ calling on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) "to bring enforcement proceedings against Mercola and his companies for their unlawful disease claims that falsely and misleadingly claim to treat, cure or prevent COVID-19 infections."

CSPI accused me of falsely claiming "that at least 22 vitamins, supplements and other products available for sale on his web site can prevent, treat, or cure COVID-19 infection." This despite the fact that their Appendix of Illegal Claims² clearly show I made no COVID-19-related claims to any specific products and only referenced published studies and mainstream media articles to support my opinions.

In an August 12, 2020, email, CSPI president Dr. Peter Lurie -- a former FDA associate commissioner -- also made the spurious claim that I was "profiting from the pandemic" through "anti-vaccine fearmongering:" ³

"Mercola brazenly has claimed that many of his products are coronavirus treatments or cures, including vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc, selenium, 'molecular hydrogen,' licorice, and other substances.
Besides profiting from the pandemic, Mercola has seemingly advised people to contract COVID-19 after taking supposedly 'immunity boosting' supplements (which of course he sells). Making matters worse, Mercola is a leading proponent of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories -- and has been fearmongering against prospective COVID-19 vaccines even before such vaccines are available!"

By mid-August, a comprehensive campaign to put an end to Mercola.com had been launched, with Laurie asking CSPI members to flood the FDA and FTC with prewritten Tweets, urging them to take action against us. He also urged "state attorneys general to investigate how they may further protect consumers from Mercola's illegal marketing."⁴

DR. MERCOLA EXPOSES CSPI LIES

Link to Video

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Not surprisingly, CSPI is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Rockefeller Family Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies and other billionaire-owned foundations. It's also partnered with Bill Gates' agrichemical PR group, the Cornell Alliance for Science. Greg Jaffe, who heads up CSPI's Biotechnology Project, is also the associate director of legal affairs at Alliance for Science.

Winter of 2020 -- Vitamin D Attacks Heat Up

The attacks against me really heated up though after I published a peer-reviewed scientific paper⁵ on the benefits of vitamin D at the end of October 2020. With that, I established my medical and scientific merit and my right to a professional opinion, which is something the U.S. Constitution absolutely provides for.

The paper, "Evidence Regarding Vitamin D and Risk of COVID-19 and Its Severity," published in the journal Nutrients, was coauthored by William Grant, Ph.D., and Dr. Carol Wagner, both of whom are part of the GrassrootsHealth expert vitamin D panel.

As noted in that paper, dark skin color, increased age, pre-existing chronic conditions and vitamin D deficiency are all features of severe COVID disease, and of these, vitamin D deficiency is the only factor that is modifiable. As such, it would be foolish to ignore, especially since vitamin D supplements are readily available and low cost.

Christmas Eve 2020, attorney general Letitia James sent us a cease and desist notice, demanding we stop sharing information about how immune-boosting nutritional supplements might lower your risk of COVID, including vitamin D, zinc, NAC and vitamin C.

February 2021, FDA Tries to Silence Protected Speech

After the new presidential administration took over, on February 18, 2021, the Rockefeller-funded CSPI and AG James got their wish, as the FDA sent us a warning letter for "Unapproved and Misbranded Products Related to Coronavirus Disease 2019."⁶ Laurie even publicly bragged⁷ about his ability to influence the FDA to take action against us.

The FDA's letter highlighted statements in articles on my website that were fully referenced and supported by published science, and none of the articles cited had any commercial advertising linking the information to my products, as per the law. We had done nothing illegal or irregular in that regard, and my professional opinions are protected under the U.S. Constitution.

Needless to say, we fully addressed both James' cease and desist notice and the FDA's warning letter, putting them both on notice that they cannot censor protected speech simply because they don't like what's being said.

On a side note, William Correll, the director of the Office of Compliance at the FDA who signed the warning letter, sadly "passed away suddenly" just two months later, on April 18 "after a short battle with COVID-19."⁸

Gates-Funded Front Group Gets on the Bandwagon

The agrochemical front group Cornell Alliance for Science (CAS),⁹ the primary funding for which comes from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,¹⁰ also jumped on the bandwagon, falsely stating¹¹ that "pages advertising vitamin C and quercetin as having 'synergistic effects that make them useful in the prevention and early at-home treatment of COVID-19'" were still available on my website nearly a month after the FDA's warning letter.

To be clear, we had fully referenced scientific news articles. News articles are NOT "advertising," as they do not link to any specific products, nor do they refer to or recommend any specific brands. In the case of the warning for vitamin C, the article discussed hospitals utilizing IV vitamin C for the treatment of COVID-19 and sepsis.

Such coordinated attacks are to be expected, though, considering Gates' influence over the operation, and seeing how CAS and CSPI work closely together -- a fact CAS admitted in its hit piece.¹²

March 2021, Booksellers Urged to Ban My Book

Around that same time (February 11, 2021), my book "The Truth About COVID-19" also went up for presale, and by early March, booksellers in the U.S., U.K. and Australia were being pressured not to sell it, or to add some sort of misinformation warning label to it. As reported by Sky News March 5, 2021:¹³

"In the UK, more than 20 million vaccine doses have been administered as part of efforts to defeat COVID-19, but worries continue that misinformation is stopping some people from having the jab. Shadow health minister Alex Norris told Sky News:
'Getting our population vaccinated is a massive priority and it is very sad to see these things so freely available. We would hope that retailers would act responsibly and have a look at whether they want to be associated with such products and whether they want to be seen to be profiting off such products.'"

Shady 'Anti-Hate' Outfit Publishes Hit List

March 3, 2021, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) -- a shady U.K.-based organization with anonymous funding led by Imran Ahmed -- also got in on the action, publishing a hit list¹⁴ of the "Top 10 anti-vaxxers" it wanted permanently silenced and eradicated from public forums. The list showed, by way of crossing out names, which had already been successfully deplatformed, and from which social media.

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While precious little was (and still is) know about the CCDH, some digging revealed Ahmed had been appointed to the steering committee of the U.K. government's Commission on Countering Extremism Pilot Task Force in April 2020, just as fearmongering about the COVID-19 pandemic was ramping up. The CCDH is also linked to a number of technocratic centers within the globalist network through its board members.¹⁵

More Fabrications and Lies From the CCDH

A couple of weeks later (March 15), Ahmed somehow managed to get an article titled "Dismantling the Anti-Vaxx Industry"¹⁶ published in the journal Nature Medicine. In it, Ahmed lied, claiming he'd "recorded a private, three-day meeting of the world's most prominent anti-vaxxers," when in fact it was a public, international conference given online, attended by thousands around the world, all of whom had access to the recordings.

He could have done the normal, ethical and truly journalistic thing and admitted he simply attended a public virtual conference, but instead he twisted it into some risky undercover agent mission where he secretly recorded private discussions that revealed the inner workings of "the opposition."

Then, March 21, 2021, the CCDH published the fabricated "Disinformation Dozen" report,^17,18,19 in which Ahmed falsely claimed 12 people and/or organizations, including yours truly, were responsible for 65% of all anti-vaccine content on social media.

March 24, 2021 -- AGs Try to Censor Protected Speech

March 24, 2021, 12 attorneys general sent a letter²⁰ to the CEOs of Twitter and Facebook, seeking their "cooperation in curtailing the dissemination" of COVID jab "misinformation" -- all based on the fabrications of the CCDH. According to the AGs:

"The people and groups spreading falsehoods and misleading Americans about the safety of coronavirus vaccines are threatening the health of our communities, slowing progress in getting our residents protected from the virus, and undermining economic recovery in our states.
As safe and effective vaccines become available, the end of this pandemic is in sight. This end, however, depends on the widespread acceptance of these vaccines as safe and effective. Unfortunately, misinformation disseminated via your platforms has increased vaccine hesitancy …
According to a recent report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, so-called 'anti-vaxxer' accounts on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter reach more than 59 million followers … Given 'anti-vaxxers' reliance on your platforms, you are uniquely positioned to prevent the spread of misinformation about coronavirus vaccines …"

Facebook Set the Record Straight

August 18, 2021, after conducting an internal investigation, Monika Bickert, vice president of Facebook content policy, publicly called out the falsehoods in "The Disinformation Dozen" report, stating:²¹

"In recent weeks, there has been a debate about whether the global problem of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation can be solved simply by removing 12 people from social media platforms. People who have advanced this narrative contend that these 12 people are responsible for 73% of online vaccine misinformation on Facebook.
There isn't any evidence to support this claim … In fact, these 12 people are responsible for about just 0.05% of all views of vaccine-related content on Facebook. This includes all vaccine-related posts they've shared, whether true or false, as well as URLs associated with these people."

Bickert highlighted the fact that Ahmed had preselected the 12 individuals listed in the report, and that his "faulty narrative" was based on nothing more than "a narrow set of 483 pieces of content over six weeks from only 30 groups, some of which are as small as 2,500 users."

"Further, there is no explanation for how the organization behind the report identified the content they describe as 'anti-vax' or how they chose the 30 groups they included in their analysis," Bickert noted. "There is no justification for their claim that their data constitute a 'representative sample' of the content shared across our apps."

Apparently, no one in government was smart enough to see the flaws in the CCDH's report though, and a long list of officials cited the CCDH's fabricated claims throughout the remainder of 2021, even long after Facebook denounced its claims. What's more, even though Facebook admitted the CCDH's claims were bogus, they still took action against accounts by applying penalties and/or bans.

April 8, 2021 -- AGs Call on Social Media to Ban 'the 12'

April 8, 2021, attorneys general James and William Tong published an op-ed in The Washington Post,²² again calling on social media companies to ban the "disinformation dozen" identified by the CCDH. The lack of acceptance of novel gene therapy technology, they claimed, was all because a small group of individuals with a social media presence -- myself included -- were successfully misleading the public with lies about nonexistent vaccine risks.

April 27, 2021 -- Dr. Hotez Calls for Cyberwarfare

April 27, 2021, Dr. Peter Hotez, president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute²³ -- which has received tens of millions of dollars from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,^24,25 -- escalated the threat even further in an article published in the journal Nature.

Citing the CCDH's findings, Hotez called for cyberwarfare experts to be enlisted in the war against vaccine safety advocates and people who are "vaccine hesitant." He wrote:²⁶

"Accurate, targeted counter-messaging from the global health community is important but insufficient, as is public pressure on social-media companies. The United Nations and the highest levels of government must … move to dismantle anti-vaccine groups in the United States.
Efforts must expand into the realm of cyber security, law enforcement, public education and international relations. A high-level inter-agency task force reporting to the UN secretary-general could assess the full impact of anti-vaccine aggression, and propose tough, balanced measures.
The task force should include experts who have tackled complex global threats such as terrorism, cyber attacks and nuclear armament, because anti-science is now approaching similar levels of peril. It is becoming increasingly clear that advancing immunization requires a counteroffensive."

In short, Hotez called for the use of warfare tactics on law abiding American citizens, and the Nature journal actually published this blatant threat. One day later, April 28, the CCDH published a second report, "Disinformation Dozen: The Sequel,"²⁷ which focused on Big Tech's failure to get rid of us "despite bipartisan calls from Congress."

To understand the massive reach the CCDH gained, despite no one having heard of them before COVID, consider this: By the end of August 2021, there were 84,700 Google search results for CCDH's defamatory phrase "disinformation dozen," including 16,000 news stories in the international press, nearly all of which parroted the CCDH's defamatory statements verbatim and reported them as fact.

May 2021 -- Financial Warfare Led to Removal of COVID Articles

Shortly after the op-ed by AGs James and Tong appeared, our business bank accounts were abruptly shut down and our credit cards canceled. Our business partners also had their PayPal accounts shut down.

This new threat, which I could not defend against in a court of law, led to my May 4 decision to remove all articles related to vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc and COVID-19 from my website.

July 2021 -- The White House Publicly Calls for Censorship

In mid-July 2021, the White House stepped in to pressure Facebook to purge "anti-vaxxers" from its platform. Then-press secretary Jen Psaki regurgitated the CCDH's false claims, saying:²⁸

"There's about 12 people who are producing 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms. All of them remain active on Facebook, despite some even being banned on other platforms, including ones that Facebook owns.
Facebook needs to move more quickly to remove harmful, violative posts. Posts that would be within their policy for removal often remain up for days, and that's too long. The information spreads too quickly."

In another mid-July press conference, President Joe Biden himself demanded social media take action against "the disinformation dozen," claiming our "misinformation" was "killing people."^29,30 None of these officials ever questioned the authority of the CCDH. Facebook spokesperson Dani Lever responded to the White House's demands, saying:

"We will not be distracted by accusations which aren't supported by the facts. The fact is that more than 2 billion people have viewed authoritative information about COVID-19 and vaccines on Facebook, which is more than any other place on the internet … The facts show that Facebook is helping save lives. Period."

Summer of 2021 -- A Parade of Hit Pieces

July 24, 2021, The New York Times named me the No. 1 superspreader of COVID misinformation online.³¹ According to the NYT itself, this was the most-read article of the year up to that point. Penned by Sheera Frenkel, it was so littered with blatant lies, my attorneys sent her a retraction demand.³²

For example, she claimed the FDA has levied multimillion-dollar fines against me. This is a complete fabrication, as I've never been fined by the FDA. She also implied that I misrepresented myself as a published author of a paper on vitamin D for COVID-19, stating she was "unable to verify" my claim. This despite being given a direct link to the paper! My paper can also be located on PubMed.gov in seconds by searching my name.

Frenkel boldly claimed that I am the No.1 spreader of misinformation online, but she didn't even qualify what "misinformation" actually is. Without qualifying what it is you're looking for, how can you quantify it? She also provided no proof that I in fact had the greatest reach of all the individuals reporting on COVID injections. My name didn't even show up in the Top 15 in a Crowdtangle search for anti-vax Facebook posts.

Frenkel's hit piece was followed up by CNN, which August 4 aired a segment show CNN reporter Randi Kaye stalking me across central Florida. And, of course, Kaye's primary citation for her accusations against me was the CCDH.

August 4, 2021 -- Mercola Deletes Articles After 48 Hours

August 4, 2021, I also implemented yet another change on my website. I had already removed all articles relating to COVID-19 and vitamin D. At this point, I deleted over 15,000 articles from the past 20-plus years from my website as the business and personal threats grew out of hand.

After 48 hours, articles were instead migrated over to Substack, where only paid members through a private membership agreement have access to them. This was a painful but necessary workaround, as the paid subscription provides a layer of protection against these threats.

September 7, 2021 -- Senator Warren's Book Burning Campaign

September 7, 2021, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent a letter³³ to Andy Jassy, chief executive officer of Amazon.com, demanding an "immediate review" of Amazon's algorithms to weed out books peddling "COVID misinformation."^34,35,36

While she didn't spell out what laws Amazon might be breaking, she warned Jassy that the company may be held legally responsible for wrongful death and homicide by selling books that "misinform" readers about COVID-19, and she specifically singled out "The Truth About COVID-19" as a prime example of the kinds of books she wanted banned.

Warren again relied on the fabrications of the CCDH, even though Facebook had refuted the CCDH report as baseless three weeks before she sent that letter.

"Dr. Mercola has been described as 'the most influential spreader of coronavirus misinformation online,'" Warren wrote, adding: "Not only was this book the top result when searching either 'COVID-19' or 'vaccine' in the categories of 'All Departments' and 'Books'; it was tagged as a 'Best Seller' by Amazon and the '#1 Best Seller' in the 'Political Freedom' category.
The book perpetuates dangerous conspiracies about COVID-19 and false and misleading information about vaccines. It asserts that vitamin C, vitamin D and quercetin … can prevent COVID-19 infection … And the book contends that vaccines cannot be trusted, when study after study has demonstrated the overwhelming effectiveness and safety of COVID-19 vaccines.
It should come as no surprise that the book is rife with misinformation. One of the authors, Dr. Mercola, is one of the 'Disinformation Dozen,' a group responsible for 65% of anti-vaccine content on Facebook and Twitter …"

YouTube Deplatforms Mercola in Breach of Contract

Warren's attempt at getting Amazon to ban my book was swiftly followed up by YouTube, which deleted my account September 29, 2021, allegedly for violating community guidelines. The problem was, they'd published and implemented those new guidelines that very morning.

While I disagreed with YouTube's censorship, when its "COVID-19 misinformation" policy was implemented back in April 2021, I carefully avoided posting any content on YouTube that might violate that guideline. At no point had I ever received a violation notice from YouTube.

On the morning of September 29, 2022, at 9 a.m. EDT, The Washington Post published an article titled "YouTube Is Banning Joseph Mercola and a Handful of Other Anti-Vaccine Activists." According to the WaPo:³⁷

"YouTube is taking down several video channels associated with high-profile anti-vaccine activists including Joseph Mercola … As part of a new set of policies aimed at cutting down on anti-vaccine content on the Google-owned site, YouTube will ban any videos that claim that commonly used vaccines approved by health authorities are ineffective or dangerous.
The company previously blocked videos that made those claims about coronavirus vaccines, but not ones for other vaccines like those for measles or chickenpox."

In short, as of September 29, 2021, you could no longer post any video discussing or stating that any vaccine is dangerous or ineffective. Six minutes after the publication of that WaPo article, I received an email from YouTube informing me that my entire channel had been deplatformed, having been found in violation of this new policy.

October 2021 -- CNN's Second Hit Piece

October 4, 2021, two months to the day after their first attempted hit piece against my book, "The Truth About COVID-19," CNN aired a follow-up in which they echoed Warren's call for Amazon to ban the sale of my book.

Like something straight out of George Orwell's "1984" newsspeak dictionary, CNN host Anderson Cooper said my book is loaded with "mistruths" about COVID. Yet he failed to present a single piece of evidence to back up that claim.

This is one of the oldest propaganda trick in the book. If you just spew out enough derogatory terms about your opponent, people will forget the fact that you provided zero proof to back up your position.

November 2021 -- Mercola Sues Sen. Warren

November 7, 2021, two months after Warren tried to get my best-selling book "The Truth About COVID-19" banned from Amazon, I, my coauthor Ronnie Cummins, my publisher and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who wrote our foreword, sued Warren,³⁸ both in her official and personal capacities, for violating our First Amendment rights and scaring book sellers into pulling and/or suppressing sales.

As a government official, it is illegal for her violate the U.S. Constitution, and pressuring private businesses to do it for her is not a legal workaround.

February 2022 -- NIH Director Blames Mercola For Pandemic Continuation

In February 2022, former National Institutes of Health director Dr. Francis Collins blamed me personally for the government's inability to bring the COVID pandemic to a close. This despite the fact that I was by then heavily censored just about everywhere. The only people, really, who could see my information were those who subscribed to my newsletter and received it by email.

August 2022 -- NYT Airs Hit Piece Documentary

Fast-forward to August 2022, The New York Times published the documentary "Superspreader," featuring yours truly, on FX and Hulu (both of which are owned by Disney). They clearly went through a lot of trouble, trying to dig up dirt from anyone they could find from my past -- some going back 40 years, to my medical school days -- who would be able to share some tidbit with which they could discredit me with.

But it seems they came up empty handed: After a year of investigation, they couldn't come up with anything. Surprisingly, they even showed two people who claimed I'd saved their lives. All the other interviews were with people who don't actually know me. One was with a Chicago journalist who interviewed me once -- 13 years ago. Two classmates from med school, whom I haven't seen in over 40 years, also described their impressions.

Ironically, yet again, just one week before the "Superspreader" program aired, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reversed all of its COVID-19 guidelines, thereby proving my position on COVID was correct all along. Of course, this was never mentioned in their program though.

September 23, 2022 -- Mercola Website Taken Down in Cyberattack

Next up was a cyberattack that took down my entire website and destroyed our servers. Cyberattacks have been ongoing for the past six years, but the one that took place September 23, 2022, finally got through our defenses. By that time, my reach on social media had been throttled back to next to nothing, and my website was about the only place you could find my articles (with the exception of republications, which I allowed).

September 28, 2022 -- Mercola Sues Google and YouTube

Warren isn't the only one I've had to sue to protect my First Amendment right. In September 28, 2022, I also filed a lawsuit³⁹ against Google, YouTube and Alphabet Inc. for breach of contract.⁴⁰

As detailed in my complaint, YouTube unilaterally amended the contract without notice, which is a violation of its own terms of service, and then used this last-minute amendment to justify removing my content, which went back to 2005, the same year YouTube was founded. At the time YouTube deleted my content, I had more than 300,000 subscribers, and my videos had collectively garnered more than 50 million views.

The WaPo article was embargoed until the morning of September 29 in order to prevent me (and anyone else affected by this change) from reviewing the new policy, take steps to bring my channel into compliance, or move my content to another platform. Instead, they simply deleted 16 years' worth of intellectual property, without warning.

This is a clear violation of its own terms of service, which state that YouTube "will provide reasonable advance notice" of any changes to the terms of service, and that users will have "the opportunity to review them" and to remove content if they do not agree to the new terms.

YouTube's terms of service also include a "three strikes" policy, where users are given three warnings and opportunities to remove content that violates the guidelines before being banned. I had no "strikes" against my channel on the day I was deplatformed and deleted.

I'm also suing YouTube for unjust enrichment, as for the last 16 years, my video content, having generated in excess of 50 million views, has been of great financial benefit to YouTube, allowing them to increase advertising revenue on the site. Additionally, they've refused to allow me to retrieve any of this content, which they still have in their possession. So, YouTube has unjustly benefited at my expense.

January 2023 -- Third Lawsuit Filed to Protect Free Speech

January 10, 2023, I, along with several other plaintiffs, also filed a lawsuit⁴¹ against The Washington Post, the BBC, the Associated Press and Reuters -- also known as the Trusted News Initiative (TNI),⁴² a self-appointed Pharma and Big Tech industry partner that has spent the past couple years playing judge and jury of news.

It has been doing everything it can to censor what it doesn't want the public to hear. As noted in the complaint, the TNI has not only censored free speech, it has also engaged in antitrust activity. Specifically, "Federal antitrust law has its own name for this kind of 'industry partnership': it's called a 'group boycott' and is a per se violation of the Sherman Act."

As evidence of this allegation, our complaint references multiple public statements by TNI partners, including a March 2022 statement by Jamie Angus, then-senior news controller for BBC News, who explained TNI's "strategy to beat disinformation."

The Fight for Truth and Freedom Continues

The globalist cabal is extremely coordinated, as you can see. What's more, they play dirty. But we will not give up, nor give in. Our freedom is far too precious for that, and freedom depends on getting the truth out. So, I will continue doing my part. You can help by sharing articles you think are important with family and friends, in whatever ways are available.

References

1 CSPI July 21, 2020

2 Illegal Claims Pertaining to Mercola Group Products (PDF)

3 CSPI July 19, 2017

4, 7 SCPInet.org March 4, 2021

5 Nutrients October 31, 2020;12, 3361; doi:10.3390/nu12113361

6 FDA Mercola Warning Letter February 18, 2021

8 Sun Gazette April 24, 2021

9 USRTK September 23, 2020

10 Cornell Alliance for Science Our Funders

11, 12 Cornell Alliance for Science, March 2021, FDA Warns Mercola

13 Sky News March 5, 2021

14 Twitter CCDH March 3, 2021

15 In-this-together.com, CCDH The Center for Cancel Culture and Digital Hypocrisy Part 2

16 Nature Medicine March 15, 2021

17 Counterhate.com Disinformation Dozen March 21, 2021

18 The Disinformation Dozen

19 PR Newswwire March 24, 2021

20 Letter to Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg March 24, 2021

21 Facebook August 18, 2021

22 Washington Post April 8, 2021

23 Texas Children's Hospital Peter Hotez

24 PND July 1, 2011

25 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

26 Nature April 27, 2021

27 CCHD Disinformation Dozen: The Sequel April 28, 2021

28 Reason July 15, 2021

29 CNN July 16, 2021

30 AP July 16, 2021

31 New York Times July 24, 2021 (Archived)

32 Twitter Dr. Joseph Mercola July 26, 2021

33 Warren's letter to Andy Jassy September 7, 2021

34 National Interest September 12, 2021

35 The Guardian September 13, 2021

36 New York Times September 8, 2021

37 Washington Post September 29, 2021

38 US District Court Western District of Washington Case: 2:21-cv-01508

39 Complaint for Contract Breach Mercola vs Google, YouTube, Alphabet Inc. September 28, 2022

40 Reuters September 29, 2022

41 US District Court Northern District of Texas Case: 2:23-cv-00004-Z

42 The Defender January 10, 2023

Dr. Mercola is the founder of the world’s most visited natural health web site, Mercola.com, a NY Times best-selling author, and a thought leader in the field of alternative and integrative health. Read his full biography on his website.