The Charlie Kirk Lawsuit - ACLJ to Represent

The ACLJ now represents famous conservative commentator Charlie Kirk and his youth-oriented, grassroots organization Turning Point USA. We plan to file a massive federal lawsuit against the federal government on behalf of Kirk and others who have been censored online.

Before the 2020 election, Kirk had millions of followers on social media. But after President Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) began suppressing conservative social media accounts, Kirk lost hundreds of thousands of followers. Such Deep State interference violated Kirk’s First Amendment right to free speech.

When did this unlawful censorship begin? After the media promoted rampant claims that Russia had stolen the 2016 election, the Obama Administration shifted its focus to foreign election threats.

When the Mueller Report found zero evidence of Russian collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia, the CISA broadened its scope of foreign threats to “domestic misinformation.” Following this, it began clamping down on online information that it considered dangerous.

Eventually, the DHS equated “online misinformation” to committing a cyberattack to interfere with any election. Then the DHS and CISA pressured social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to censor conservative messages.

Such message-throttling is a gross violation of the First Amendment, and the government has put its thumb on the scale of censorship. We already filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Biden Administration after the FBI pressured Facebook to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 election.

When Kirk contacted us, we agreed to file a massive federal lawsuit against the Deep State to stop the suppression of conservatives on social media and for damages for Kirk and Turning Point USA resulting from the suppression and shadow-banning.

Kirk first began noticing that his message wasn’t reaching his followers during the 2020 presidential election. At the time, they had one of the largest conservative Twitter accounts in social media, with more than 120–140k retweets a day, but then it started to taper off during the election cycle. And then after January 6, he truly felt his social media freefall after being put on a “do not amplify” list:

This language started to get introduced, and obviously, a new regime took the Oval Office, where they considered my views and the views of half the country – and more than half the country, in my opinion – to be that of domestic violent extremism. And if you look at the DHS documents that have been made public and you look at the Twitter files, I was put on a “do not amplify list” on Twitter. That’s a fact . . . . The federal government labeled my account and Turning Point USA – and many others – for censorship. And the federal government is not allowed to shut up the citizen.

Turning Point USA wasn’t the only conservative organization targeted. Other victims of this government suppression include the Heritage Foundation, the Christian Broadcasting Network, Fox News, and many more.

Conservatives used to have a voice in the marketplace of ideas, but then the government squelched their opposing viewpoints. The government tipping the scale in free speech is illegal, un-American, and a betrayal of everything America stands for.

Kirk also detailed how he was locked out of his Twitter account during the week of the election because he tweeted about the Hunter Biden laptop scandal. Twitter deemed Kirk’s message to be Russian disinformation.

Aside from Kirk’s voice being suppressed, how many other conservative Americans were silenced online? And how many Americans just gave up using social media for fear of legal repercussions or having their opinions censored?

We already have 16 cases against the Biden Administration, and we plan on filing the new federal lawsuit against the Deep State any day now. We must not allow the federal government to continue censoring conservatives. Future presidential elections and the constitutional republic depend on preserving the First Amendment.

Our new case reflects why we launched our month-long Life & Liberty Drive. It’s been a great success so far, but we are still short of our goal. Midnight tonight is the deadline to have your donation doubled instantly. Donate today to defend life and liberty – including our newest federal case on behalf of Charlie Kirk against the Deep State.