September 29, 2021, Google deleted my YouTube account
for “violating community guidelines” — guidelines they’d implemented
that very same morning. September 28, 2022, I filed a lawsuit1 against Google, YouTube and Alphabet Inc. for breach of contract.2
As detailed in my complaint, YouTube unilaterally amended the
contract without notice, which is a violation of its own terms, and then
used this last-minute amendment to remove 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.
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.
In fact, over 16 years on the platform, I never once received notice
of any “strike” against my channel for violation of community
guidelines.
Clear Breach of Contract
Then, 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:
“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.”
Six minutes AFTER the publication of
that WaPo article, at 9.06 a.m. EDT, I received an email from YouTube
informing me that my entire channel had been deplatformed and banned.
They didn’t just take down old videos where I discussed vaccines. They
took down my whole channel, including thousands of videos that were
completely unrelated to vaccines.
So, as described in my complaint, the evidence suggests YouTube had
considered this new guideline for some time — to not allow disparaging
views against ANY approved vaccine — and they worked with a reporter
from The WaPo to create that article ahead of time.
The WaPo article was then embargoed until the morning of September 29
in order to not allow me (or anyone else affected by this change) to
review 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.
Government, Media and Social Media Collude to Censor
The WaPo article coinciding with YouTube’s action is also a blatant
illustration of how government, social media platforms and media collude
and coordinate attacks to censor people and organizations with whom
they do not agree, or who pose a threat to their propaganda narrative.
In a September 29, 2021, “News & Events” article posted by
YouTube on its website, YouTube admitted they were “working closely with
health authorities,” including “local and international health
organizations” to come up with this new guideline.
YouTube Violated Its Own Three Strikes Policy
YouTube’s terms of service also include a “three strikes” policy,
where users are supposed to be 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. The fact that YouTube had to use underhanded tactics to
create an excuse to get rid of us only goes to show how compliant we had
actually been all along.
YouTube Profited From the Content It Stole
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.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren Sued for First Amendment Violation
The YouTube lawsuit isn’t the only legal complaint we’ve filed to protect our rights in this new age of illegal censorship.
November 8, 2021, I, along with Ronnie Cummins, founder and director
of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) and the coauthor of my
best-selling book, “The Truth About COVID-19,” our publisher, Chelsea
Green Publishing, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who wrote our foreword,
also sued U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, both in her official and personal capacities, for violating our First Amendment rights.
The lawsuit was filed in response to Warren’s attempts to force Amazon.com to ban our book. In early September 2021, Warren sent a letter3
to Andy Jassy, chief executive officer of Amazon, demanding an
“immediate review” of Amazon’s algorithms to weed out books peddling
“COVID misinformation,” stressing that Amazon’s sale of such books was
“potentially unlawful.”4,5,6
While she didn’t spell out what laws Amazon might be breaking, she
appeared to be warning Jassy that the company may be held legally
responsible for wrongful death and homicide by selling books that
“misinform” readers about COVID-19, its treatment and COVID shots.
She singled out my book, “The Truth About COVID-19,” as a prime
example of “highly-ranked and favorably-tagged books based on falsehoods
about COVID-19 vaccines and cures” that she wanted banned. She wrote:7
“Dr. Mercola has been described as ‘the most
influential spreader of coronavirus misinformation online. 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 ...”
Government Officials Cannot Legally Censor Anyone
As a government official, it is illegal for Warren to violate the
U.S. Constitution, and pressuring private businesses to do it for her is
not a legal workaround. As noted in our complaint:
“Once upon a time, the First Amendment was understood
to guarantee that books challenging governmental orthodoxy could be
sold without fear of governmental intimidation or reprisal.
Almost sixty years ago, in Bantam Books v. Sullivan,
372 U.S. 58 (1963), the Supreme Court held that state officials violated
the First Amendment by sending letters to booksellers warning that the
sale of certain named books was potentially unlawful.
The ‘vice’ in such letters and in the ‘veiled threat’
of legal repercussions they communicated, explained the Court, is that
they allow government to achieve censorship while doing an end-run
around the judiciary, ‘provid[ing] no safeguards whatever against the
suppression of ... constitutionally protected’ speech, thus effecting an
unconstitutional ‘prior restraint.’
It made no difference that the officials who sent the
letter lacked the ‘power to apply formal legal sanctions’ — i.e., that
the officials did not themselves have the power to sanction or prosecute
the booksellers in any way. Indeed this fact made the
unconstitutionality more apparent.
The officials ‘are not law enforcement officers; they
do not pretend that they are qualified to give or that they attempt to
give distributors only fair legal advice ... [T]hey acted ... not to
advise but to suppress.’
It also made no difference, the Court expressly
found, that the letters were framed as mere ‘exhort[ation]’ or that the
booksellers were in theory ‘free’ to ignore the letters, because the
officials had ‘deliberately set about to achieve the suppression of
publications deemed ‘objectionable’,’ and ‘people do not lightly
disregard public officers’ veiled threats.’
Today, certain members of the United States Congress
have apparently forgotten, or think they are above, the law set forth in
Bantam Books.”
If We Lose Free Speech, We Lose Everything
There’s no doubt our book, “The Truth About COVID-19,” is
constitutionally protected speech, and that Warren’s letter is calling
on Amazon to suppress protected speech.
Yet, ever since the start of the pandemic, government has
systematically sought to suppress the kind of information shared in our
book, using the same tactic as Warren used against us here — warning
internet-based companies that if they don’t censor these views, the full
weight of the government’s wrath will be turned against them.
While lawsuits like these are time consuming and costly, they are
necessary. Free speech is worth fighting for, because if we lose that,
then we lose everything.
As discussed in “The Biggest Casualty of COVID-19,”
individual rights have been repeatedly trampled and violated ever since
the beginning of this pandemic, and it’s only going to get worse from
here if we don’t fight back.
It’s now clear that we have only two choices: Freedom, or life under
authoritarian rule. There’s no middle ground. As the old adage goes,
“Give an inch and they’ll take a mile.” It’s true that the judicial
system has in many ways been weaponized against us as well, but it is
still our best chance at setting the record straight and reining in
these egregious rights violations.