Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb ended a Friday interview on CNBC after he ducked a question about censorship on social media.
“I’m not going to comment directly on that. He’s threatening litigation, too, so another reason not to respond,” Gottlieb, now of the board of directors for Pfizer, said when asked about the case of Alex Berenson, a journalist who covered the COVID-19 pandemic, sued Twitter after an August 2021 ban and was reinstated after a legal settlement in July. “I’ve raised concerns around social media broadly, and I’ve done it on these networks, around the threats that were being made on these platforms and the inability of these platforms to police direct threats, physical threats about people. That’s my concerns around social media and what’s going on in that ecosystem.” (RELATED: Scientists Join Lawsuit Against Biden Admin Over Censoring COVID-19 Information On Social Media)
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Berenson has claimed that Biden administration officials pressured Twitter into banning him over his reporting on COVID-19 and vaccines.
“I’m unconcerned about debate. I’m unconcerned about debate taking place in platforms,” Gottlieb said. “I am very concerned when threats are being made, physical threats against people’s safety.”
Gottlieb criticized the Biden administration in 2021 over vaccine mandates, claiming they made the vaccine “political.” Gottlieb also slammed China for misleading the world about COVID-19 in April 2020, but opposed defunding the World Health Organization.
“Gottlieb’s non-answers and pathetic attempt to smear me speak for themselves,” Berenson told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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