In exclusive videos for The Defender, Sayer Ji, Dr. Ben Tapper and Dr. Sherri Tenpenny — all named in 2021 to the “Disinformation Dozen” list — discuss the ensuing battles over censorship, shadow banning and medical freedom. Tapper said they were targeted “to protect the narrative.” Ji said the experience helped him “develop further resilience” as he pursued justice for those who “believe in freedom.” Tenpenny said the people on the list remain “proud to be standing shoulder to shoulder” in sharing information that helps save lives.
Interview transcripts:
Michael Nevradakis: Hey everyone, this is Michael Nevradakis, senior reporter with The Defender.
The publication in 2021 of “The Disinformation Dozen” list of the supposed top 12 disinformation spreaders online has, perhaps inadvertently, from the point of view of its creator, the Center for Countering Digital Hate, created a lasting legacy — a legacy of COVID-era censorship and cancel culture, and the fight to overcome it.
A lot has certainly changed in five years.
In March of 2021, much of the world was still locked down and masked up, while the members of the “Disinformation Dozen” list and so many others, as well, were deplatformed and canceled simply for questioning what we were told was “the science.”
Today, one of those members of the Disinformation Dozen, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is health secretary.
Several others have been involved in key legal cases challenging censorship and, particularly, the collusion between big government and private platforms, big tech platforms, to stifle speech.
But as three of the “Disinformation Dozen” — Sayer Ji, Dr. Ben Tapper and Dr. Sherri Tenpenny — will tell us in a series of short videos that we’ve prepared for you, the legacy of the “Disinformation Dozen” also continues on in adverse ways as well through continued censorship, which is still going on. Banning and shadow banning, lawfare and, of course, the continued battle over health and medical freedom in the U.S. and around the world.
So, here’s Sayer Ji, Dr. Ben Tapper and Dr. Sherri Tenpenny telling us, in their own words, what their inclusion among the “Disinformation Dozen” meant for them, what the five-year mark since the list’s publication means for them and for all of us today.
And remember, as you’re watching these videos, that you can find more great Defender content here on Substack, @tdefender.substack.com.
You can also find more great Defender content on our main site, childrenshealthdefense.org/defender.
Sayer Ji: ‘If you can’t have bodily sovereignty, there is no other civil right’
Ji: Sayer Ji here, founder of GreenMedinfo.com, a natural health resource, and also co-founder of Stand for Health Freedom, which is an advocacy platform to support citizens to take full control of their health, informed medical choice, parental rights, privacy, and freedom of expression and religion.
And it’s been five years now since the “Disinfo Dozen” report was dropped like a bomb on my life and others who were on the list.
And, essentially, they tried to characterize our speech — which was around very basic topics of advocacy, the ability to have different choices as to how you use medicine in your life, food as medicine and, essentially, this was characterized as a threat to the cognitive security of the U.S.
And it was done through a network of dark, shadowy organizations. NGOs that popped up out of nowhere. What they sometimes call “cutouts,” because they’re intelligence shells where, essentially, certain states, right — the U.K. and the U.S. — have constitutions where you can’t directly violate the rights of your citizens, so you create through your intelligence apparatus these little fake organizations that launder the suppression of free speech and other rights — freedom to assemble, due process, all the things that we hold dear as democratic societies, or in our case, a constitutional republic that aspires to engage civil action and democratic processes to empower the masses.
And what happened with us is that we were made into examples, pilloried, if you will, because we had the gumption, the audacity to speak up against what, at the time, was a unilateral narrative — the mRNA experiments, the gene therapies were basically shoved down people’s throats.
They were told it’s “safe and effective.” It was clear that they were deadly and they had serious adverse effects in everyone who succumbed to those interventions.
And we were speaking loudly, we had platforms, we were warning people, and because of that, they decided to try to make an example of us all the way up to the executive branch and the office of the President of the United States doing a press conference saying 12 citizens are killing people with misinformation.
Ji: So, going full circle, coming to this point today, I can say I’m grateful that my work was of enough impact to have that effect.
I also have to acknowledge it was a very difficult period because as a father, as a husband, I wanted to protect my family.
And when you have the whole world essentially against you, and even today, if you search “Disinfo Dozen,” you’ll find hundreds of thousands of results, not a single retraction or correction, trying to allege that we somehow by exercising our free speech, and I believe responsibly, was a deadly sin and that we are enemies of not just the state, but the world.
So that gave me a lot of opportunity to work on myself, to develop further resilience and to also engage civil processes as well as legal processes to get justice, not just for myself, but on behalf of everyone who spoke up and everyone who believes in freedom, who loves, you know, their country, who loves their bodies being healthy and want their children to have beautiful lives.
That’s the only thing that motivated us as a group.
And today, we have Secretary Kennedy as a shining example of what happens when dark forces attack people who are holding light for others.
And that is, essentially, what I can say happened, is that today I am even more grateful.
I’m stronger. I am someone who feels that my work has really made an impact.
So, I am grateful to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the U.K. government, everyone within even the deep state of the U.S., that gave me the opportunity to prove myself.
‘It’s all about Americans standing up for their rights’
Ji: And so now that that’s done, it’s about all Americans standing up for their rights.
This is no longer some minor faction with the U.S. that cares about freedom in this way.
If you can’t have bodily sovereignty, there is no other civil right. You have to be able to control what happens to and in your body.
If someone forces something into you, that is violence. And that’s what people have woken up to.
So I’m grateful, actually, for the role that I got to play. I’m proud of the fact that I survived and I did everything I could to make the best of the situation, and I know that many of you had the exact same experience.
You may not have been on a list. You’re an honorary member yourself, and I’m very proud to be part of that family.
So thank you for this opportunity to share my experience over the past five years.
Dr. Ben Tapper: ‘Censorship is the tool of the tyrant when the lie loses its power’
Tapper: It’s been roughly five years since I was labeled one of the “Disinformation Dozen.”
Make no mistake, I wasn’t labeled to protect the truth. I was labeled to protect the narrative.
I was silenced and censored to protect the lie, and censorship is the tool of the tyrant when the lie loses its power.
George Martin said, when you cut a man’s tongue, you don’t prove him a liar. You are fearful of what [he has] to say.
That is what we saw during COVID, during the labeling of the “Disinformation Dozen.”
I, along with Sayer Ji, Sherri Tenpenny, Joe Mercola, the Bollingers, Aaron [Siri], Kevin Jenkins, Rizza Islam and Bobby Kennedy Jr., we saw massive corruption and censorship.
Why? Because they were afraid of what we had to say.
‘The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance’
Tapper: We knew we were on the right side of truth. We’re on the right side of history.
Thomas Jefferson said, if you take freedom of speech, then dumb and silent we will be led like sheep to slaughter.
We need to protect our rights and freedoms to this day. I mean, the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance, as Thomas Jefferson stated.
We must continue to fight the fight here. And this is why we have legal battles going on, you know, against the CCDH. We have lawsuits against the Trusted News Initiative.
Why? Because the government overstepped their boundaries. They silenced so many other citizens.
This is why we had a campaign called “More Than 12,” because the government was silencing and censoring those who were unafraid to bend a knee and who had the courage and conviction to speak out during COVID.
And so we continue to press on. I mean, Benjamin Rush, a signer of our Declaration of Independence, he knew full well that there would be a time when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship to restrict the art of healing in 1-to-1 class of men.
And I believe that time is now.
‘We have a medical dictatorship knocking at our doorstep’
Tapper: We don’t have medical freedom here. We have a medical dictatorship knocking at our doorstep.
And the soil for real change here, for the truth to prevail, is very rich.
We must continue on the fight at hand and not stay complacent.
I mean, I believe it was Edmund Burke who stated that the only thing for triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
We must continue on and fight the good fight.
So being labeled one of the “Disinformation Dozen” — some people say it’s a badge of honor, and some people think it’s a terrible label.
But I’m thankful that I had, that God gave me a voice in this fight. He still has given me a voice in this, and I want to continue on the race here because it’s never-ending, and we must continue on and have conviction that’s greater than our complacency.
We must have conviction that’s greater than our fear of persecution.
Thomas Jefferson has also said that one man with courage is a majority. When we speak out, we encourage others to do the same. And there’s a famous saying out there, we never know how far-reaching something we may think, say or do today will affect the lives of millions tomorrow.
We must continue on fighting the good fight because our freedoms depend on it.
God bless.
Dr. Sherri Tenpenny: ‘The censorship continues’
Tenpenny: It’s been a long road being part of the “Disinformation Dozen,” named by the Biden administration to be murderers, spreading misinformation around the world that turned out to be ultimately the truth.
And to the people who hurt us, we actually saved millions of lives.
And the censorship continues, still on all of the social media platforms and our email outreach and the various different outreaches that we want to do. The censorship continues.
So even though we’ve moved on, we really haven’t moved up. And we’re continuing to be harassed by this government, we’re harassed by the tools of this government, and we hope that we can succeed in the lawsuit that we have structured against the government that has not been dismissed because the “Disinformation Dozen” were really the “Information Dozen.”
And we are proud to be standing shoulder to shoulder to continue to share the best information about problems associated with vaccines and our solutions that we have for the rest of the world.
