Michael Carbonara, who is one of several Republicans running for Florida's 22nd Congressional District, is accused of filing bogus copyright and trademark infringement claims against media outlets to suppress unfavorable news coverage of him.
"This is Absolute Censorship"
Throughout July and going into August, as WLRN covered, articles critical of Carbonara's ties to data centers, cryptocurrency, and foreign business deals were hit with lawsuits filed by United Kingdom-based companies that only existed on paper, falsely claiming that the articles were plagiarized from other sources. The lawsuits called upon Google to remove them from search results.
Google does not require evidence that companies own the copyright, and has complied in every instance, even after an initial review restored the critical articles to Google search results.
In other words, every time a new article critical of Carbonara has been published, a nonexistent company files suit claiming nonexistent copyright infringement, and Google removes the link from search results.
"This is absolute censorship, because this is information that the press has certainly a right to publish," Corey Silverstein, a Michigan-based attorney who works on First Amendment cases, told WLRN, adding, "It's protected under the First Amendment, and someone out there is abusing a law that was meant to protect genuine copyright holders."
Not Even The Floridian is Safe
On Friday, The Floridian published an article calling out Carbonara for seemingly suggesting that he has received the endorsement of President Donald Trump.
A campaign text message refers to him as "the only endorsed MAGA candidate," which can imply he has Trump's or the wider MAGA movement's backing.
While Carbonara has received the endorsement of Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), the White House denied endorsing Carbonara, saying the campaign text message was "pushing the envelope."
Monday morning, The Floridian received an alert from Google, in which they received notification that our site "allegedly infringes upon the copyrights of others."
