UnitedHealth steps up effort to quiet critics

The company has invoked the murder of an executive last year to complain about coverage in news outlets, on streaming services and on social media, writes David Enrich from New York

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Mary Strause, a filmmaker in Wisconsin, logged on to Amazon's video-streaming service in late May so she could share a link to her latest project, a docuseries that harshly criticised the US health care industry. She was surprised to see that her video had vanished.

Ms Strause had no way of knowing it, but the video had been taken down after a law firm working for UnitedHealth Group, one of the country's largest health care companies, sent a letter warning Amazon and another streaming service, Vimeo, that the video was defamatory.

It was the latest salvo in an aggressive and wide-ranging campaign to quiet critics. In recent months, UnitedHealth has targeted traditional journalists and news outlets, a prominent investor, a Texas doctor and activists like Ms Strause and her father, who complained about a UnitedHealth subsidiary.

In legal letters and court filings, UnitedHealth has invoked last year's murder of Brian Thompson, the chief executive of the company's health insurance division, to argue that intense criticism of the company risks inciting further violence.

The tactics have had an impact. Amazon and Vimeo both removed Ms Strause's film. The Guardian postponed publishing an investigation of the company after UnitedHealth sued over a previous article it said was defamatory.

UnitedHealth joins a growing group of companies and wealthy individuals, including President Donald Trump, who are using legal threats and lawsuits to deter or penalise criticism.

Over the years, there have been scattered examples of embattled companies — such as Purdue Pharma, the maker of the highly addictive painkiller OxyContin — deploying legal offensives against a broad spectrum of journalists and critics, said Lee Levine, a retired First Amendment lawyer who has defended news outlets, including The New York Times.