Wimkin Founder Says Big Tech Tried to Silence Free Speech

After his app was pulled from stores, Jason Sheppard created a social media site he claims Big Tech tried to silence.

PITTSBURGH — Jason Sheppard, founder of the social media platform Wimkin, says he created the site after growing frustrated with censorship on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.

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Sheppard, who worked in healthcare IT before launching Wimkin, said his concerns began in September 2019, months before the COVID-19 pandemic was widely recognized. He and his team were tasked with writing new reporting protocols for a coronavirus test in a medical records system. When doctors told him they were being discouraged from giving the tests, Sheppard said he refused to be part of it. “My name is not going to be attached to this. There’s something completely wrong with this, and I’m gone,” he said.

He started a website called World Must Know Now to give people a platform to share stories they felt were being ignored. According to Sheppard, the site attracted tens of thousands of daily visitors, many of them sharing accounts of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes. In September 2020, he launched Wimkin, which quickly rose to the number one spot in app stores before being banned by Apple and Google just four months later.

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Sheppard said the tech giants accused Wimkin of hosting government opposition and COVID-19 misinformation. At the time, the platform had about 300,000 members. Despite the ban, Sheppard says Wimkin has now grown to more than 9 million users.

He also claims that a covert division of the U.S. Postal Service monitored activity on the platform, collecting user information and personal messages. He says the government even requested personal details such as IP addresses, emails, phone numbers and credit card information, which Wimkin did not have.

Sheppard is now leading a class-action lawsuit that he says has attracted more than 28,000 people, including politicians who claim they lost campaign funding and elections due to deplatforming. He is also promoting the Digital Free Speech Reparations Act, legislation he drafted that has been shared with nine members of Congress for sponsorship. The proposal would set aside $500 billion from major tech companies and media outlets for people who say they were harmed by censorship.

Sheppard insists Wimkin supports free speech, banning only illegal activity such as threats, harassment or pornography. He said that while he personally dislikes hate speech, blocking it would go against the platform’s mission. “Any speech should be allowed as long as it’s not illegal,” he said.