Filmmaker Mary Strause made a docuseries critical of UnitedHealth. The companies used the threat of litigation to coerce streaming services to take it down.
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 Trump, who are using legal threats and lawsuits to deter or penalize 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. “Some version of this has been going on for a long, long time,” Mr. Levine said. But, he added, “the incidence of it has increased.”