MOLLY Kingsley, who set up a campaign to keep schools open during the pandemic, has defended “Covid sceptics” after it emerged prominent figures discussing lockdown policies online were monitored.

Critics of Covid restrictions were targeted by the Government’s Counter-Disinformation Unit (CDU) to tackle supposed domestic “threats”.

Posts criticising lockdown restrictions or questioning the mass vaccination of children were removed.

Kingsley, executive founder of UsForThem, told GB News that she was “spied” on by the secret unit and received warning notices on her social media posts during the pandemic.

Speaking to Camilla Tominey, she said: “We know I was being spied on, I think we can infer that there must have been some suppression, we know that.

“Our Facebook page group quite frequently had warnings slapped on it, saying you are circulating, letting false information into the group.

“We know that kind of suppression took place, likewise on Twitter many of us felt it was very odd that we were saying things that were having an awful lot of attraction, it looked like tweets were being retweeted maybe hundreds of times and yet follower numbers never went up. It was very weird.”

Kingsley added: “What the Government has been flagging, or what this unit is flagging is opinions which are unpalatable, this isn’t misinformation.”

Social media sites were searched by an artificial intelligence firm (AI) on behalf of the Government and flagged discussions opposing Government Covid policies.

The BBC was also found to be involved in secretive meetings of a Government policy to discuss the so-called disinformation.

Documents revealed that some of Kingsley’s material was flagged to the CDU which included articles and tweets.

One of these was a piece by Kingsley which was published in February 2022, where she argued that it was “indefensible” that children’s lives were still not back to normal when the rest of society was.

Another tweet from December 2020, in which she said it would be “unforgivable to close schools”, was also passed to the CDU.

She added: “The problem is, you can’t undo censorship and I’m afraid the stark reality is that for the best part of two years, we have been living under this condition where one narrative appears to have been amplified.

“I think only when we have the full facts can we work out what to do about it, but it does seem to me on its face this is absolutely anathema to the principles of liberal democracy and free speech.”