On The Front Lines
Ninth Circuit Refuses to Hold Facebook Accountable for Working With the Government to Censor, Suppress Disfavored Ideas and Speech
Documents
Children’s Health Defense v. Facebook
PASADENA, Calif. — In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a lawsuit brought by Children’s Health Defense (“CHD”) against Meta Platforms for restricting CHD’s posts, fundraising, and advertising on Facebook following communications between Meta and federal government officials.
The Rutherford Institute had filed an amicus brief in Children’s Health Defense v. Meta, arguing that because Facebook acted in concert with federal officials and agencies to suppress and punish CHD for sharing disfavored information about vaccines, Facebook should be held accountable as a government actor. The dissent for the Ninth Circuit similarly stated that a “line has plainly been crossed” if “Meta and the Government worked cooperatively together to suppress the concededly truthful speech of Americans…for the illegitimate purpose of dampening opposition to the Government’s preferred vaccine policies,” which implicates the First Amendment. The dissent also noted that Meta does not have a “right to team up with the Government to suppress the speech of particular speakers, or on particular topics” on its social media platforms.
“We should all be alarmed when prominent social media voices are censored, silenced and made to disappear from Facebook, X, YouTube and Instagram for voicing ideas that are deemed politically incorrect, hateful, extremist, or conspiratorial,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “At some point, depending on how the government and its corporate allies define what constitutes ‘extremism,’ we might all be considered guilty of some thought-crime and subjected to technocensorship.”
Founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Children’s Health Defense is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending childhood health epidemics by revealing causes, eliminating harmful exposures, seeking justice for those injured, and establishing safeguards to prevent future harms. CHD, an outspoken critic of the proliferation of childhood vaccines, seeks to inform the public about vaccines and the health dangers posed by vaccines and wireless technologies. CHD’s mission has brought it in conflict with the pharmaceutical industry, which obtains huge profits from the sale of vaccines; the United State government, which accepts millions of dollars in funding from the pharmaceutical industry; and big-tech internet companies that profit from expanded wireless technologies. Crucial to CHD’s mission of educating the public is its use of social media, including Facebook, to provide links to studies and information by experts on public health which expose the dangers of vaccines.
However, since 2019, Facebook has waged a campaign to discredit CHD: repeatedly posting labels and overlays on CHD’s Facebook page, labeling information as “false,” preventing persons visiting CHD’s Facebook page from making donations to CHD, and otherwise asserting that CHD violated Facebook’s terms of service by posting false information. In August 2020, CHD filed a lawsuit alleging that Meta’s retaliatory actions violated the First Amendment’s guarantee to freedom of speech. The lawsuit alleged that Meta acted at the behest of and in concert with the U.S government to suppress “vaccine misinformation.” The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted Facebook’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which was affirmed on appeal by the Ninth Circuit.
Affiliate attorney Julie Esposito, Esq., helped advance the arguments in the amicus brief in Children’s Health Defense v. Meta.
The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization, defends individuals whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated and educates the public on a wide spectrum of issues affecting their freedoms.
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