Facebook Dumps ‘Fact-checkers’ One Day After CHD Asks Supreme Court to Hear Censorship Case Against Meta
Less than 24 hours after CHD petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its censorship case against Meta, Mark Zuckerberg announced the company is ending its third-party “fact-checking” program.
Less than 24 hours after Children’s Health Defense (CHD) petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its censorship case against Facebook’s parent company, Meta, Mark Zuckerberg announced the company is ending its third-party “fact-checking” program.
“It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression on Facebook and Instagram,” Zuckerberg told viewers in a press release video. Meta also owns Instagram.
CHD sued Meta in November 2020 over the social media giant’s censorship practices. The company de-platformed CHD from Facebook and Instagram in August 2022 and has not reinstated the accounts.
Commenting on today’s news, CHD CEO Mary Holland told The Defender, “It’s clear that Mark Zuckerberg is worried about new anti-censorship policies of the incoming administration — as he should be. The record in CHD v. Meta clearly shows Facebook’s close collaboration with the White House to censor vaccine-related speech, even pre-COVID.”
Holland added:
“CHD has taken its case to the Supreme Court, and Facebook doubtless realizes there are Justices there that are very dubious about Facebook’s role in censoring speech at the behest of the government in the new public square.
“Zuckerberg may imagine that by making this announcement he is mooting this case, or making it no longer significant. That’s not the situation — the country needs closure that this kind of fusion of state and industry to censor unwanted information will never happen again.”
CHD’s lawsuit against Facebook’s parent company, Meta, and its founder and CEO, Zuckerberg, alleges that government actors partnered with Facebook to censor the plaintiffs’ speech — particularly speech related to vaccines and COVID-19 — that should have been protected under the First Amendment.
The suit also named “fact-checking” firms Science Feedback, and the Poynter Institute and its PolitiFact website. On Aug. 9, 2024, the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled against CHD.
Lawyers with CHD urged the Supreme Court to reconsider the decision. They wrote in their petition, filed Monday:
“This case goes to the heart of our constitutional design, raising critical questions in the Internet Age about the availability of open debate free from government censorship-by-proxy.
“The practical consequences of leaving the decision below intact are enormous: the levers of censorship on the mega-platforms will always be sore temptation for executive office-holders — and not just about vaccines or Covid.”
National healthcare and constitutional practice attorney Rick Jaffe called Meta’s announcement a “very big deal for the country and for CHD.”
Jaffe represents CHD in some of its cases, including cases involving doctors’ right to speak freely about COVID-19. He told The Defender:
“For the last five-plus years, CHD — largely through Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mary Holland, and the group’s supporters — have been at the forefront of defending free speech on social media … Meta’s action today shows the effect of the changing public’s view on censorship by social media companies which Meta could no longer ignore.
“So, congrats to CHD and its legal team who helped this happen. The work isn’t over yet, so onwards.”
Meta shifts to content moderation model used on X
Rather than turning to third parties to fact-check posts, Meta will use a “Community Notes model” in which social users themselves decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context, said Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan in a statement. “We’ve seen this approach work on X,” Kaplan said.
The change will take a few weeks to implement, Kaplan said.
Meta also will lift restrictions on topics such as immigration and gender identity. “It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms,” Kaplan said.
The Defender asked Meta if it will lift restrictions on discussions about vaccine safety and COVID-19 but did not receive a response by deadline.
Meta is also changing how it enforces its policies. “Up until now,” Kaplan said, “we have been using automated systems to scan for all policy violations, but this has resulted in too many mistakes and too much content being censored that should haven’t been.”
Zuckerberg said there’s “legitimately bad stuff out there — drugs, terrorism, child exploitation.” The company will continue to take those things “very seriously” by using automated systems to scan for them.
However, for less severe violations, Meta will rely on a person reporting an issue before taking action against an account user.
Zuckerberg said he always cared about freedom of expression but that in recent years, his company responded to pressure for stricter speech restrictions. “Governments and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more,” Zuckerberg said. “A lot of this is clearly political.”
He acknowledged that some of the “complex systems” Meta built to moderate content made mistakes. “We’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship.”
Will Meta’s policy changes stick?
Zuckerberg said Meta’s policy changes were also prompted by the recent U.S. elections that were a “cultural tipping point toward once again prioritizing free speech.”
Jenin Younes, a civil rights attorney who represented some of the plaintiffs in the landmark censorship case Murthy v. Missouri, told The Defender she was “cautiously optimistic” about Meta’s announcement.
Meta appeared to be making the changes because of a new presidential administration, Younes said. “That means that Meta could change course in another four years under a different administration. We need major social media platforms — the modern public square — to adopt principled free speech positions that don’t change with the wind.”
If platforms don’t adopt strong free speech positions, public dialogue suffers, Younes said. “Censorship on Meta, especially during the COVID era, strangled public debate and even went so far as to prevent vaccine-injured individuals from corresponding with each other in private groups.”
Kim Mack Rosenberg, CHD general counsel, told The Defender Meta’s announcement does not undo the years of the damage done to CHD and many other individuals and groups.
“What is important is not only that Meta is making these changes but also that steps are taken to make sure this cannot be repeated, which makes our ongoing cases — including the recently filed petition to the U.S. Supreme Court — critically important.”
It appears you've gotten Zuck's attention, at least. Carry on, as your legal counsel says, it's not over.
I am so happy that CHD will continue its cases against Meta, et al., to ensure these defendants make all the necessary changes to protect free speech and to reinstate CHD and all the others who were kicked off social media. Finally, I believe Mark Zuckerberg is phony and if not forced to stay the course, will revert back to his familiar ways just as soon as the “coast is clear.”