Children's Health Defense Legal Team Led by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Sues Facebook, "Fact-Checkers", Zuckerberg for Government-Sponsored Censorship, False Disparagement and Wire-Fraud
WASHINGTON: Children's Health Defense (CHD) filed a lawsuit on Monday in San Francisco Federal Court charging Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and three fact-checking companies with censoring truthful public health posts and fraudulently misrepresenting and defaming CHD. CHD, a non-profit watchdog group exposing wrongdoing and corruption in pharmaceutical and Telecom companies and public health agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), has also sued the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for wireless health concerns.
In its Complaint, CHD alleges that Facebook has insidious conflicts with Pharmaceutical companies and their captive health regulators, and is invested in telecom and 5G. Facebook currently censors CHD's page, targeting its purge against factual information about vaccines and 5G.
Facebook acknowledges censorship coordination with WHO and CDC. While earlier court decisions have upheld Facebook's right to censor content, CHD argues that Facebook's pervasive Government collaboration makes its censorship a First Amendment violation. Facebook censorship began at the urging of Congressman Adam Schiff, who in March 2019 suggested Facebook suppress and purge content critical of government vaccine policies.
The lawsuit also challenges Facebook's use of so-called "independent fact-checkers"—who are neither independent nor fact-based—to create oppositional content on CHD's page, literally superimposed over CHD's original content. To further silence CHD's dissent against government policies and critique of Pharma, Facebook deactivated CHD's donate button and used deceptive technology (i.e. shadow banning) to minimize CHD's reach and visibility. In short, Facebook and the government colluded to silence CHD and its followers. Such tactics are fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment, which forbids Government from censoring private speech—particularly speech that criticizes Government policies or officials.
The court will decide whether Facebook's new Government-directed business model of false and misleading "warning labels," deceptive "fact-checks," and disabling a non-profit's donate button passes muster under the First and Fifth Amendments, the Lanham Act, and RICO. Those statutes protect CHD against online wire-fraud and false disparagement.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: "This is an important First Amendment case testing the boundaries of government authority to openly censor unwanted critiques of government policies and pharmaceutical and telecom products on privately owned internet platforms."
