On The Front Lines
Did Facebook Conspire With the Government to Censor Speech in Violation of the First Amendment? Case Could Redefine Social Media Censorship
Documents
Children’s Health Defense v. Meta
WASHINGTON, DC — The Rutherford Institute is calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to hold Facebook accountable for conspiring with the government to censor and suppress speech.
Weighing in before the U.S. Supreme Court with an amicus brief in Children’s Health Defense v. Meta, The Rutherford Institute argues that Meta Platforms should be held accountable as a government actor for violating the First Amendment by partnering with the government in order to restrict the Facebook posts, fundraising, and advertising of Children’s Health Defense (“CHD”). Although the Trump Administration has ordered federal officials to cease the government’s censorship efforts, The Rutherford Institute warned that political stances can change quickly and social media companies are likely to censor speech again at the government’s direction unless they are held accountable as government actors for violating the First Amendment rights of the people.
“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 has been an outspoken critic of the proliferation of childhood vaccines, seeking 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 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 was acting at the behest of the government to suppress “vaccine misinformation.” The Rutherford Institute also weighed in, arguing that because Meta was working with the government in order to advance the government’s agenda at the government’s direction, resulting in the censorship of speech disfavored by the government, Meta should be viewed as a government actor whose actions violated the First Amendment’s guarantee to freedom of speech. Although the lower courts dismissed CHD’s lawsuit, which is now on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, a dissent in the Ninth Circuit acknowledged that a “line has plainly been crossed” if “Meta and the Government worked cooperatively together to suppress the concededly truthful speech of Americans.”
Affiliate attorney Christopher F. Moriarty helped advance the arguments in the amicus brief.
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.
Case History
August 23, 2024 • Ninth Circuit Refuses to Hold Facebook Accountable for Working With the Government to Censor, Suppress Disfavored Ideas and Speech
