Appeals court finds RFK Jr's case against Meta is full of worms.
Court To RFK Jr.: Fact-Checking Doesn’t Violate 1st Amendment Nor Does Section 230 Make Meta A State Actor
From the that's-not-how-any-of-this-works dept.
https://abovethelaw.com/2024/08/cou...nor-does-section-230-make-meta-a-state-actor/
You may recall that RFK Jr.’s nonsense-peddling anti-vax organization “Children’s Health Defense” (CHD) sued Meta back in 2020 for the apparent crime of fact-checking and limiting the reach of the anti-vax nonsense it posted. Three years ago, the case was tossed out of court (easily) with the court pointing out that Meta is (*gasp*) a private entity that has the right to do all of this under its own free speech rights. The court needed to explain that the First Amendment applies to the government, and Meta is not the government.
Yes, Meta looked to the CDC for guidance on vaccine info, but that did not turn it into a state actor. It was a pretty clear and easy ruling smacking down CHD (represented, in part, by disgraced Yale law professor Jed Rubenfeld). So, of course RFK Jr. and CHD appealed.
Last week, the Ninth Circuit smacked them down again. And we learn that it’s going to go… very… slowly… to hopefully help RFK Jr. and Rubenfeld understand these things this time:
To begin by stating the obvious, Meta, the owner of Facebook, is a private corporation, not a government agency.
Yes, the majority opinion admits that there are some rare cases where private corporations can be turned into state actors, but this ain’t one of them.
CHD’s state-action theory fails at this threshold step. We begin our analysis by identifying the “specific conduct of which the plaintiff complains.” Wright, 48 F.4th at 1122 (quoting American Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S. 40, 51 (1999)). CHD challenges Meta’s “policy of censoring” posts conveying what it describes as “accurate information . . . challenging current government orthodoxy on . . . vaccine safety and efficacy.” But “the source of the alleged . . . harm,” Ohno, 723 F.3d at 994, is Meta’s own “policy of censoring,” not any provision of federal law. The closest CHD comes to alleging a federal “rule of conduct” is the CDC’s identification of “vaccine misinformation” and “vaccine hesitancy” as top priorities in 2019. But as we explain in more detail below, those statements fall far short of suggesting any actionable federal “rule” that Meta was required to follow. And CHD does not allege that any specific actions Meta took on its platforms were traceable to those generalized federal concerns about vaccine misinformation.
(Much more at above url)
Court To RFK Jr.: Fact-Checking Doesn’t Violate 1st Amendment Nor Does Section 230 Make Meta A State Actor
From the that's-not-how-any-of-this-works dept.
https://abovethelaw.com/2024/08/cou...nor-does-section-230-make-meta-a-state-actor/
You may recall that RFK Jr.’s nonsense-peddling anti-vax organization “Children’s Health Defense” (CHD) sued Meta back in 2020 for the apparent crime of fact-checking and limiting the reach of the anti-vax nonsense it posted. Three years ago, the case was tossed out of court (easily) with the court pointing out that Meta is (*gasp*) a private entity that has the right to do all of this under its own free speech rights. The court needed to explain that the First Amendment applies to the government, and Meta is not the government.
Yes, Meta looked to the CDC for guidance on vaccine info, but that did not turn it into a state actor. It was a pretty clear and easy ruling smacking down CHD (represented, in part, by disgraced Yale law professor Jed Rubenfeld). So, of course RFK Jr. and CHD appealed.
Last week, the Ninth Circuit smacked them down again. And we learn that it’s going to go… very… slowly… to hopefully help RFK Jr. and Rubenfeld understand these things this time:
To begin by stating the obvious, Meta, the owner of Facebook, is a private corporation, not a government agency.
Yes, the majority opinion admits that there are some rare cases where private corporations can be turned into state actors, but this ain’t one of them.
CHD’s state-action theory fails at this threshold step. We begin our analysis by identifying the “specific conduct of which the plaintiff complains.” Wright, 48 F.4th at 1122 (quoting American Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S. 40, 51 (1999)). CHD challenges Meta’s “policy of censoring” posts conveying what it describes as “accurate information . . . challenging current government orthodoxy on . . . vaccine safety and efficacy.” But “the source of the alleged . . . harm,” Ohno, 723 F.3d at 994, is Meta’s own “policy of censoring,” not any provision of federal law. The closest CHD comes to alleging a federal “rule of conduct” is the CDC’s identification of “vaccine misinformation” and “vaccine hesitancy” as top priorities in 2019. But as we explain in more detail below, those statements fall far short of suggesting any actionable federal “rule” that Meta was required to follow. And CHD does not allege that any specific actions Meta took on its platforms were traceable to those generalized federal concerns about vaccine misinformation.
(Much more at above url)
