Biden Dictatorship: US Justice Hunts Facebook Accounts and Groups on Covid Vaccines Misinformation
Original headline:
Meta Ordered to Identify Users Who Violated Facebook’s ‘COVID Misinformation’ Policy
by Michael Nevradakis – originally published on The Defender – official news website of Children’s Health Defense association
All links to previous Gospa News investigations have been added aftermath for the ties with the topics highlighted
Facebook’s parent company, Meta, must identify all groups, pages and individual accounts that posted COVID-19 vaccine content that violated Facebook’s COVID-19 misinformation policy, the Superior Court of the District of Columbia ruled last week.
The Sept. 14 ruling upheld a Washington, D.C., government subpoena, originally served to Meta in June 2021 by D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine. The subpoena was intended “to determine whether the company has kept its word about reducing vaccine misinformation on its platform.”
According to Politico, the subpoena also called on Facebook “to provide records identifying all groups, pages and accounts that have violated its policies against COVID-19 misinformation and documents detailing how many resources the tech giant has devoted to the cause.”
As noted in the D.C. appeals court decision in Meta Platforms Inc. v. District of Columbia, the subpoena is part of an investigation into “potential violations of the Consumer Protection Procedures Act [CPPA].”
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The court found that “Meta has misrepresented to the District’s consumers the degree to which it polices misinformation posted to its platform about the COVID-19 vaccine.”
Meta argued the subpoena violated its First Amendment rights by “prob[ing] and penaliz[ing]” its ability to perform editorial control over content posted on its platforms, while also violating its users’ First Amendment rights on the basis that it would dissuade them from participating in future discussions on controversial topics.
Meta also argued it was protected by the Stored Communications Act (SCA). According to Reclaim The Net, the SCA provides “Fourth Amendment-like privacy protections by statute to communications held by third party service providers.”
The D.C. appeals court ruling by trial Judge Anthony C. Epstein rejected these arguments, however, Bloomberg Law reported. It characterized the D.C. attorney general’s request as “reasonably relevant” and “narrowly tailored to the government’s asserted interest.”
According to the ruling, Meta did not demonstrate that the subpoena will chill the constitutional rights of the company or its users — because “the users who made these posts have already openly associated themselves with their espoused views by publicly posting them to Facebook.”
The subpoena “does not require Meta to ‘unmask’ any anonymous Users,” the court said.
Greg Glaser, a California-based attorney with expertise on privacy issues, said the case is an example of Big Pharma’s influence on politics. Glaser told The Defender:
“When you read between the lines of this case, what’s really happening is pharma-sponsored politics. An overzealous, vaccine-mandating, hard-left government entity in the District of Columbia is attempting to misuse local consumer protection laws to obtain the ‘identities’ of Meta users who criticized vaccines on a platform known for censorship.”
According to Glaser, “The SCA is a federal law that recognizes the obvious fact that Americans routinely share their private information with companies online and expect that information will remain private,” Glaser said.
“This lawsuit will decide whether that is still true, or whether and how Meta reveals your identity to the government in this dragnet lawsuit. The government has of course promised it will keep users’ private information confidential (meaning limited to the review of the case lawyers and the court),” he added.
‘It’s a shakedown’
According to Reclaim the Net, “Millions of users, many of whom made truthful statements that challenged the government’s COVID narrative, are likely to be swept up in this government data grab due to the scope of Facebook’s ‘COVID-19 misinformation’ rules and the number of users that were impacted by them.”
“It’s a shakedown, and because it’s happening in Washington D.C., the government is predictably getting its way while ignoring the privacy rights of Americans,” Glaser said.
Politico reported in July 2021 that, as part of the subpoena, Racine called on Facebook to release the results of an internal study it conducted earlier that year examining “vaccine hesitancy” among its users. The study was publicly revealed by The Washington Post in March 2021.
In February 2021, Facebook — then not yet known as Meta — announced it would take tougher action against “misinformation” related to COVID-19, including vaccines.
According to Axios, the subpoena also asked Meta for “Documents identifying Facebook groups, pages and accounts that have violated the company’s COVID-19 misinformation policy related to vaccines,” and “The total volume of content that has been removed or demoted by Facebook for violating the vaccine misinformation policy.”
A request for “Details on the resources Facebook is devoting to combatting vaccine misinformation, including identifying the volume of content awaiting,” was also included in the subpoena.
“Facebook has said it’s taking action to address the proliferation of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on its site,” Abbie McDonough, director of communications for Racine, told Politico in July 2021. “But then when pressed to show its work, Facebook refused.”
“AG Racine’s investigation aims to make sure Facebook is truly taking all steps possible to minimize vaccine misinformation on its site and support public health,” she added.
In response, Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement quoted by Politico in July 2021 that the platform had “removed more than 18 million pieces of content on Facebook and Instagram that violate our COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation policies and labeled more than 167 million pieces of COVID-19 content rated false by our network of fact checking partners.”
In November 2021, following Meta’s refusal to comply with the subpoena, the D.C. Office of the Attorney General petitioned the D.C. Superior Court to enforce the subpoena. The petition was granted in March 2022, finding that “this request for public posts is a reasonable and lawful exercise of the District’s subpoena power” consistent with the SCA and the First Amendment.
“First, the District has a compelling interest in investigating a company has made false and misleading statements that violate the CPPA. Consumers and other members of the public have a strong interest in complete and accurate information about Meta’s efforts to limit vaccine misinformation,” the Superior Court ruled at the time.
Oral arguments in Meta’s appeal were heard on Jan. 31, resulting in the Sept. 14 D.C. appeals court ruling.
According to Reclaim the Net, “Facebook’s COVID-19 misinformation rules prohibited many truthful statements during the pandemic. For example, at one point claiming that “vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease they are meant to protect against” was banned — an assertion that health officials have now reluctantly admitted is true.”
A tranche of documents released earlier this month as part of the “Facebook Files” revealed that the platform caved to pressure from the Biden administration to censor the accounts of individuals included in the so-called “Disinformation Dozen,” a list of people who contradicted the government’s COVID-19 narrative and vaccine-related policies.
Included among the “Disinformation Dozen” is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., chairman on leave from Children’s Health Defense (CHD). CHD sued Facebook in August 2020 and filed an amended complaint in December 2020. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed the case in June 2021.
CHD later appealed, and oral arguments were heard in May 2022. A ruling is pending.
by Michael Nevradakis – originally published on The Defender – official news website of Children’s Health Defense association
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”
All links to previous Gospa News investigations have been added aftermath for the ties with the topics highlighted
WHOLE ARTICLE CONTINUES ON THE DEFENDER WITH OTHER ISSUES
- Distinction between public and non-public communications
- Did Meta try hard enough?
- Privacy of social media users in jeopardy?
MAIN SOURCES
GOSPA NEWS – WUHAN-GATES INVESTIGATIONS
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