Less than 24 hours after Children’s Health Defense (CHD) petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its censorship case against Meta, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the company ended its third-party “fact-checking” program, timing CHD suggests is not coincidental.
“It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression on Facebook and Instagram,” Zuckerberg told viewers in a press release video.
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.
CHD CEO Mary Holland told The Defender, the CHD's publication on Substack, “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, “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 Meta and Zuckerberg, alleges that government actors partnered with Facebook to censor plaintiffs’ 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 January 6, writing, “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 petition also said, “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.”
Poynter, an organization with a 50-year history and by numerous foundations, is shut out under Facebook's new policy. A January 7, 2025 opinion piece penned by Alex Mahadevan and published by Poynter says replacement of the "tried-and-tested fact-checking" by Poynter and others is a "scary prospect" that is "doomed to fail."
Zuckerberg's comments suggested Meta platforms will emulate the community notes system used on X. Mahadevan says his three years of observation point to the system's failures. He said the algorithm used to pick the community fact checks that appear on posts require agreement from a range of perspectives, which almost never happens in a "hyperpolarized world."
Mahadevan insists that proposed and public community notes contain misinformation themselves. He also says crowdsourced fact checks are too experimental to be trusted.
"Despite my criticism, I remain a big believer in crowdsourced fact-checking — but as one spoke in a real trust and safety program, which was how it was originally envisioned at Twitter," Mahadevan writes.
"If Meta is truly following X’s example, it will greatly exacerbate the misinformation problem on Facebook and Instagram. Take one look at your X feed today. Is it more factual than it was three years ago?"
