He has everybody in his sights!
Tech Dirt reports
Another day, another truly silly lawsuit. The “Liberty Justice Center” and the Tyler & Bursch law firm — both of which seem to specialize in filing ridiculous lawsuits — have now filed a lawsuit on behalf of a disinformation-spewing anti-masker against Joe Biden, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Facebook, and Twitter… because Facebook and Twitter locked his account after he posted an image claiming (incorrectly) that “masking children is impractical and not backed by research or real world data.”
The image, which you can find in the lawsuit, but which I will not post here, posts some stuff that is true but uninteresting (such as the fact that sometimes people wear masks improperly) with stuff that is out of context and misleading (such as that studies don’t have conclusive answers yet about the effectiveness of masks for kids) to try to make a claim that masking kids is a bad idea. But, like so much misinformation, it’s telling a story by cherry-picking a few points out of context. Actual credible sources have broken down why these claims — repeated frequently by anti-maskers — are basically bullshit. Yes, there remain some unknown things and inconclusive science (though the blanks will be filled in soon). But the really “scary” stuff about harming development are mostly bogus. Of course, this is the way most misinformation works: take things out of context that you can point to as true, pool them together with a few other things, slip in a few exaggerations, and claim a big picture, the implications of which are ridiculous and not supported.
That’s what the graphic Justin Hart posted basically did. And, Facebook and Twitter both reasonably felt that it was spreading potentially dangerous misinformation about masks and children. So both services gave him a time-out. Facebook suspended him for three days for violating its community standards. Twitter locked his account for violating its rules.
Hart is suing Biden, Murthy and other government officials on the laughably bogus argument that the account suspensions were ordered by the US government. The argument is that because the White House did use its bully pulpit to get angry at Facebook for leaving up misinformation, that somehow makes the government responsible for the actions against Hart (even though those occurred before the White House statements). As we noted at the time, the White House’s statements were pretty stupid and short sighted. But they did not, in any way, amount to evidence that the White House and social media were colluding to censor people. Indeed, the whole point of the White House’s statements were that Facebook wasn’t taking down accounts.
The claims in the case are, as expected, silly. First you get a state action claim.
Facebook and Twitter engaged in state action when they removed posts like Hart’s at the request of Murthy and Biden based on the viewpoint of those posts.
Facebook and Twitter worked in concert and/or conspiracy with Murthy and Biden to deprive Hart of his First Amendment right to Free Speech.
Murthy and Biden affirmed, authorized, encouraged, and/or facilitated Facebook and Twitter’s unconstitutional conduct of censorship.
Except, that’s not what happened, at all. That’s not how state action doctrine works. This is just silly.
Then, there’s the claim that these companies violated Hart’s free speech rights under the California Constitution. And, because every stupid content moderation lawsuit has to cite Pruneyard, so does this one. As a reminder, Pruneyard is a case about a shopping mall being required to allow speakers on the property, but the ruling and subsequent rulings have narrowed it down to the very, very, very specific circumstances of the Pruneyard Shopping Mall and basically nowhere else.
In Pruneyard Shopping Center, the California Supreme Court recognized that the suburban shopping center—even ones that are privately owned—are an “essential and invaluable forum for exercising” speech rights. 592 P.2d 341, 347 (Cal. 1979). The court reasoned that shopping centers are where most people “spend the most significant amount of [their] time in suburban areas where [their] needs and wants are satisfied” because “shopping centers provide the location, goods, and services to satisfy [their] needs and wants.”
And then the case misleadingly cites the other favorite, Packingham, which is limited to how the government cannot pass a law blocking people from the entire internet and has no impact at all on whether or not an individual service can kick someone off for violating terms.
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