Meta's lawyers admitted in a new court filing that "fact-check" labels on the giant social media platform Facebook are based on opinion. The development comes after TV host John Stossel filed a lawsuit against Facebook and two of its fact-checking partners, Science Feedback and Climate Feedback, which he both accused of defaming him earlier this year.
According to The Epoch Times, Stossel had posted two video reports on Facebook. One video report talked about the forest fires that impacted California in 2020, which featured an interview with climate change expert Michael Shellenberger. In the video, Stossel claimed that climate change made things worse in California. Shellenberger, on the other hand, remarked that while climate change played a role, mismanaged forests were the main reason why there were massive fires that year.
Facebook issued a warning label on the video, telling users that it was "missing context" with a link to a page on Climate Feedback's website, which said "Claim - 'forest fires are caused by poor management. Not by climate change." The website also said, "Verdict: misleading."
The lawsuit argues, however, that the claim "forest fires are caused by poor management. Not by climate change" is "contained nowhere" in the video posted by Stossel. He then reached out to Climate Feedback, which did not respond. But two of the scientists listed as the organization's reviewers admitted to not reviewing the video.
Meanwhile, another of Stossel's videos was subjected to the same censorship, this time about "environmental alarmists." Stossel argued in a case that was filed in federal court in Claifornia that Facebook's fact-checking process is "nothing more than a pretext used by defendants to defame users with impunity, particularly when defendants disagree with the scientific opinions expressed in user content."
Meanwhile, Facebook's parent company, Meta responded in a filing late in November, in which their lawyers urged the court to dismiss the case, claiming that its fact-checkers are independent from Facebook and it is protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Meta's lawyers argued that Stossel failed to "plead facts establishing that Meta acted with actual malice-which, as a public figure, he must." They further said that Stossel's claims "focus on the fact-check articles written by Climate Feedback, not the labels affixed through the Facebook platform."
They wrote that the labels are "neither false nor defamatory; to the contrary, they constitute protected opinion."
The lawyers for Meta added that even if Stossel could attribute Climate Feedback's websites to Meta, "the challenged statements on those pages are likewise neither false nor defamatory. Any of these failures would doom Stossel's complaint, but the combination makes any amendment futile."
Last week, the case was reassigned to Obama nominee U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, who is set to hear oral arguments during a hearing on the motion to dismiss in March next year. Stossel is claiming at least $2 million worth of damages and wants the court to demand the removal of the content in question.
Meanwhile, statistician Bjorn Lomborg, who has also been censored by Facebook, told the Toronto Sun fact-checkers "have a mission outside just facts" and that they "also want you to not know stuff."
Bjorn remarked, "That's not fact check. That's simply saying, 'We don't want to hear this opinion in the public space.' Frankly, that's terrifying...[to] only have approved facts that fit the current narrative. That would be a terrible outcome."
