On Wednesday, August 17, without warning, Facebook de-platformed (unpublished) the Children’s Health Defense (CHD) account. Simultaneously, CHD’s Instagram account was deplatformed (suspended). Each of these platforms had hundreds of thousands of followers. CHD received the following notifications from both platforms:
Facebook and Instagram deplatforming dovetails with CHD’s ongoing censorship lawsuit. CHD filed the lawsuit against Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, in August 2020. Recently, in its Ninth Circuit Court appeal filed on July 29, CHD provided the court with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) produced documents the agency shared with Facebook. These documents, provided to Facebook on a regular basis, contained what the CDC considered misinformation. Titled “COVID Vaccine Misinformation: Hot Topics,” the documents asked tech giants to “be on the lookout” (BOLO) for various topics the CDC considers to be misinformation including: COVID-19 vaccine shedding, VAERS reports, spike protein data and more. The CHD case is currently pending in a Ninth Circuit decision.
Deplatforming by the tech giants came days after the CDC issued new guidance loosening COVID-19 policies — rules which CHD has criticized since the beginning of the pandemic. Within hours of the CHD deplatforming, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky shared her plans for overhauling how the agency works while admitting to a flawed response to COVID-19 and pandemic missteps.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said, “Facebook is acting here as a surrogate for the Federal government’s crusade to silence all criticism of draconian government policies. Our constitutional framers recognized this peril of government censorship. We don’t need the First Amendment to protect popular or government approved speech. They incorporated the First Amendment specifically to protect free expression of dissenting opinions. They understood that a government that can silence its critics has license for every atrocity.”
Roger Teich, CHD legal counsel for the Meta lawsuit, added, “Censorship is not only unconstitutional, it’s un-American.”
CHD’s lawsuit against Meta/Facebook aims to preserve First Amendment rights for all and the stakes are high. CHD believes social media platforms have ruthlessly censored, suppressed and distorted information. The litigation against Meta/Facebook to stop censorship is just one of CHD’s 50+ active lawsuits to defend freedom of speech, medical freedom, truth, bodily autonomy and children’s health.
