The lawsuit maintains that Meta censored speech supporting the Presidential candidate, including the recent documentary ‘Who Is Bobby Kennedy?’
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and the super PAC backing him have filed a lawsuit against Meta Platforms, Inc., for election interference after it allegedly shadow banned the documentary “Who is Bobby Kennedy?” on Facebook and Instagram.
American Values 2024 (AV24) announced in a May 13 press release that they have filed the lawsuit in a California district court for violating the First Amendment and “the American people’s fundamental right to a presidential election decided by voters, not by trillion-dollar corporations.”
The complaint alleges that Meta “brazenly” censored speech supportive of Mr. Kennedy, then lied about its actions.
According to the complaint, Meta “sent users messages threatening to suspend their accounts or otherwise punish them if they sought to watch, share or even post a link to the film. And they made good on these threats, disabling and suspending users who did so.”
In addition, the complaint says that Meta stated that the film contained improper sexual or violent content.
When users attempted to comment, those comments were removed, the complaint alleges.
“Under the Support and Advocacy Clause of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, private companies and their officers and employees cannot in concert seek to prevent by force, threat or intimidation any citizen from engaging lawful speech supporting or advocating the election of a presidential candidate,” the complaint says.
After AV24 released the documentary, it began trending on X. However, Facebook and Instagram—both Meta-owned—allegedly suppressed “the organic reach of content they don’t want to spread,” the PAC said in a May 6 press release.
The film was also labeled with a COVID-19 vaccine disclaimer that referred users to other sources such as the Center for Disease Control’s website, the complaint said.
In response to The Epoch Times’ request for comment on the allegation last week, a spokesperson for Meta stated, “The link was mistakenly blocked and was quickly restored once the issue was discovered.”
In response to a request for an updated comment on the allegation of election interference in the lawsuit, a Meta spokesperson repeated the above statement.
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