On Monday, conservative comedian and Blaze TV talk-show host Steven Crowder announced that he is suing tech giant Facebook. On his “Louder With Crowder” program, Crowder, along with his attorney, said he was bringing suit against the social-media platform over “unfair competition, fraud, false advertising and antitrust” violations.
The suit will be filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California where Facebook’s offices are located. Crowder is seeking injunctive relief — an end to Facebook’s unfair practices — and monetary damages in the seven-figure range. “We have already initiated and will be publicly announcing and making available for everyone a lawsuit that we are filing against Facebook, Inc. regarding unfair competition, fraud, false advertising and anti trust,” said Crowder’s lawyer Bill Richardson, on Monday’s show.
Crowder restated a lament that many have about the big tech sector — namely that they are allowed to run roughshod over people’s free speech because of government protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Users often have content removed or face suspensions or bans from companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, without any realistic opportunity for appeal.
“This is different from that,” Crowder said.
“The reason why it’s different is because we’re going after Facebook based on its own words and its own promises,” Richardson explained. “It’s a platform that was, ever since 2016 when the Gizmodo article came out and said, ‘Oh, we’re suppressing the feed, we’re taking certain views and we’re going to suppress them in the trending and news topics.”
Facebook claimed before Congress that they were no longer engaging in the type of shadow banning that was described. Crowder’s suit obviously disputes that claim.
Crowder’s livestream of the 2020 general election was taken off the platform by Facebook. Both Crowder and his attorney claim that Facebook took the stream off without any explanation. “They removed the biggest stream that has ever existed, from the biggest platform that’s ever existed, with no reason,” Crowder claimed.
According to Crowder’s website, the lawsuit is about basic fairness in the business place and the fact the Facebook is engaging in practices that are biased against conservatives in particular. “Our broader point is that we are pro-business but anti-fraud. Facebook lured consumers and creators to spend money and provide data and views under the promise of not engaging in political, racial or religious bias in enforcing their policies, but they have done so both expressly and secretively, and, hence, the suit,” the website declared.
The suit came one day prior to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s declaration that he wishes to “reduce the amount of politics on the platform.”
“We’re also considering steps that we can take to reduce the amount of political content in News Feed as well,” Zuckerberg said.
“One of the top pieces of feedback that we are hearing from our community right now is that people don’t want politics and fighting to take over their experience on our services,” said Zuckerberg, who also owns Instagram. “So, one theme for this year is that we’re going to continue to focus on helping millions of more people participate in healthy communities, and we’re going to focus even more on being a force for bringing people closer together.”
How convenient that after blatantly assisting their handpicked presidential candidate into office that they now want to get out of the dirty business of politics.
Crowder foreshadowed the coming suit on Twitter on January 31, writing, “I do not know what will happen February 2nd. But tomorrow, we will NOT self censor, we will NOT be bullied, silenced or intimidated. We will kneel for No one.”
According to Crowder’s website, he and his legal team are prepared for a long, protracted fight: “We’re prepared to take the lawsuit as far as we need to, including the United States Supreme Court,” according to Crowder’s website.
Candace Owens, another conservative commentator, is in the process of suing Facebook’s so-called independent “fact checkers,” which include USA Today and “Lead Stories” — a website that is funded in part by the Communist Party in China. In late November, Owens forced one of Facebook’s “fact checkers” Politifact, to issue a correction for a “fact checked” claim that her Blexit Foundation was engaged in criminal activity.
“It’s time to fact check the fact checkers,” Owens said. “I’m going to put these suckers through discovery and figure out what the relationship is that they have with Facebook.”
During the Trump administration, the GOP fumbled the ball (many think intentionally, to advance global governance) when it came to addressing Big Tech’s incestuous relationship with the Democrat Party and their unreasonable protections under Section 230. Going forward, the courts and lawsuits like these are the next battleground for free speech in the age of Biden.
