Hi Friend,
Today is a momentous day for Muslim Advocates. Our amazing legal team and our partners at Gupta Wessler PLLC just finished up the first court hearing for our lawsuit against Facebook. We hope this is a step towards real accountability for the company and I want to take this opportunity to bring you an inside look at our Legal Team’s work and explain why we believe what we’re doing is so important.
As a short reminder, we sued Facebook last year for violating the D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act when they falsely told Congress and the American people that they take down harmful, violent content that violates their rules when they learn about it. Over the years, we—and many others who have tried in vain to flag hateful content to Facebook—have found that their claim is simply not true. Facebook regularly fails to take down hateful content that violates its rules. Why? Probably because this content keeps people glued to their Facebook accounts and drives up engagement and profits. Also, investing in content moderation costs money, takes time, potentially limits Facebook’s growth and angers the people and politicians who are more likely to post this content.
Today in court, instead of responding to our demand that they follow their own rules, Facebook tried to have our lawsuit thrown out. How? They are arguing that they are immune from consumer protection laws! At today’s hearing, Facebook argued that their executives are legally allowed to deliberately lie to Congress and the public about the safety of their platform.
However, we also got our first chance in court to respond to this argument—an argument that is trying to keep a D.C. court from reviewing their practices with hateful speech content on their platform—and an argument antithetical to our democratic principles and standards of good corporate governance. What Facebook is claiming could have dangerous ramifications that reach far beyond our lawsuit so I want to share with you some insight into what Facebook is saying and how we are responding:
Facebook Claim #1: Because Facebook does not charge users money for its service, Facebook is exempt from D.C.’s consumer protection law.
Our Response: D.C.’s consumer protection law covers any sale, lease or transfer of a good or service, which includes Facebook transferring its services to its users. Additionally, Facebook actually does sell its services by requiring users to give up their data in order to use the platform. By falsely claiming the law doesn’t apply because Facebook technically doesn’t charge users money for its services, the company is effectively arguing that it and many of the largest tech giants with similar business models are exempt from D.C.’s consumer protection law and virtually all other consumer protection laws.
Facebook Claim #2: Facebook and its executives claim they have immunity under the law for their executives’ false statements.
Our Response: Facebook is hiding behind Section 230, a law that grants some immunities to websites that allow user comments. Section 230 shouldn’t bar claims like ours that challenge Facebook executives' real life statements about their business practices. If Facebook’s warped view of Section 230 is accepted in court, it would create a dangerous immunity for social media executives who make false statements about their businesses—exempting them from a century’s worth of laws designed to protect consumers and investors from deception.
Facebook Claim #3: Muslim Advocates’ lawsuit should be thrown out because it violates D.C.’s Anti-Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (Anti-SLAPP) Act.
Our Response: The Anti-SLAPP Act is a law intended to prevent lawsuits from silencing grassroots activism. The law is triggered solely by speech on “issues of public interest,” but it excludes “statements directed primarily toward protecting the speaker’s commercial interests.” Muslim Advocates’ lawsuit is about Facebook’s speech regarding its commercial interests. Further, the Anti-SLAPP Act includes an exemption that excludes commercial speech. It is outrageous that Facebook is trying to turn a law designed to protect the little guy into a shield for a corporate behemoth.
To make a long story short, Facebook is claiming that Muslim Advocates’ consumer protection lawsuit should be thrown out because they believe they are exempt from consumer protection laws AND because they believe the law allows their executives to make false statement to Congress and the American people. Clearly, Muslim Advocates’ lawsuit is not going to bankrupt or silence Facebook, nor are they above the law, and that’s what we argued today.
If their arguments are accepted by a judge, Facebook and other tech giants could gain a free pass to spread hate and lie about it, even to Congress. And, we would never get our day in court or our opportunity to force Facebook to explain why it’s not taking down hate speech.
Just as car companies can’t lie about the safety of the vehicles they sell, Facebook also shouldn’t be able to lie about the safety of its product. With your support, we are making that argument in court and working hard to finally hold one of the world’s richest and most powerful corporations accountable for its lies. We’re not there yet, and they’re making us leap a lot of hurdles, but we hope to get there someday.
This is a daunting task and we’re just getting started but, with your solidarity, my inspiring colleagues at Muslim Advocates are ready and able to take on this fight.
We will continue to be in touch as more developments happen. But for now, I want to thank you for traveling with us on this important journey towards accountability.
In solidarity,
Naomi Tsu,
Interim Legal Director
Muslim Advocates
Donate to Muslim Advocates [[link removed]][link removed] [[link removed]] [link removed] [[link removed]] [link removed] [[link removed]]
P.O. Box 34440
Washington, DC 20043 United States
If you believe you received this message in error or wish to no longer receive email from us, please unsubscribe: [link removed] .
