Judge tosses out lawsuit by Candace Owens over Facebook fact checks
DOVER, Del. — A Delaware judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by conservative political commentator Candace Owens against USA Today and another media organization over fact-checking coronavirus posts she made on Facebook.
The judge ruled earlier this week that Owens had failed to state an actionable claim against USA Today or Lead Stories LLC, a Colorado-based entity. Lead Stories, like USA Today, is paid by Facebook to publish fact-check articles examining whether certain posts contain false information, according to the court ruling. Dozens of outside organizations, including The Associated Press, participate in Facebook’s fact-checking program.
Lead Stories published an article in April 2020 fact-checking a Facebook post in which Owens claimed that the way U.S. government officials counted COVID-19 deaths overstated the scope and dangers of the pandemic. The Lead Stories article labeled Owens’ post with the terms “Hoax Alert” and “False” and prompted Facebook to place a false information warning label on Owens’ post.
Similarly, USA Today published a fact check later that month concluding that a post in which Owens questioned the relationship between the counting of COVID-19 deaths and flu deaths in early 2020 contained false information. Owens cited Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports and argued sarcastically in her post that the number of flu deaths had decreased drastically in early 2020.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/judge-tosses-out-lawsuit-by-candace-owens-over-facebook-fact-checks/ar-AAMseuI