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The Facebook Files
Confirmed

Court Rules Facebook Fact-Check Labels Are Protected Opinion

John Stossel sued Meta and Science Feedback for defamation over 'Missing Context' and 'Partly False' labels on two of his climate videos. A federal magistrate judge dismissed the case, ruling that the labels were subjective judgments protected as opinion, not provably false statements of fact.

Oct 11, 2022
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Whose side it served: Neither party

A libertarian journalist's climate videos were labeled; the ruling turned on defamation law, not party.

What the record shows

The labels were applied to a Stossel video on the 2020 California wildfires ('Missing Context') and another titled 'Are We Doomed?' ('Partly False'). On Oct. 11, 2022, U.S. Magistrate Judge Virginia K. DeMarchi of the Northern District of California wrote that Facebook's fact-checking 'reflects a subjective judgment about the accuracy and reliability of assertions.' The court granted the defendants' anti-SLAPP motions and dismissed the defamation claim with prejudice, denying leave to amend. Critics of fact-checking cited the ruling as a legal admission that the labels are opinions.

In their words

“reflects a subjective judgment about the accuracy and reliability of assertions”— Magistrate Judge Virginia K. DeMarchi, N.D. Cal. · source
The other side

The ruling applied ordinary defamation law, under which assessments of disputed claims are generally treated as opinion; it did not find the labels inaccurate. Fact-checkers say the opinion label reflects legal categories, not a lack of rigor.

Sources

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