Quebec judge approves authorization for class action lawsuit against Facebook over COVID-19 related censorship on its platform

This marks the second COVID-19 censorship class action lawsuit in Quebec that has been authorized to move forward against a social media company.

Yesterday, The Canadian Independent reported on a similar class action lawsuit that was just authorized against YouTube, which involved a Quebec YouTuber, Éloïse Boies, who runs the channel 'Élo Wants to Know.'

That class action lawsuit alleges that YouTube has been censoring COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccine content it disagrees with, citing it as medical misinformation. You can read more about that story below.

This class action lawsuit against Facebook, which is owned by Meta Platforms Inc, is similar in nature to the YouTube class action lawsuit. Both are being represented by the same lawyer, William Desrochers, and both judgments have been handed down by the same Quebec Superior Court judge, Lukasz Granosik.

In the case of this class action lawsuit against Facebook, the lead plaintiff, Christian Leray, alleges that Facebook has censored and placed labels on his private account and a Facebook group he is an administrator of called Réinfo Québec.

Leray alleges several scenarios in his class action lawsuit that Facebook censored and sanctioned him for the content he posted to the Facebook group and his personal account, and they are as follows:

In the fall 2021, Facebook removes an article from the journal Cellular & Molecular Immunology, a scientific journal owned by Nature Research, which essentially concludes that the effectiveness of vaccines is diminished with the appearance of new variants and suspends the group Facebook Réinfo Québec for 24 hours due to this publication. After a challenge by the applicant, the publication and the Réinfo Québec group are reinstated.

In the fall of 2021, Facebook deleted an article from the journal Circulation, a scientific journal with content dedicated to cardiovascular health, which concluded that messenger RNA vaccines against Covid-19 increase the risk of heart problems and prohibited requester to post on the platform for 24 hours.

On January 26, 2022, Facebook deleted a message from the applicant announcing the “Freedom Convoy” in Ottawa.

On February 18, 2022, Facebook deletes an article by the requester, prepared from official data from Quebec health authorities, which concludes that 81% of Covid-19 deaths were in fact vaccinated people, while they represented 82.7 % of the population and that 35% of people who died from Covid-19 had received their 3rd dose and prohibited the applicant from publishing on the platform for two days.

On May 17, 2022, Facebook deletes an article by the requester, prepared from tables from Quebec health authorities, which concludes that 70% of new hospitalizations for Covid-19 are people triple vaccinated, while they only represent 50% of the population and prohibits the applicant from posting on the platform for three days.

On August 9, 2022, Facebook deletes a video of Dr. Robert Béliveau, a retired doctor, who concludes that vaccinating children against Covid-19 is not desirable, given the unfavorable risk-benefit ratio and suspends the account of the applicant for one month.

The plaintiff alleges that “Facebook carries out content control, even censorship, on its platform, by deleting postings, restricting the accessibility of certain messages, sanctioning their authors, classifying messages in a particular way or by sending or adding warnings,” and that Facebook defends itself in doing so by claiming it is a violation of its “disinformation policy.”

Leray argues that Facebook's policy is a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and says, “the control of content carried out by the defendant during the Covid-19 pandemic constitutes an unlawful and intentional attack on the freedom of expression of the members of the group, thus contravening the Charter of rights and freedoms of the person.”

Facebook argues that “it has committed no violation of the Charter, because it has no obligation to provide a platform of expression for any speech, that moreover its platform is private and that it can therefore dispose as it wishes or according to its own rules and, finally, that the applicant can otherwise exercise his freedom of expression, which means that there would be no real infringement of the freedom claimed.”

Judge Granosik says in his judgment that if Facebook “controls the content that appears on its platform, it cannot immediately deny any responsibility. If it carries out censorship, prevents certain people from posting certain information, sanctions them by restricting their access to their account and thus hinders the free circulation of ideas, it exposes itself to having to defend its ways of doing things.”

Judge Granosik's judgment orders Facebook to "pay the plaintiff and each member of the group who published content on Facebook related to the COVID-19 pandemic and was censored, the sum of $1,000 as compensatory damages, and $1,000 in punitive damages with interest at the legal rate, along with additional compensation provided for by law since the filing of the request for authorization to take collective action."

The judgment further orders that Facebook must "cease any form of censorship or classification of publications having the effect of preventing Facebook users from spreading and receiving messages or information contradicting those of health authorities, governments, and the World Health Organization or any other similar body.”

Regarding viewers who were deprived of viewing content that was censored on Facebook and who had an active Facebook account, Judge Granosik chose not to rule on an amount for compensatory and punitive damages at this time. Instead, he deferred this decision to be addressed collectively at a subsequent hearing.