Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Candace Owens’s Appeal Against Facebook Fact-Checkers

Candace Owens, American conservative commentator and political activist, in Washington on June 25, 2019. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

The Supreme Court turned down an appeal by conservative commentator Candace Owens over Facebook’s so-called fact checks that described her posts about COVID-19 as “false” and a “hoax.”

The court provided no reasons for its Oct. 3 decision denying the petition in Owens v. Lead Stories LLC (court file 21-1474). Gannett Satellite Information Network, which does business as USA Today, was also a respondent in the case. Facebook, owned by Meta Platforms, wasn’t a party in the case.

The Supreme Court of Delaware ruled against Owens in February after a state judge dismissed her lawsuit in July 2021.

Superior Court Judge Craig Karsnitz, an appointee of Democrat Gov. John Carney, wrote in a 55-page ruling that he discovered no facts in Owens’s complaint that supported her claim that the media outlets that published articles on several of her social media posts defamed her, as The Epoch Times reported.

Owens, an author who is former communications director for Turning Point USA, now hosts a talk show promoted by The Daily Wire and is credited with helping to found the Blexit movement, which encourages black Americans to embrace conservatism and self-reliance and to leave the Democratic Party.

Her company generates content used on social media, primarily on Facebook.

Lead Stories, a fact-checking organization, and USA Today are her business competitors. But they have an unfair advantage because they can remove a competitor from the marketplace, she argued in her petition filed with the Supreme Court on May 20.

As part of their fact-checking activities, Lead Stories and USA Today “can direct Facebook to obscure, ‘de-monetize,’ or cancel entirely the pages of their competitors.”

Their contracts with Facebook oblige the social media platform to remove or obscure posts they deem factually inaccurate and “to super-impose over the posts prominent links that redirect visitors to the web sites” of Lead Stories or USA Today.

The respondents even have the power to “direct Facebook to suspend competing accounts or cancel them altogether.”

“These contractual arrangements remove the Respondents from the protected sphere of political commentary and makes them into highly empowered business competitors. Their political commentary is protected; their acts of competitive predation are not,” the petition continued.

Starting in March 2020, Owens wrote Facebook posts addressing how governmental authorities counted deaths from COVID-19. Citing medical authorities and peer-reviewed publications, Owens argued that the government was overestimating COVID-19 deaths.

But instead of criticism, her posts drew suppression when Lead Stories and USA Today published fact checks on Owens’s claims knowing doing so would limit the reach of her posts. Lead Stories imposed a “Hoax Alert” on her posts and both organizations labeled them “false.”

This led to the termination of Owens’s advertising contract with Facebook and hurt her income, the petition states.

Alan Duke, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Lead Stories, was pleased the Supreme Court refused the case.

“Disinformation during a global pandemic can be deadly. Lead Stories stands by our fact-checking work, believing that we helped save lives by helping social media users sort the factual from the false about COVID-19.

“This lawsuit did not deter us from that mission. We were confident that we had the facts and law on our side, and the relevant courts agreed,” Duke told The Epoch Times by email.

Lead Stories received an award from the Society of Professional Journalists in 2020 for COVID-19 fact-checking, he added.

The Epoch Times also reached out to Owens’s attorney, Todd McMurtry of Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, but he declined to comment.

Zachary Stieber contributed to this article.