U.S. Governor Mike Huckabee takes questions from the media, prior to laying a brick at a new housing complex in the West Bank settlement of Efrat, Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2018. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
A federal judge in Delaware on Monday tossed a lawsuit filed by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee against social media giant Meta claiming that the platform unfairly profited from false advertisements for CBD products.
Huckabee, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be U.S. ambassador to Israel, sued Meta in July over a series of ads for CBD gummies. CBD gummies are edible candies that contain cannabidiol, or CBD — one of the main active ingredients in marijuana. CBD alone does not produce a high.
Huckabee, a Republican, said in his complaint that he “is a nationally recognized politician and political commentator who has spent years cultivating his credibility and image,” and that a number of ads ran on Facebook and Instagram that falsely claimed he was suffering from health problems and had found “a greater purpose” in using and endorsing CBD gummies to replace opioids and painkillers.
One such ad, which was included in Huckabee’s filing, can be seen below.
Image via court filing.
Huckabee said he “talked to numerous fans who, unfortunately, believed these advertisements were true and purchased the CBD products,” because of the use of his name and likeness.
Meta, in turn, argued that it was immune from liability under Section 230 of the Federal Communication Decency Act. Section 230 shields platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube from liability stemming from user-created (or third-party) content that violates the law. Trump was vocal about his distaste for Section 230 throughout his presidency, and lobbied Congress to repeal the statute, claiming that such action was the remedy for discrimination against conservative viewpoints.
U.S. District Judge Gregory Williams, a Joe Biden appointee, rejected Meta’s immunity claim on the grounds that Meta’s decisions on ad placement and algorithms constituted its own first-party speech. However, despite the fact that Section 230 did not render Meta immune, Williams ruled that Huckabee’s claims fail in their own right.
Specifically, the judge said that Huckabee failed to plead facts that show Meta knew the ads were fake. Even at the pleading phase, Williams found Huckabee’s allegations lacking.
In his 15-page ruling, Williams quoted from Huckabee’s complaint:
Meta sells advertisements, Meta uses its algorithm to popularize those advertisements, Plaintiff is a nationally recognized celebrity, Meta hosted a fake “FoxNews.com” link, Meta approved these scams, and Meta has been approving these scams for other celebrities since at least 2021.
Williams wrote that “none of these allegations allow the Court to draw the reasonable inference that Meta had the requisite scienter, ie. actual knowledge or awareness of facts or circumstances that could give rise to actual knowledge,” and slammed Huckabee’s argument as a “mere conclusory statement.”
Williams similarly rejected Huckabee’s invasion of privacy claims for unauthorized use of his name and likeness and false light. The judge ruled that Huckabee’s public denouncing of marijuana was not enough to create the reasonable inference that Meta “entertained serious doubts” about the ads. Likewise, Williams said there was not even an allegation that Meta was required to conduct due diligence on the truth of the ads — and even had there been such an allegation, it would have failed.
Law&Crime reached out to counsel for the parties for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.
You can read the full ruling here.
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