A class action affecting any person who “saw their messages censored by Facebook” during the COVID-19 pandemic has just been authorized by the Superior Court. The citizen behind the action, Christian Leray, alleges having been “censored and sanctioned” unreasonably by the web giant Meta.
Mr. Leray is one of three administrators of the Réinfo Québec group, a division of an originally French collective, which describes itself as “a collective of caregivers, doctors and citizens united around an idea: the need for ‘a fair and proportionate health policy in Quebec and elsewhere in the world.’
The group, which has more than 30,000 members according to Court documents, held a press conference in 2021 as well as in 2022 to denounce the management of the health crisis, in addition to organizing various demonstrations against health measures , including compulsory vaccination in the workplace.
In the process, a report from Decryptors of Radio-Canada had raised that beyond the position of the collective, which aims to be non-partisan, its members relayed false information about the pandemic.
On the collective’s website, we still find references to articles questioning the effectiveness of vaccines or even face coverings as a protective measure against the spread.
This case is reminiscent of that of Éloïse Boies, a YouTuber who filed a class action against Google in early 2024, alleging that she had been censored for her comments on the pandemic.
Multiple occurrences
Essentially, Christian Leray claims “to have been both censored and sanctioned by Facebook because of his activities in the Réinfo Québec group, but also in his personal account, on several occasions”.
It all started in the fall of 2021, when Facebook first deleted “an article from the journal Cellular & Molecular Immunologya scientific journal belonging to Nature Research, which essentially concludes that the effectiveness of vaccines is reduced with the appearance of new variants,” we read in the document filed at the Montreal courthouse.
The Réinfo Québec Facebook group was then suspended for 24 hours, before being reinstated after a challenge from its administrators. Shortly after, Facebook “deleted an article from the magazine Traffic, a scientific journal with content dedicated to cardiovascular health, which concludes that messenger RNA vaccines against COVID-19 increase the risk of heart problems. A new ban on publishing for 24 hours occurs.
Then, in January 2022, a message from the collective announcing the holding of the “freedom convoy” in Ottawa was also deleted. Texts on deaths and hospitalizations linked to vaccination, as well as on the vaccination of children being “not desirable”, were removed by the social network in the months that followed.
Facebook thus carries out “content control, even censorship, on its platform, by deleting postings, by restricting the accessibility of certain messages, by sanctioning their authors, by classifying messages in a particular way, […] by sending or adding warnings,” says Mr. Leray.
Meta, for its part, replies that it is its policy “prohibiting disinformation that could cause physical harm or relaying false information on COVID-19 or even simply because this information was at odds with its community standards.
“Isolated voices”
In his decision, in which he ultimately authorized the collective action to take place, Judge Lukasz Granosik stated in particular that “the question of the veracity of the message has no impact on freedom of expression in the present context”.
“It is correct, moreover and as [monsieur] Leray argues that phenomena or facts that everyone considered true turned out to be false throughout history, and that conversely, isolated and ostracized voices ended with the passage of time and advances. of science by being right, but it is more the very existence of the message and the possibility of displaying it or becoming aware of it which concerns freedom of expression and not the content of the latter”, explains the magistrate .
While Meta’s approach “may be well founded and she may not incur any liability”, the fact remains that “the question arises and it is clear that the plaintiff has a simple possibility of success” with this action collective, adds Judge Granosik.
The class action seeks $2,000 in damages for each member of the group who saw content related to COVID-19 being censored on the social network, in addition to $1,000 in damages for each person who was deprived of “viewing content censored.”