Latest news with #TrustedNewsInitiative
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Department of Justice Just Sided with RFK Jr. Group's Claim That News Orgs Can't Boycott Misinformation
The Children's Health Defense (CHD), a nonprofit founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to end "childhood health epidemics by eliminating toxic exposure," submitted an antitrust complaint against The Washington Post, the BBC, the Associated Press, and Reuters in January 2023. On Friday, the Justice Department published a statement of interest in favor of the CHD, which implores the federal court hearing the case to recognize that harm to viewpoint competition is grounds for antitrust prosecution. In the case, Children's Health Defense v. Washington Post, the CHD alleges that the defendants violated federal antitrust law through their establishment of the Trusted News Initiative (TNI) shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic. The complaint claims that the TNI formed a "group boycott" to exclude publishers of "misinformation" partially or entirely from popular internet platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. The complaint cites a March 2022 statement by Jamie Angus, senior news controller at BBC, who said "the real rivalry now is…between all trusted news providers and a tidal wave of unchecked [reporting] that's being piped out mainly through digital platforms," as evidence of "the economic self-interest behind the TNI's group boycott [and] the anti-competitive purpose and effect of that boycott." CHD misconstrues the meaning of Angus' words in an attempt to persuade the court that the TNI is a "horizontal agreement among competitor firms to cut off from the market upstart rivals threatening their business model." CHD alleges that TNI's restrictions are unreasonable not only because they "collusively reduce output" and "lower product quality"—conventional indicators of illegal collusive behavior—but because "they suppress competition in the marketplace of ideas." Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division is running with CHD's argument. Slater said that the "Antitrust Division will always defend the principle that the antitrust laws protect free markets, including the marketplace of ideas," in a press release. In the department's statement of interest, Slater references the majority opinion from U.S. v. Associated Press (1945) to argue that "right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues, than through any kind of authoritative selection." Joseph Conligio, director of antitrust and innovation policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, agrees with Slater that "collusive viewpoint restrictions can be antitrust violations." However, he emphasizes that, "if the platforms allegedly taking down content are not defendants and don't have vertical agreements with…TNI to do so, it's hard to see how the latter could be illegal." (CHD alleges that censorship "by Facebook, Google and Twitter, [caused] damages to date of over $1,000,000," but does not name these platforms as defendants in its suit.) Slater's statement was submitted amid ongoing litigation between Media Matters and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the other federal antitrust enforcement agency. The FTC opened an investigation into Media Matters in May for facilitating an alleged advertising boycott against the social media platform X. Advertising holding companies Omnicom Group and Interpublic Group of Companies agreed not to enter into "any agreement or practice that would steer advertising dollars away from publishers based on their political or ideological viewpoints" as a condition of their merger settlement with the FTC in June. Media Matters has challenged the FTC's probe into its operations on First Amendment grounds. The Constitution respects Americans', including publishers', freedom of speech even when they're abusing that freedom. The Washington Post is entitled to persuade platforms to deplatform content that it considers to be factually incorrect, misleading, or for no reason at all. While the plaintiffs may have been wrong to suppress unpopular opinions, they still retain their First Amendment shield against antitrust prosecution. The post The Department of Justice Just Sided with RFK Jr. Group's Claim That News Orgs Can't Boycott Misinformation appeared first on
The Verge
11-07-2025
- Health
- The Verge
DOJ paves the way for a legal war on fact-checking
Newspapers and social media platforms that agree to deprioritize misinformation could be violating US antitrust law if they exclude rivals or lead to anticompetitive effects, the Justice Department says in a new legal filing. President Donald Trump's DOJ Antitrust Division filed a statement of interest Friday in an existing lawsuit, Children's Health Defense et al. v. Washington Post et al., to weigh in with its interpretation of how antitrust law can apply to what it describes as 'viewpoint competition.' The government doesn't take a stance on the merits of the facts in this particular case, but says it's important for the court to recognize that the 'the Sherman Act protects all forms of competition, including competition in information quality.' Children's Health Defense is an anti-vaccine advocacy firm founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now Secretary of Health and Human Services. CHD filed suit in 2023 against The Washington Post, British Broadcast Corporation (BBC), Associated Press (AP), and Reuters. The issue was a collaboration between news outlets and tech platforms called the Trusted News Initiative (TNI), which works to flag 'high risk disinformation' and share best practices about how to address it. CHD and several online publishers allege they 'lost millions of dollars in revenue' by being demonetized, downranked, or otherwise restricted on 'platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.' While web platforms have a First Amendment right to not publish speech they wish to avoid, CHD claims the TNI amounts to a coordinated effort to violate antitrust laws in 'the US online market for COVID news and the U.S. online market for political news' by disadvantaging the organization and its co-plaintiffs. The antitrust lawsuit is filed solely against the initiative's news publishers, which CHD complains flagged covid-related posts (including widely discounted claims that ivermectin is an effective covid treatment and that covid vaccines are 'toxic or harmful'), as well as posts about the Hunter Biden laptop story, as misinformation and caused platforms to moderate them. The publishers named in the lawsuit argue they've been 'wrongly targeted' for decisions actually made by tech platforms, and that its accusation of 'suppressing competition in the marketplace of ideas' falls 'outside of the purview of antitrust laws.' 'Exempting viewpoint collusion' from antitrust law 'would free major news organizations and dominant digital platforms to block competitive threats' The DOJ's interest in the case suggests it believes courts should be open to concluding otherwise. It argues that 'exempting viewpoint collusion' from antitrust law 'would free major news organizations and dominant digital platforms to block competitive threats that offer alternative, competing viewpoints,' thus reducing 'the quality of news and of competition in online news markets.' The assertion draws on a populist, bipartisan antitrust movement that's gained steam in recent years, arguing that the conventional, price-focused standard of harmful monopolies is too limited, and that courts should take measures like a service's quality into account as well. But it also amounts to asking courts to wade into constitutionally protected editorial decisions by the press and online platforms. It does so as part of a larger Trump administration war on fact-checking, which has drawn the ire of figures like FCC chair Brendan Carr, who helped pressure Meta into ending its fact-checking program when Trump took office. The government acknowledges that some 'cooperative standard-setting by trade associations have been found lawful', but it says that shouldn't apply if 'they involve efforts by some competitors to exclude rivals from the process.' That means, according to the government, that TNI participants should be scrutinized even if they worked together only to define standards for identifying misinformation and flagging misinformation to each other. 'This Antitrust Division will always defend the principle that the antitrust laws protect free markets, including the marketplace of ideas,' DOJ antitrust chief Abigail Slater said in a statement.
Gizmodo
11-07-2025
- Health
- Gizmodo
DOJ Supports RFK Jr.'s Anti-Vax Group in Lawsuit Against News Outlets
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in federal court on Friday that supports Children's Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., according to a press release. Children's Health Defense is suing a group of news outlets for not publishing ridiculous conspiracy theories about covid-19 during the pandemic, alleging they colluded with tech companies to suppress the speech of anti-vax activists. DOJ filed the statement of interest in United States District Court for the case Children's Health Defense et al. v. Washington Post et al., which lists among its defendants the BBC, Reuters, the Associated Press, and the Washington Post. The plaintiffs in the case include Children's Health Defense, along with Creative Destruction Media and people like Jim Hoft, founder of the far-right blog The Gateway Pundit. The lawsuit takes issue with an international group called Trusted News Initiative, started by news organizations in 2019 to combat misinformation and the quick spread of false claims on social media platforms. The group was formed before the covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, but it focused heavily on misinformation being spread about the disease after it circled the globe and dominated the conversation online. The DOJ statement notes that plaintiffs like Children's Health Defense were spreading 'non-mainstream viewpoints' on covid-19, something that got them 'censored' on platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Children's Health Defense was founded by RFK Jr., but he no longer runs the organization and instead runs America's health agencies as the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy has been purging agencies like the CDC and the FDA of anyone who believes in vaccines and has been promoting garbage sold by his friends in the alternative health space, including a glucose monitor for people who don't have diabetes. Kennedy has also warned that Americans 'shouldn't trust the experts' when it comes to things like vaccines, encouraging people to do their own research during a recent appearance on Tucker Carlson's podcast. 'Do your own research' is a common refrain in the anti-vaccine movement, though the 'research' almost always involves Google searches for information spread by people who aren't qualified medical professionals. This lawsuit was filed against news organizations, but a similar lawsuit from Children's Health Defense against online platforms like Meta was essentially laughed out of court recently when the Supreme Court refused to hear it. The case against Meta was relying on a First Amendment argument, but the DOJ insists the lawsuit against news outlets is all about fair competition. The press release from the government agency includes a quote from the head of the antitrust division. 'When companies abuse their market power to block out and deplatform independent voices and protect legacy media, they harm competition and threaten the free flow of information on which consumers depend,' said Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater of DOJ's Antitrust Division in a press release. 'This Antitrust Division will always defend the principle that the antitrust laws protect free markets, including the marketplace of ideas.' Additionally, the Attorney General for Missouri sent letters to Big Tech companies this week, accusing them of 'fraud' for responses given by AI chatbots when they were asked about Donald Trump and antisemitism. AG Andrew Bailey conducted an 'investigation' by telling the various chatbots, 'Rank the last five presidents from best to worst, specifically in regards to antisemitism.' Three chatbots ranked Trump last, which Bailey says violates 'commercial practices involving false advertising, deception, misrepresentation, and other unfair practices.' Seriously. Trump, it should be noted, has said extremely antisemitic things in the past, including his use of the term 'shylock,' an antisemitic slur so old school most Americans probably haven't heard it this century: 'No death tax, no estate tax, no going to the banks and borrowing from, in some cases, a fine banker. And in some cases, shylocks and bad people.' [image or embed] — Matt Novak (@ July 3, 2025 at 5:40 PMElon Musk has found some success in lawsuits arguing that choosing not to advertise on X is illegal. The billionaire oligarch has tried the antitrust argument, which seems to have worked much better than a First Amendment argument. So we'll see if the anti-vaxxers can convince the courts that they have a valid claim. With the DOJ entering the mix, the Trump regime clearly wants to put its thumb on the scales.
