> Stossel is getting press time by suing but he’s a public figure and suing Facebook because a fact checking service elicited an opinion/notation that didn’t have the nuance he wanted is laughable.
If the facts alleged in Stossel's initial filing are true, they are fairly damning against the defendants[0]. The Candace Owens initial complaint, by contrast, is kind of a mess [1].
Re: Owens: One of her claims was that a manager at one of the defendant companies had once held a prominent position at CNN, and CNN has an obvious Democrat bias. Even if all of those things were true, the suit doesn't allege any sort of causal connection, not even "upon information or belief," between that claim and her being demonetized or otherwise sanctioned by Facebook. Her complaint was 50 pages long with 50 pages of exhibits, and yet a lot of it was used just to make political grandstanding statements. It just reads like a poorly-drafted lawsuit meant to generate publicity insofar as it exceeds a lawyer's duty not to file frivolous nonsense. For what it's worth, the judge also seems to kind of give Owens short shrift by asserting in his judgment that no reasonable person would conclude the words "hoax alert" and "false" attached to Owens' post imply that Owens was intentionally lying. (This was backed by case law involving claims of "blackmail" to be judged more hyperbolic and rhetorical than alleging the commission of a crime. The two cases seem pretty different. Thin gruel, IMO.) Regardless, I can't help but think that Owens really did fail to state a claim.
Stossel's claims are much tighter. He published two videos on Facebook, and both were "fact checked" by one particular organization.
In the first video, Stossel claims that climate change, forestry management and other practices are each partly responsible for the 2020 CA wildfires to varying degrees. Per the complaint, the defendants then attached a "fact check" claiming that Stossel did not mention the effects of climate change on the fires. Stossel made efforts to contact the fact checking organization and interviewed two of the three employees who were listed as reviewers for his video. Neither of them had even seen the video, and each admitted after watching the video that it was factually accurate, though one later changed his mind after Stossel again contacted the manager of the organization. Moreover, the article cited as the reason for why Stossel's post was flagged lists climate change and forest management as two partial reasons for wildfires, quite similar to Stossel's actual claim.
The second item in the complaint involves another video with a similar fact pattern. Stossel again secured an interview with one of the putative reviewers, who concluded the factual representations in the video were correct. IMO it's less damning than the first, but interesting if true.
Stossel does seem to state a claim, he does seem to allege sufficient facts to prove actual malice (e.g. posting a fact check without reviewing the underlying material with reckless disregarding the truth). It's also only 25 pages with the relevant exhibits in the text, and tells a much clearer story as to why Stossel was injured by this.
I still would give him long odds at winning, but he might actually survive a motion to dismiss and get to discovery. This one at least doesn't seem like a stupid publicity stunt.
[0] https://docs.reclaimthenet.org/John-Stossel-vs-facebook.pdf
[1] https://www.factcheckzuck.com/assets/10-19-2020-Owens-Compla...