‘News’ company sues Facebook
A Russian ‘News’ agency, is suing Facebook for removing its account from the social media platform.
The Russian “Federal Agency of News” or FAN, is among the Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-backed company that engages in online influence operations for the Russian government, which is claiming that, the online social media site, Facebook, has violated the First Amendment.
Earlier this year, Facebook removed 70 accounts it said were controlled by the Internet Research Agency, that engages in online influence operations for the Russian government.
The “Federal Agency of News”, which is one of the sites, alleges in a lawsuit filed this week in the Northern District of California that, “Facebook, while claiming to protect the public from ‘fake news,’ is actually engaging in censorship and denying FAN subscribers access to a legitimate news organization,”.
“Facebook seeks to dictate news content based upon its own political view point, thereby attempting to influence the public media coverage of internal political events in the Russian Federation.”
The lawsuit seeks monetary damages and an injunction requiring the social-networking platform to restore FAN content.
The Russian company acknowledges in its complaint that its accountant — Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova — is under indictment for conspiring to manipulate elections in the U.S. But FAN argues that Khusyaynova is merely a bookkeeper who doesn’t play a role in editorial decisions.
(Last month, the Department of Justice alleged that Khusyaynova managed the finances of “Project Lakhta” — an initiative that aims to sow discord in the U.S.)
“FAN is a legitimate news organization that adheres to journalistic standards in its publications,” the company writes.
Regardless of FAN’s legitimacy, its lawsuit will likely be dismissed, according to Santa Clara University law professor Eric Goldman.
“The lawsuit’s going to fail because Facebook is not a state actor, and the complaint does nothing to convince us otherwise,” Goldman says.
