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Independent presidential candidate and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is suing Meta<\/a> for allegedly violating the First Amendment and engaging in \u201celection interference\u201d because it removed a video about him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The lawsuit is not likely to advance far, considering that the First Amendment bars the government \u2014 not companies \u2014 from censoring speech. Plus, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act effectively insulates online platforms from being sued for how they choose to remove or limit content on their sites.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The lawsuit is based around Meta\u2019s brief removal of a 30-minute promotional video about Kennedy released by super PAC American Values 2024 (AV24). Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement that the link to the video \u201cwas mistakenly blocked and was quickly restored once the issue was discovered.\u201d Stone declined to comment on the lawsuit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Kennedy\u2019s lawyers claim Meta continues to \u201cthrottle\u201d links to the video and even asked Meta\u2019s AI chatbot if a user\u2019s followers could see the link when they post it. According to the lawsuit, the AI chatbot answered on May 5th that the link was \u201ccurrently restricted.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s just the latest example of how content moderation fumbles can fuel political cycles, whether they\u2019re the result of a technical error or bungled policies<\/a>. Regardless of the legal outcome, the suit may very well whip up anger among conservatives who already accuse social media companies like Meta of censoring their speech<\/a>. The lawsuit also quotes from briefs and oral arguments in Murthy v. Missouri<\/em><\/a>, a Supreme Court case about whether the Biden administration inappropriately coerced social media companies to censor speech in violation of the First Amendment. (Most of the justices seemed skeptical<\/a> of that argument when they heard the case in March.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In addition to the First Amendment claims, Kennedy and AV24 allege that Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg engaged in a conspiracy to suppress the legal advocacy of the super PAC for Kennedy\u2019s candidacy. They\u2019re seeking an unspecified amount in damages and an injunction to stop \u201cany further censorship\u201d of the video.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n