• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, September 10, 2024

Meta Platforms is asking a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who claims the social platform wrongly displayed ads that misappropriated his identity to sell CBD gummies.

In a motion filed late last week, Meta says it is protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which immunizes web companies from liability for material created by outside advertisers.

“All of plaintiff’s claims against Meta are barred by Section 230,” the social media platform argues in papers filed with U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Williams in Wilmington, Delaware.

Huckabee's complaint, according to Meta, “acknowledges that the third-party advertisers -- not Meta, which merely owns the Facebook platform on which the third-party advertisements appeared -- were responsible for creating the challenged advertisements,” the company adds.

The complaint also acknowledges that Meta “played no role in the advertisements’ content and had no knowledge that the advertisements were false before they were published,” the company contends.

Meta's papers come in response to a lawsuit brought by Huckabee in June, when he sued Meta over the ads. Among other claims, he said Meta violated an Arkansas right-of-publicity law that gives people the right to control the commercial use of their names and images.

“Because Meta approved and maintained advertisements that unauthorizedly used and exploited plaintiff’s name, photograph, and likeness, plaintiff is now wrongly associated with the CBD industry and marijuana use,” Huckabee alleged.

His complaint referenced several fake ads, including one that linked to a phony Fox News site.

While Section 230 broadly protects web publishers from lawsuits, it has an exception for material that infringes intellectual property rights. Huckabee contended in his complaint that his claims against Meta fall within that exception, arguing that his right to control the commercial use of his image is an intellectual property right.

In 2021, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals accepted that argument in another lawsuit involving Meta. In that case, the court said news anchor Karen Hepp could proceed with a claim that Meta violated her right-of-publicity by hosting a dating ad with her photo.