Candace Owens targets Facebook 3rd-party fact-checkers with lawsuit

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Conservative activist Candace Owens said Thursday that she plans to sue Facebook's third-party fact-checkers over perceived censorship of her social media posts. 

"It is time to fact-check the fact-checkers," Owens said in a video posted to her Twitter account. "I'm going to put these suckers through discovery and figure out what the relationship is that they have with Facebook." 

Owens gave an example of an instance that she alleged crossed the line.

"Quite literally a doctor gave his opinion about COVID-19, which I shared, and Facebook issued a strike on my account because they said only information that they agree with about COVID-19 ... was acceptable," she said.

She said her Facebook page was demonetized as a result, meaning she could no longer use the page for income purposes. 

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While speaking about censorship, she also cited President Trump, who has had several tweets flagged for allegedly baseless claims and misleading information. 

"I decided I was not going to give up and sit down," Owens said before railing against the presidential election, which was still undecided late Thursday as votes continued to be counted in several states. "The fact-checkers. .. they are activists for the left that shut down your speech if they don't like it."

To file the suit, Owens said she retained a pair of attorneys, including Todd McMurtry, who was part of the legal team for former Covington (Ky.) Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann.

Conservative commentator and political activist Candace Owens announced Thursday that she plans to sue Facebook Fact-checkers over perceived censorship claims. (Associated Press)

The defendants include USA Today and Lead Stories Fact Checker, Owens said. Both are third-party, fact-checking partners for Facebook. 

Facebook launched its third-party, fact-checking program in 2016 as disinformation campaigns flooded the social media site during the presidential election. Partners signed up for the program to verify content posted to Facebook and Instagram, and identify whether it is false or misleading. 

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The fact-checkers apply ratings to content that range from "false," "altered" and "missing context." When such ratings are applied, Facebook may either reduce its distribution or add labels to notify users about additional reporting elsewhere.

Other actions include alerting users with a pop-up notice so they can decide if they want to read the content for themselves. 

Facebook, Leade Stories and Gannett, the parent company of USA Today, did not respond to Fox News requests for comment.