On June 17, 2022, mark zuckerberg —Meta owner, former Facebook— had to attend a virtual appointment before the Fourth Civil Court of Piura. The reason? Lawyer Juan Mejia Seminary He had filed an amparo suit after an account on the popular social network was temporarily closed.
The closure occurred in 2021 and, since then, the northern lawyer decided to lend himself to legality to demand a civil compensation of $300,000. “I am the first Latin American to sue Facebook for suspending my account violating my constitutional right to free expression,” he wrote on Twitter.
Although the news provoked headlines and massive reactions —it was even consulted by a German media—, public opinion is still wondering what happened to this process of legitimacy.
Did Mark Zuckerberg attend the Piura Court appointment?
The Republic He talked with the protagonist of the civil lawsuit and picked up the edges that build this case still standing. When the lawyer was preparing his support, the Piura Court decided to pause, so the CEO of Meta did not have to appear.
The interruption was triggered, according to Mejía, by two factors: the distance and the time of the process for the notice to reach the recipient. “The Court itself realizes that it was not going to have enough procedural time to notify adequately via the chancery, via the embassy, and so it suspends. It is not that it eliminates it: it temporarily suspends it and reschedules it without a defined date, ”he explains.
However, one more demand has knocked on the doors of the lawyer. “They need each document that I send to be in English, but with an official translator recognized by the Peruvian Foreign Ministry, and it is a complicated issue because the Peruvian State is not assuming the expenses despite the fact that it is an amparo action claim that discusses extremely important second-generation human rights such as freedom of expression,” he adds.
In such a way that the process is awaiting a date for the hearing and a response so that the translations are paid for by the State.
Juan Mejía Seminario: why was your account suspended?
Lawyer Mejía Seminario shared through his personal Facebook account a publication by the newspaper Semana: the Nobel Prize in Medicine allegedly warned that the COVID-19 It had been created in a laboratory.
“China will have to answer to the world for COVID-19. For the thousands of dead, for the mutilated families. China, according to Nobel Laureate in Medicine, virologist Luc Montaignier, created the virus to harm the world’s economies.” could be read in the post.
After a verification of the social network, the information turned out to be false and, in consideration of the platform’s community standards, it decided to suspend the user’s activities for 30 days. The lawyer’s response was immediate:
“They cannot violate my rights. Facebook It is a public platform because you contract a service with me. Now you can’t publish what you want, I have filed this lawsuit for violating my rights for 30 days. My lawsuit is addressed to them, to their email address in the United States and the Judiciary will be in charge of notifying them, ”he declared before the media.
In 2021, Juan Mejía Seminario sued Mark Zuckerberg. Photo: screenshot
Facebook takes action against fake news
Through a statement in 2021, Mark Zuckerberg’s company listed the measures against users who frequently shared false information about COVID-19, vaccines, climate change or elections.
“Since we launched our fact-checking program in 2016, our focus has been on reducing viral misinformation. We have taken further action against pages, groups, Instagram accounts, and domains that share false information, and are now expanding some of these efforts to include penalties for individual Facebook accounts,” he explained.
Along these lines, the social media giant reduced in the News section the distribution of all posts coming from individual Facebook accounts that continuously exposed content rated by one of the independent verifiers.
If he wins, what will Juan Mejía use the $300,000 for?
If the goal is reached, the lawyer assures that he will fulfill his promise: donate the amount to an environmental NGO from Piura whose name is Pachamama Yaku.
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What happened to the Piuran lawyer who denounced Mark Zuckerberg and what was the lawsuit?