Overview

• On July 11, the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division filed a statement of interest in Children’s Health Defense et al. v. Washington Post et al. at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
• Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater said the Sherman Act protects competition in information quality and viewpoint diversity
• The DOJ urged judges to treat coordinated content moderation through the Trusted News Initiative that downranked or demonetized independent publishers as potential anticompetitive conduct
• The lawsuit names The Washington Post, BBC, Associated Press and Reuters as defendants accused of collaborating with platforms like Facebook and Twitter to suppress rival COVID-19 and political perspectives
• The named media organizations have not publicly responded and the court will now weigh the DOJ’s arguments alongside existing filings and discovery