Third Circuit Revives Huckabee Lawsuit Against Meta Over Fake CBD Ads on Facebook

What Happened

Between April and June 2024, three separate Facebook advertisements falsely depicted Mike Huckabee, current U.S. Ambassador to Israel, endorsing CBD products. He had authorized none of them.

One ad claimed Huckabee was leaving his job at Trinity Broadcasting Network to pursue a "greater purpose" selling CBD products. Another showed him supposedly opening up about health problems that CBD had helped him with. A third linked to a fake Fox News website carrying fabricated quotes, including: "As a God-fearing Christian, I would never in my life take drugs of any kind. CBD is completely safe."

Facebook was paid to run all three ads. According to the complaint, numerous Huckabee fans saw them and bought the products. Facebook removed the ads in June 2024, roughly a month after Huckabee learned of them in or around May 2024.

The Lawsuit and the Lower Court

Huckabee sued Meta in Delaware in July 2024, citing Arkansas's Frank Broyles Publicity Rights Protection Act of 2016. The law, named for the University of Arkansas football coach, gives state residents the right to control commercial use of their names and images. Critically, it exempts platforms from liability only if they lack "actual or constructive knowledge" that the use was unauthorized.

U.S. District Judge Gregory Williams, a Biden appointee, dismissed the case with prejudice, ruling that Huckabee's allegations, even if proven true, would not support an inference that Meta knew the ads were fake. When Huckabee tried to add defamation and negligence claims, Williams reinstated the dismissal.

The Third Circuit Reversal

On June 23, a three-judge Third Circuit panel — Circuit Judges Peter Phipps, Emil Bove (both Trump appointees), and Arianna Freeman (Biden appointee) — reversed Williams and sent the case back, according to MediaPost.

The panel identified three facts that, taken together, could plausibly establish Meta had constructive knowledge the ads were fraudulent.

First, Huckabee is a well-documented, lifelong opponent of marijuana and its derivatives. The notion that he would suddenly endorse CBD products raises an obvious red flag, particularly in an advertising context.

Second, Facebook had previously hosted nearly identical fraudulent CBD ads using the names and images of Laura Ingraham, Jeanine Pirro, and Sean Hannity, and news outlets had reported on those incidents publicly.

Third, one of the Huckabee ads linked to a fake Fox News website. The panel wrote that "that bogus link, when coupled with the unusual association of Huckabee and CBD and the prior fraudulent CBD advertisements on Facebook, suffices for allegations that Meta was plausibly 'aware of facts or circumstances' from which the advertisements' misuse of Huckabee's name, image, or likeness was 'apparent.'" The ruling is non-precedential.

The Section 230 Dimension

Notably absent from this case is the shield that usually ends these disputes fast. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act typically immunizes platforms from liability for third-party content, which would ordinarily moot any inquiry into what Meta knew or didn't know. But under the Third Circuit's existing precedent on the IP exception, publicity rights claims are not covered by Section 230. No Section 230 defense was available here.

Eric Goldman, a law professor who closely tracks platform liability cases, criticized the opinion on his blog as "inappropriately brief and inadequately reasoned" and flagged the danger of scienter inquiries when Section 230 doesn't apply. His concern is real: if courts can impute knowledge to a platform based on generalized factors, the standard becomes unpredictable and potentially crushing for any large platform hosting millions of ads. Goldman argues similar allegations could be leveled against nearly any online publisher of third-party content.

The Third Circuit's three-factor analysis, while grounded in specific facts, still requires a platform to effectively know enough about a public figure's personal beliefs to flag ideologically inconsistent ads as suspicious. At scale, that is a difficult standard to operationalize.

The counter-argument, and the one that carried the day, is that this case isn't about generic inconsistency. Meta had already been on notice through prior, publicly reported incidents involving the same ad format, the same product category, and similarly misappropriated media personalities, and one of the ads linked to a website falsely purporting to be a Fox News article.

Where Things Stand Now

The case returns to Judge Williams in Delaware for further proceedings. Meta has NOT been found liable. No damages have been assessed. This is a pleading-stage ruling: the Third Circuit held only that Huckabee stated a plausible claim, not that he proved one.

This ruling joins a small but growing line of cases. In September, a federal judge in California allowed Facebook users who lost money from scam ads to proceed with claims against Meta. In 2024, a separate federal judge ruled Meta must face Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest's claims over fraudulent cryptocurrency ads, and a California state appellate court allowed Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak to pursue a similar lawsuit against YouTube, according to MediaPost.

The unresolved question as the Huckabee case heads back to Williams: what standard of review does constructive knowledge actually require in practice, and how much prior notice is enough to hold a platform legally responsible for ads it did not create but was paid to distribute?