"There does seem to be a concerted effort among some defamation plaintiffs lawyers and some people active in the policy sphere to use [defamation and First Amendment] lawsuits as a weapon against new media outlets and other things that say things that they don't like," said Matthew E. Kelley, an associate with Ballard Spahr in Washington, D.C.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston of the Northern District of California recently granted Facebook's request to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s anti-vaccination group Children's Health Defense, which had claimed the company conspired with the federal government to censor and block its content. But Kelley isn't sure it'll deter others from filing their own.