Facebook claims fact checkers are opinion, a bizarre revelation coming from a new lawsuit brought upon the social media giant by journalist John Stossel.
The new lawsuit where Facebook claims fact checkers are opinion was brought to light by Stossel, who is challenging the company because they have repeatedly labeled his videos as “false” or “lacking context.”
The videos posted by Stossel don’t actually question whether or not climate change is real (a common debate for partisan grifters), they simply point to other key factors that can and have been found to lead to climate disasters, like forest management.
When challenged on the authority of their fact checkers, Facebook simply claimed their fact checkers are simply stating an opinion, and they’re protected under the First Amendment. Claiming that the “tone” Stossel used was inappropriate, his videos are either removed or demonetized.
Further, they suggest Stossel and any others that challenge the ministry of information will have to take their grievances up with the third party company, of which Facebook uses numerous to scrutinize the monstrous amount of content published to their platform.
This is quite different from the description Facebook gives fact checkers on their website, noting “each time a fact-checker rates a piece of content as false, Facebook significantly reduces the content’s distribution” and the company applies “a warning label that links to the fact-checker’s article, disproving the claim.” This sounds like much more than an opinion, but I digress.
A new video from John Stossel gives a nice roundup of the entire process, where they go over how Facebook’s “fact checkers” operate and who they target. It’s also worth mentioning the video is also hilariously flagged on YouTube for “context” regarding climate change.
Facebook has come under fire over the years for both their mass-censorship of things they deem wrong, as well as their part in unknowingly providing a platform for anything ranging from petty criminals to child traffickers. To combat this they’ve seemingly rebranded under the also bizarre parent company, Meta. Read more about that here in our previous report.
All of the above sounds like Facebook are acting as a publisher, doesn’t it? What do you think? Sound off in the comments below!
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