{"id":1115750,"date":"2021-12-13T19:28:31","date_gmt":"2021-12-14T00:28:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1115750"},"modified":"2021-12-13T19:28:33","modified_gmt":"2021-12-14T00:28:33","slug":"facebook-admits-in-court-that-fact-checks-are-just-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/facebook-admits-in-court-that-fact-checks-are-just-opinion\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook Admits in Court That &#039;Fact Checks&#039; Are Just Opinion"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffacebook-admits-in-court-that-fact-checks-are-just-opinion%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1115750&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p class=\"subheading\">Despite presenting itself to the public as the arbiter of truth and guarantor of factually-accurate information, guarding users against \u201cfake news\u201d and \u201cmisinformation,\u201d Facebook has admitted in court that its \u201cfact checks\u201d of information \u2014 frequently aimed at conservatives \u2014 are nothing more than statements of opinion.<\/p>\n<p>The bombshell emerged from Facebook\u2019s court battle with John Stossel, who is suing the company for defamation over its decision to add \u201cfact check\u201d labels to the libertarian pundit\u2019s videos about climate change.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<div id=\"attachment_9210655\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Stossel-820-Thumbnail.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9210655\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Stossel-820-Thumbnail.jpg\" alt width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Tucker Carlson Tonight)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_18999562\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" readability=\"42\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-944384246-e1631059139917.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18999562\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-944384246-e1631059139917.png\" alt=\"WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 10: Facebook co-founder, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before a combined Senate Judiciary and Commerce committee hearing in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill April 10, 2018 in Washington, DC. Zuckerberg, 33, was called to testify after it was reported that 87 million Facebook users had their personal information harvested by Cambridge Analytica, a British political consulting firm linked to the Trump campaign. (Photo by Alex Wong\/Getty Images)\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">WASHINGTON, DC \u2013 APRIL 10: Facebook co-founder, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before a combined Senate Judiciary and Commerce committee hearing in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill April 10, 2018 in Washington, DC. Zuckerberg, 33, was called to testify after it was reported that 87 million Facebook users had their personal information harvested by Cambridge Analytica, a British political consulting firm linked to the Trump campaign. (Photo by Alex Wong\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>From page two of <a href=\"https:\/\/wattsupwiththat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Facebook-admits-its-fact-check-is-opinion-page-2.pdf\">Facebook\u2019s court filing<\/a> (emphasis ours):<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<blockquote readability=\"17\">\n<p>Beyond this threshold Section 230 problem, the complaint also fails to state a claim for&nbsp;defamation. For one, Stossel fails to plead facts establishing that Meta acted with actual malice\u2014&nbsp;which, as a public figure, he must. For another, Stossel\u2019s claims focus on the fact-check articles&nbsp;written by Climate Feedback, not the labels affixed through the Facebook platform. <strong>The labels&nbsp;themselves are neither false nor defamatory; to the contrary, they constitute protected opinion.&nbsp;<\/strong>And even if Stossel could attribute Climate Feedback\u2019s separate webpages to Meta, the challenged&nbsp;statements on those pages are likewise neither false nor defamatory. Any of these failures would&nbsp;doom Stossel\u2019s complaint, but the combination makes any amendment futile.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Facebook, now calling itself \u201cMeta,\u201d asserts that Stossel needs to \u201cattribute Climate Feedback\u2019s separate webpages to Meta\u201d because of the tech company\u2019s outsourcing of censorship to third-party fact checkers, made up of liberal media organizations and nonprofits. Facebook uses this system to distance itself from responsibility from any fact-checks, by arguing that the decisions are made by third-parties rather than the company itself.<\/p>\n<p>However, the company still acts on those decisions by affixing labels to posts that have been \u201cfact checked,\u201d and suppressing their reach on the platform.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News.&nbsp;He is the author of&nbsp;<a class=\"x5l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/DELETED-Techs-Battle-Movement-Election\/dp\/154605930X\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\">#DELETED: Big Tech\u2019s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite presenting itself to the public as the arbiter of truth and guarantor of factually-accurate information, guarding users against \u201cfake news\u201d and \u201cmisinformation,\u201d Facebook has admitted in court that its &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1115750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1115750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1115750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1115750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1115750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}