{"id":1118494,"date":"2021-12-14T15:29:21","date_gmt":"2021-12-14T20:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1118494"},"modified":"2021-12-14T15:29:23","modified_gmt":"2021-12-14T20:29:23","slug":"fact-check-facebook-fact-checks-are-opinions-not-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fact-check-facebook-fact-checks-are-opinions-not-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"Fact Check: Facebook Fact Checks Are Opinions, Not Facts"},"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\">18<\/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%2Ffact-check-facebook-fact-checks-are-opinions-not-facts%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=1118494&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--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Mark-Zuckerberg-Smiles-during-testimony-640x335-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">CLAIM: Facebook\u2019s supposed \u201cfact check\u201d operation is actually a vehicle for opinion, and is not, as claimed, based on fact.<\/p>\n<p>VERDICT: TRUE. Facebook admitted as much in court filings this week, noting its fact checks are actually just opinions.<\/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<p>Facebook admitted that its \u201cfact check\u201d operation \u2014 which can make or break online publishers \u2014 is not, actually, factual.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>As Breitbart News\u2019 Allum Bokhari <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/tech\/2021\/12\/13\/facebook-admits-in-court-that-fact-checks-are-just-opinion\/\">noted<\/a> on Tuesday:<\/p>\n<blockquote readability=\"32.447050938338\">\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<p>From page two of <a class=\"x5l\" href=\"https:\/\/wattsupwiththat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Facebook-admits-its-fact-check-is-opinion-page-2.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\">Facebook\u2019s court filing<\/a> (emphasis ours):<\/p>\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<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<\/blockquote>\n<p>Fact-checking has long been recognized as a cover for editorial opinion \u2014 one that may actually backfire, as Facebook discovered in 2017, when it <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/5077002\/facebook-fake-news-articles\/\">found<\/a> that its \u201cred flag\u201d for news that it considered fake actually drew more users to read it.<\/p>\n<p>Some media outlets \u2014 notably, the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/factcheck\/2021\/04\/30\/fact-check-joe-biden-still-fact-checked-washington-post\/7410197002\/\"><em>Washington Post<\/em><\/a> \u2014 dropped parts of their fact-checking operations entirely (in the <em>Post<\/em>\u2018s case, the database of \u201clies\u201d)&nbsp;once Donald Trump was no longer in office. Biden has been known for telling whoppers for his entire career, but the reality is that \u201cfact-checking\u201d outlets typically target Republicans, and neglect their Democratic rivals.<\/p>\n<p>As such, Facebook \u201cfact checks\u201d often reflect the opinions of the third-party media outlets that Facebook uses as fact-checkers. Whether they are right or wrong, the entire exercise is inextricable from problems of bias and conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n<p><em>Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of <\/em>Breitbart News Sunday<em> on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Neither-Free-nor-Fair-Presidential-ebook\/dp\/B08PNN54BB\">Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election<\/a>. His recent book, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.centerstreet.com\/titles\/joel-b-pollak\/red-november\/9781546099840\/\">RED NOVEMBER<\/a><em>, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at <a class=\"x5l\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/joelpollak\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\">@joelpollak<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CLAIM: Facebook\u2019s supposed \u201cfact check\u201d operation is actually a vehicle for opinion, and is not, as claimed, based on fact. VERDICT: TRUE. Facebook admitted as much in court filings this &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"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-1118494","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\/1118494","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\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1118494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118494\/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=1118494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1118494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1118494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}