{"id":1580995,"date":"2022-07-31T08:01:36","date_gmt":"2022-07-31T12:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1580995"},"modified":"2022-07-31T08:02:15","modified_gmt":"2022-07-31T12:02:15","slug":"fact-checkers-come-to-defend-bidens-recession-newspeak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fact-checkers-come-to-defend-bidens-recession-newspeak\/","title":{"rendered":"Fact Checkers Come to Defend Biden\u2019s Recession Newspeak"},"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\">16<\/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-checkers-come-to-defend-bidens-recession-newspeak%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=1580995&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><\/div>\n<p>\u201cNon-Partisan\u201d fact-checkers for Facebook and Instagram have decided that the discussion of Joe Biden\u2019s wild and wonderful definition of \u201crecession\u201d is unnecessary and any challenge to the president\u2019s wacky explanation for why the U.S. is not in recession is apostasy.<\/p>\n<p>Both social media sites have flagged such criticism of Biden\u2019s word salad as \u201cfalse information\u201d effectively setting in stone Biden\u2019s effort to move the goalpost on what constitutes \u201crecession.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/cea\/written-materials\/2022\/07\/21\/how-do-economists-determine-whether-the-economy-is-in-a-recession\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">White House posted<\/a> their explanation as to why the U.S. isn\u2019t in a recession despite the standard, oft-repeated definition that a recession is defined by two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. Almost immediately, social media comedians set to work, making an absolute hash of Biden\u2019s nonsense.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2022\/07\/29\/recession-facebook-fact-check-biden-politifact\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Reason.Com:<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>This post has been widely shared\u2014and in some cases, mocked\u2014on social media. Graham Allen, an Instagram personality, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CgcGPx1gz-o\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">posted a video<\/a> reacting to the post in which he asked Siri to define the term\u00a0<em>recession<\/em>. Siri\u2019s definition: two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth.<\/p>\n<p>But Allen\u2019s video is currently obscured on Instagram; users can still watch it, but they first have to click past a Disclaimer that it contains \u201cfalse information reviewed by independent fact-checkers.\u201d A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/photo\/?fbid=5654201314590933&#038;set=a.377213425623108\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">similar label<\/a> has appeared on some Facebook posts that also take issue with the Biden administration\u2019s wordplay.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The \u201cfact-checker\u201d in this case is Politifact. They have rated as \u201cfalse\u201d the claim that \u201cthe White House is now trying to protect Joe Biden by changing the definition of the word recession.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Their reasoning is that Biden used criteria for defining a recession from a government agency \u2014 the National Bureau of Economic Research. Politifact admits Biden is spinning the definition for political purposes but since he used statistics from the NBER, his definition is an objective fact not to be challenged.<\/p>\n<p>Wikipedia has already begun to restrict edits to its \u201crecession\u201d page after Biden\u2019s goalpost moving.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/restoring-america\/courage-strength-optimism\/wikipedia-restricts-edits-to-recession-page-after-biden-denial-of-definition\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Washington Examiner:<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The online encyclopedia\u2019s administrators froze the webpage\u2019s edit feature due to a \u201cpersistent addition of unsourced or poorly sourced content.\u201d The top of the webpage also notes that the recession webpage \u201cmay be affected by a current event.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Users manipulated the page and battled over whether its lead paragraph contained the sentence, \u201cThough there is no global consensus on the definition of a recession, two consecutive quarters of decline in a country\u2019s real gross domestic product is commonly used as a practical definition of a recession.\u201d As of Friday, the line is currently included in the description.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>At least the Wikipedia community had a chance to debate the issue. Others weren\u2019t so lucky.<\/p>\n<p>Phil Magness, director of research and education at the American Institute for Economic Research, scoffed at Politifact\u2019s propaganda two-step.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn this case, PolitiFact\u2019s \u2018ruling\u2019 is compounded by the fact that they have previously invoked the very same definition of a recession\u20142 consecutive quarters of GDP decline\u2014 in previous rulings to either provide cover to exaggerated Democratic claims about an impending recession or tear down Republican claims to the same effect,\u201d he tells Reason.Com.<\/p>\n<p>In a<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/redefining-the-r-word-recession-biden-economy-advisers-gdp-nber-semantics-poltics-gramm-rudman-hollings-11658951723?mod=e2two\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em> Wall Street Journal<\/em> <\/a>op-ed, Magness observes that the government can\u2019t depend on the NBER to define \u201crecession\u201d and is not the \u201cofficial arbiter\u201d of recessions.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"css-xbvutc-Paragraph e3t0jlg0\" data-type=\"paragraph\">Mr. Biden\u2019s economic advisers are certainly free to make the case for a revised determination. The NBER takes a more holistic approach, in part because some recessionary events are shorter than two quarters or manifest in nonconsecutive quarters. But this rationale works\u00a0<em class=\"css-i6hrxa-Italic e1i5tkwa0\" data-type=\"emphasis\">against<\/em>\u00a0the White House\u2019s current argument, which seeks to delay acknowledging a recession even if a two-quarter decline is observed this year. The NBER committee has previously acknowledged recessions that fell short of a strict and sustained two-quarter contraction. This last happened during the 2000 dot-com bust, which played out in nonconsecutive quarterly drops.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-xbvutc-Paragraph e3t0jlg0\" data-type=\"paragraph\">While recognizing its limitations, the traditional definition of a recession provides a functional rule of thumb to interpret events as they unfold. The NBER determination is a rigorous and reputable historical indicator for dating the beginning and end of business-cycle troughs, but it isn\u2019t suitable for real-time policy determinations.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p data-type=\"paragraph\">Politifact and other arbiters of truth, justice, and the American way should stop pretending to be objectively non-partisan. It makes them look silly. Perhaps every time they slap a Disclaimer on their checked facts, they should add, \u201cBrought to you by the National Democratic Party.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cNon-Partisan\u201d fact-checkers for Facebook and Instagram have decided that the discussion of Joe Biden\u2019s wild and wonderful definition of \u201crecession\u201d is unnecessary and any challenge to the president\u2019s wacky explanation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1581188,"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-1580995","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\/1580995","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1580995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1581188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1580995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1580995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1580995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}