The third-party fact-checkers that Facebook uses can suppress any content that they want to, according to a recent report. The report was prompted by a fact-check of a USA Today article by NewsBusters, and the subsequent fact-checking of the latter by USA Today.
Fact-checking the fact-checkers
The original USA Today article, which ran on June 30, was called out by NewsBusters for misrepresenting some facts about the Civil War. The original article, written by intern Devon Link, conceded that the Confederacy was run by and made up of Democrats, as was the KKK. However, the article did not blame the Democratic Party for that, with Link calling the claim “an oversimplified trope about the Democratic Party.”
In the article, Link cites Princeton University professor and Obama campaign donor Tera Hunter, who said that “the core of the effort to discredit the current Democratic Party is the refusal to accept the realignment of the party structure in the mid-20th century.”
Hunter, in the article, goes on to claim that “the Democratic Party did not start the Civil War. The war was initiated by Southern slaveholding states seceding from the United States.”
News Busters’ associate editor Scott Whitlock countered Hunter’s claims with data showing how states voted in the 1860 election, showing that almost every future Confederate state, save for Virginia and Tennessee voted Democrat.
Following the repudiation, USA Today admitted their error resulting in the removal of both the fact check rating on the article and the filter from News Busters’ Facebook page.
Facebook fact-checkers are biased
While the erroneous fact-checks were eventually removed, the incident illustrates how Facebook’s third-party fact-checkers can suppress any content that they want to, especially if it’s critical of their own fact-checks.
Of course, the fact that Facebook’s third-party fact-checkers are able to do so should come as no surprise. Prior to this, hidden camera footage came out of Facebook employees and contractors admitting to their censorship of Trump supporters and discrimination against conservative and white male employees.
“We rig the game, so it can work on the left side,” admitted a Facebook employee in one of the videos. The same employee also agreed that the company favors the Left.
Even as these reports surface, it’s most likely that Facebook won’t be changing its way anytime soon. In their efforts to pander to the Left, numerous companies have threatened to pull their advertising from Facebook for the times it did let right-leaning articles through.
In response, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has already announced a series of policy changes meant to appease those behind the boycott.
Facebook’s left-leaning stance is obvious
What’s interesting about Facebook’s move is that they may not have had to make any changes in response to the boycott. Analysts have pointed out that the revenue lost by the company from the boycott was only a drop in the bucket compared to what they make from advertising as a whole.
According to Rohit Kulkarni, executive director of equity research and trading company MKM Partners, Facebook is only looking at a less than five percent hit to revenue from the boycott.
“[Facebook] has more than 160 million registered businesses globally and 8 million paying advertisers,” said Kulkarni. He added that Facebook makes most of its money from small advertisers, not the big companies involved in the boycott.
In addition, he added that Facebook should already be expecting a loss of advertising revenue as a side-effect of the economic downturn from the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.
With this in mind, it seems that the boycotts may simply be an excuse for Facebook to show its true colors. The company and the people working for it seem to have a clear, Left-leaning bias. The latest fact-checking incident with NewsBusters and USA Today only further demonstrates that.
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