Facebook has announced a new program for authenticating news items on its site. They will begin subjecting news stories to fact-checking, and label stories they determine unsubstantiated with a red stamp declaring: “disputed by 3rd Party Fact-Checkers.” Reportedly, Facebook will begin the new program by using Snopes, Factcheck.org, ABC News, and PolitiFact. Rather than ensuring content accuracy, the result could be accurate accounts being labeled as fake news
An article on Breitbart notes that these ‘checkers’ may often make gross errors themselves:
For example, PolitiFact infamously said it was “mostly false” when Donald Trump claimed in a presidential debate that Hillary Clinton wanted “open borders.” PolitiFact made this ruling despite Clinton being on the record at a paid speech saying “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders (link).
As for ABC news, they are a part of the mainstream media that so exposed their bias and outright fakery during this last election that they will not recover.
Get your red stamp ready, and see if you would stamp this example. In an NBC interview with Reince Preibus, where he said:
Look I’m not going to rule out anything but we’re not going to have a registry based on a religion.
The headline NBC ran over it was:
Reince Priebus on Muslim Registry: ‘Not Going to Rule Out Anything’ (link)
This is an important example because headline manipulation is one of the most effective means of planting fake news in the minds of the public who decide content only by skimming the headlines.
What have been labeled ‘alternative’ news sources and right-wing news sources, such as Breitbart, have proved to be the only consistently accurate sources for up-to-date reporting; breaking important stories by going where the MSM has no interest or intention of going.
With ‘fact-checkers’ like these perusing stories on Facebook, it may turn out to be a badge of honor having an article stamped: “disputed by 3rd Party Fact-Checkers.”
