As we’ve reported, Meta is nuking its fact-checking division and is going to rely on a Community Notes-type system similar to what rival social media platform X uses. Meta property Facebook in particular was notorious for censoring people and outlets over the last four years, especially when users criticized the Biden administration, its Green New Deal policies, COVID policy, and other hot-button issues.
Essentially, it became a de facto arm of the Democrat Party, and now that the Trump administration is coming to town, there’s a whole lot of groveling and finger-pointing.
The fact-checking industry is obviously not pleased that they’re taking a lot of the blame, and some are speaking out. Let me make it clear that I’m no fan of censorship fact-checking scolds, who are often spectacularly wrong—from the origins of COVID to the CA wildfire water issues—yet somehow, we’re supposed to trust them. That being said, I do think some of what they have to say is interesting and reveals just how corrupt the Biden regime became with their obvious censorship efforts--and just how far Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was willing to go to appease them:
Snopes CEO Chris Richmond said Saturday that the U.S. government was to blame for the censoring of the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, and argued that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was complying with the administration at the time.
"Let's look at the most famous example of Facebook censoring content, and that was the Hunter Biden laptop story. And we say, well, it was fact-checkers, right, who told Zuckerberg to limit the reach of that? No, it was the government. So, Facebook complied with the government, and then the fact-checkers get the blame," Richmond told MSNBC's Ali Velshi on Saturday.
"If Kamala Harris would have won, would he be taking any of these same actions now? No. He complied with what the government wanted then and is complying what the new administration wants now," Richmond said.
Related: WHOA: Meta Ends Fact-Checking As Zuckerberg Vows to Restore Free Expression on Facebook
Richmond thinks a Community Notes system is good in theory but still thinks fact-checkers are an important part of the process.
"I agree that the community note system is great. It should be transparent. The problem is that Facebook has this black box system that they can do what they want and just pass off the blame, like we want a more transparent system. We should be pushing to community notes. But to say that you’re going to remove fact-checkers as part of the process, I think that’s where the issue is," he added.
Snopes is not the worst actor in the business, but there are fact-checking outfits whose entire existence is based on crushing conservatives, whether fairly or not. I don’t remember a whole lot of them pushing back on the “Joe Biden is as sharp as a tack” narrative, do you?
They should be allowed to exist just like any other site should be allowed to exist, and people will read them if they want to. What they should not be doing, however, is getting involved with censorship efforts, and aiding and abetting the federal government and Big Tech to shut down people’s thoughts.
None of the parties involved in the gross censorship regime, which cost people their livelihoods and severely impacted conservative sites like this one, come out looking good.
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