In the minds of many people (including yours truly), media/Big Tech-approved “fact-checkers” rank right down there with the mainstream press in terms lack of credibility and low trustworthiness – and for completely valid reasons.
The cast and crew at Politifact are absolutely no exception to that rule, as we’ve previously documented on the numerous occasions they’ve run interference for Democrats, including in their “fact checks” of social media posts about Democrats that are clearly meant to be satire, but which Politifact believes should be clarified anyway.
Because Politifact frequently rushes to the rescue of Democrats by using generous “standards” not often afforded to Republicans, they are often criticized and analyzed by conservative news and commentary sites like this one in pieces that note things like how in some instances they appear to rely primarily on the denials that come from Democrats who are on the hot seat. In other instances, vital context seems to be missing from their “fact checks,” context that would paint a bigger overall picture than the ones they usually give.
But recently Politifact, a Facebook-approved partner in so-called “fact-checking,” went to even more desperate lengths to protect a Democrat from legitimate criticism by way of using their vast power to slap a “missing context” label on some stories shared to Facebook that were critical of Politifact’s May 24th “fact check” of a tweet from Georgia’s attorney general that claimed Stacey Abrams supported Major League Baseball moving the All-Star game out of Georgia last year after the state’s election reform bill was signed into law.
Politifact labeled the claim “false,” but our sister site Twitchy was among several that noted in their write-ups about it that Politifact left out the fact that the USA Today editorial Abrams wrote that they cited as “evidence” was actually stealth-edited after publication and after MLB made their decision in what some suggested was a deliberate editorial move designed to soften Abrams’ stance on boycotts in order to make her seem less supportive of them.
Here’s a screengrab of what it looks like on Twitchy’s FB page when you click on the “missing context” pop up link:
Incredible. @TwitchyTeam wrote a piece on how Politifact fact check on Stacey Abrams lacked context. What happened in response? Politifact slapped a "missing context" warning on shares of the link to FB – w/ a link to their original piece. Just crazy. (hat tip: @itsSpencerBrown) pic.twitter.com/M7teynjzan
— Sister Toldjah 😁 (@sistertoldjah) June 1, 2022
Sure must be nice to have so much power that you can slap “context” labels on pieces that are critical of your own work, isn’t it?
Enough fact checking, this is out of control. https://t.co/GIuCFFbX3Y
— Scott Coleman (@bandphan) June 1, 2022
“Out of control” is actually an understatement, but it’s the best I’ve got right now. It’s just incredible what these people get away with, especially when election time rolls around. Hopefully, that will change some, at least on the Twitter side, once (and assuming) Elon Musk finally takes the reins.
Flashback: Joe Biden Told a Big Whopper About the Vaccine This Week — so, Where Are the ‘Fact Checkers’?
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