As if we didn’t already know. Facebook admitted in court that their so called “fact checkers” are nothing more than opinion, and thus should not be regulated. If you use Facebook, you’ve likely gotten the “fake news” tag on something you’ve posted. It’s by Facebook’s left wing opinionators.
Outspoken libertarian journalist John Stossel, former ABC News correspondent, has become quite the thorn in the side of Facebook.
Stossel, who currently produces weekly videos on social media challenging big government idolatry and commonly held assumptions about topics such as climate change, has managed to unveil the farce that is Facebook’s “fact check” scheme.
The story began when Stossel posted a video to Facebook titled “Government Fueled Fires.” In the video, Stossel said, “[W]hile climate change undoubtedly contributes to forest fires, it was not the primary cause of the 2020 California fires.”
Stossel went on to argue that government mismanagement of forests was the principal cause of the wildfires. Moreover, Stossel presented several facts to support his assertion.
After the video was posted, Facebook categorized it as “misleading,” with a note attached to the video stating: “Missing Context. Independent fact-checkers say this information could mislead people.”
This prompted Stossel to sue Facebook for defamation.
We now know that Facebook’s so-called “independent fact-checkers” are nothing of the sort. And we know this because Facebook admitted so in a response to Stossel’s defamation lawsuit.
According to Facebook, Stossel cannot sue the company for defamation because, “The labels themselves are neither false nor defamatory; to the contrary, they constitute protected opinion.”
In other words, Facebook let the cat out of the bag in stating that its so-called “fact checks” are not fact checks at all; they are, in the words of Facebook’s lawyers, “protected opinion.” In essence, Facebook is saying its “fact checks” are not objective, but rather subjective.