Facebook scrubs content it deems misleading and Twitter does the same. Ditto for all the big social media companies.
Mainstream Media runs a virtual smorgasbord of “fact-checking” outfits. Some, like Reuters and AP, have their own in-house departments. Others are supposedly “independent third party” operations contracted to provide fact-checking and debunking services for social media or the mainstream media outfits.
Once something has been “debunked” or “fact checked” and declared false or misleading, that “evidence” is then used by all the other gatekeepers to declare that information unfit for human consumption and to then ban, shadow ban, or otherwise minimize the reach of that information.
But how much can we trust these fact checkers? Who are they? Do they even have the requisite background or competency to perform their jobs up to a reasonable standard?
The sad truth is that the fact-checkers are often uniquely unqualified especially in the medical field to fact-check anything. Their biases are about the only thing these fact-checkers reliably reveal when they fact-check something.
They also will reliably draw upon “experts” who also are obviously similarly biased or who harbor inexcusably obvious conflicts of interest.
In the case of Facebook, it has set up a wildly confusing array of boards and third-party fact-checkers under their laughably named “transparency center” which, of course, means the exact opposite is what you find there. When you strip away the noise, you cannot find out who actually did the fact-checking for Facebook, why or how they made their determination, or who is paying their bills and salaries.
As is typical of Facebook, being run by a deeply asocial individual, there’s no human element to the operation at all. Its boards, and vague lines of authority and circular reference “explanatory links”, go nowhere except to lead you right back to where you started. Typical Facebook in other words. A waste of your time.
In all, we cannot trust the fact-checkers. They are humans, flaws and all, and most of them completely and totally lack the experience to fact-check the items they are checking.
The fact-checking cottage industry is hopefully at its zenith. If you watch this series perhaps you will come away with the same impression I have; the fact-checkers are literally a complete waste of their and our time.
Or, perhaps positively speaking, it may well be that they play an important role as a counter-signal; whatever they say the opposite is closer to the truth.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://peakprosperity.com/are-they-really-checking-the-facts/
