Mark Zuckerberg Allows Tucker Carlson's "Daily Caller" to "Fact Check" Articles on Facebook. A BuzzFlash Editor's Commentary.
May 31, 2020
BuzzFlash screengrab from BuzzFlash Nation on Facebook, February 29, 2020
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH
This past week, Mark Zuckerberg chastised Jack Dorsey of Twitter for putting a note on one of Donald Trump’s sensationalistic tweets that threatened Minneapolis protesters that “we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Twitter decided the tweet glorified violence, a violation of Twitter Terms of Service, and forced the reader to lift a screen to read it.
"If anyone, including a politician, is saying things that can cause, that is calling for violence or could risk imminent physical harm...we will take that content down," Zuckerberg had testified to Congress in response to a question by Congresswoman Alexandria Octavio Cortez (D-NY) last October. Yet, in response to a tweet invoking violence by Trump, posted on his personal account this week, Zuckerberg asserted that it was “free expression” and did not violate Facebook’s Terms of Service. He allowed the same posting to not be flagged on Facebook or Instagram.
Zuckerberg also asserted “I don’t think that Facebook or internet platforms in general should be arbiters of truth,” to CNBC’s Andew Ross Sorkin in a May 28 interview.
Indeed, Zuckerberg notoriously has allowed the Trump campaign this year to air deceptive, misleading and ads full of easily refutable lies without any oversight or fact-checking.
However, Zuckerberg is misleading the press and the public in implying that Facebook doesn’t “fact check” content. In fact, Zuckerberg has boasted that Facebook has set up a division to police the Internet for “fake news.” The program includes a “panel” of “independent” fact checkers who have enormous powers to “flag links on the social network as false, demoting their ranking in the News Feed as well as the visibility of the entire outlet that posted it.”
And one of those fact checkers is none other than Tucker Carlson’s The Daily Caller, under the “Check Your Fact” name.
BuzzFlash discovered this after I posted a Politico article on BuzzFlash Nation on Facebook the morning of Saturday, February 29, the day of the South Carolina Democratic Primary. Trump had held a campaign rally in Charleston the night before, aimed at stealing headlines from the Dems. The article header can be seen in the image at the top of this page, and the lower portion of the Politico article Facebook image also indicated that Trump presented the concern about a potential Coronavirus catastrophe (this was around the time that he was still claiming that it would “disappear” like “magic”) as a Democratic “hoax.” “Trump rallies his base to treat Coronavirus as a ‘hoax,’” Politico wrote, and that is what he did at that time.
In the afternoon, I was posting articles on BuzzFlash Nation on Facebook and scrolled down the page only to find that the Politico article that appeared eminently sound had been declared “False Information” and had a screen over it, as if it were “fake news.” I went to the Politico Facebook page, scrolled down, and found that indeed the same “False Information” screen was placed over the article summary and headline link on the Politico Facebook page. When I clicked open the screen, I found the message below:
BuzzFlash screengrab from BuzzFlash Nation on Facebook, February 29, 2020
Could Politico appeal this rather partisan interpretation of a Politico article (and Politico is known for fairly straightforward reporting)? After all, Trump was that week diminishing the Coronavirus as a trifle (which is one of the reasons we are now well into 100,000 plus deaths) as a “hoax.” So even if Trump did not literally say the Coronavirus was a Democratic “hoax,” that was the logical conclusion of his remarks that included:
Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. You know that, right? Coronavirus. They’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs . . . They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything, they tried it over and over, they’ve been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning, they lost, it’s all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax. But you know, we did something that’s been pretty amazing. We’re 15 people [cases of coronavirus infection] in this massive country. And because of the fact that we went early, we went early, we could have had a lot more than that . . . we’ve lost nobody, and you wonder, the press is in hysteria mode.
When I clicked open the screen, I ultimately found a written “opinion” on how a Daily Caller staffer had “determined” that the Politico story was “False Information,” which appeared to be a partisan screed to make Trump appear to be serious about the Coronavirus, a hard case to make, particularly at that time. Heck, just a week or so ago, Trump’s dimwitted son, Eric, implausibly claimed that indeed the Coronavirus was a “hoax” and would disappear after the Democrats lost the November election.
A publication, Tech Crunch, pointed out how difficult, if not impossible, Facebook has made it to appeal such an official sounding determination of so-called “False Information” by its right wing “fact checkers”:
But the bigger concern is how Facebook has designed its fact-checking system to prevent other fact-checking partners from auditing the decision of The Daily Caller.
When asked about this, Facebook deflected responsibility, implying the audit process wouldn’t be necessary because all of its fact-checking partners have been certified through the non-partisan International Fact-Checking Network. This group publishes ethics guidelines that include an accuracy standard that requires checkers “maintain high standards of reporting, writing, and editing in order to produce work that is as error-free as possible.” Checkers are also supposed to follow criteria for determining story accuracy, and can apply mid-point labels like “Partly False” or “False Headline,” which The Daily Caller didn’t use here….
[Facebook] should still establish a process for a quorum of its fact-checking partners to play that role. If consensus amongst other partners is that a label was inaccurate and a story might instead warrant a lesser label or none at all, that new decision should be applied. Otherwise, mistakes or malicious bias from a single fact-checker could suppress the work of entire news outlets and deprive the public of the truth.
The damage to publications that post articles determined to be “False Information” can have serious ramifications in terms of Facebook exposure. With its pervasive algorhitms, Facebook punishes sites that have articles determined to be “False Information” by reducing the distribution of the articles in news feeds. It would not be cynical to believe that a “service” run by a Fox News celebrity might direct "fact checkers” to “wound” or serve notice to publications that might post articles that are true but are considered not in the best interests of Trump’s campaign.
Accusations that Zuckerberg and Facebook are in the bag for Trump are bolstered by much evidence. Particularly noteworthy is Facebook’s policy allowing the Trump campaign to run entirely deceptive and false ads that will be a significant factor in the 2020 election. The evidence also includes the Republican views of billionaire and Trump supporter Peter Thiel, who is perhaps Zuckerberg’s most influential adviser and serves on the Facebook Board. Thiel was an original investor in Facebook, donated $1.25 million to the 2016 Trump campaign, and owns a hi-tech surveillance company, Palantir, which has among other unsavory clients, ICE (which uses the firm’s software to surveil migrants).
Thiel arranged a dinner at the White House last October with Zuckerberg, Trump and himself. He has also set up meetings between conservatives and Zuckerberg in which they bully him into accepting the ludicrous notion that Facebook is biased against them. Zuckerberg even appointed a conservative to “audit” Facebook so the platform wouldn’t “discriminate” against conservatives.
In October, The Intercept ran an insightful article that Zuckerberg was claiming to be having meetings and conversations with “pundits from across the spectrum.” The article begins:
During a Congressional hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked Mark Zuckerberg about his “ongoing dinner parties with far-right figures.”
….Yes, as Politico recently reported, he’s been holding lots of private get-togethers with prominent hard-right media figures. According to the article, these include Tucker Carlson of Fox News; talk show host Hugh Hewitt; Ben Shapiro; former Free Beacon editor Matt Continetti; and Brent Bozell, founder of the Media Research Center, which exists “to expose and neutralize the propaganda arm of the Left: the national news media.”
The Intercept asked leading progressive publication editors if they had been invited to such dinners or asked for their advice. The answer was uniformly “No.” Facebook would not comment on the absence of Zuckerberg meetings with progressives or even centrist Democrats.
The Intercept did note,
Cynics might tell you that Zuckerberg, the fifth-richest person on Earth and head of a giant international conglomerate, is largely sympathetic to the corporate right. According to a Bloomberg News analysis, the 2017 GOP tax bill saved Facebook $8.3 billion in just one year.
When Zuckerberg lets the likes of The Daily Caller determine what is “False Information,” be prepared for Facebook putting its thumb heavily on the scale for Trump.
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