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Mark Zuckerberg’s recent announcement that Meta will be making major changes to its content moderation policies and practices on Facebook and Instagram, included his blockbuster plan the eliminate the company’s biased third-party “fact checkers.” Breitbart News has compiled some of the worst moments of Facebook’s “fact checker” era to show how the biased system was used to censor conservatives.

Breitbart News recently reported that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, is undergoing a major overhaul of its content moderation practices. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Tuesday that the company will end its third party fact-checking program, plagued by severe leftist bias, and replace it with a community-driven system similar to X’s Community Notes. The changes come as a response to what Zuckerberg perceives as a “cultural tipping point” towards prioritizing speech, influenced by the recent elections.

Breitbart News has spent years reporting on the egregious bias of Facebook’s third-party fact checkers. Here are 12 lowlights from the “fact checker” era of Meta’s history:

1) Facebook Relies on USA Today Intern to Falsely Fact-Check and Restrict Access to Breitbart Story

In June 2020, Facebook falsely fact-checked a Breitbart News Instagram post, taking issue with Breitbart News’ accurate use of the term “amnesty.”

Breitbart News reported:

Last week, Facebook once again allowed one of Breitbart News’s establishment competitors, in this case USA Today, to falsely fact-check a Breitbart News Instagram post.

…

Why? USA Today did not say, but it had published the following article on May 14, written by an intern serving on its Facebook fact-checking team: “Fact check: House bill does not grant amnesty to immigrants illegally in U.S.” In its article, USA Today contends that the term “amnesty” can only be used if it aligns with its intern’s subjective and restrictive interpretation of the Black’s Law Dictionary definition of the term; basically, that the word “amnesty” can only be used to refer to a permanent pardon for an offense.

This is despite the fact that the phrase “amnesty” has been used to apply to temporary relief from the consequences of illegal immigration by the New York Times, The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, and NPR.

“This is not fact-checking,” said Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow. “This is policing language to make life difficult for political adversaries. It is literally Orwellian. Facebook is coordinating with one of our competitors in an attempt to strong-arm us into changing long-standing editorial policy in order to confuse our audience and lessen our impact. It’s so obvious that what they are doing is ideological harassment.”

2) PolitiFact Tries to ‘Fact Check’ Breitbart News in Facebook Comments

In November 2022, PolitiFact, a Facebook-approved fact-checking organization known for its left-leaning bias, began commenting on Breitbart News posts with links to articles from competing publications.

Breitbart News reported:

Being one of Facebook’s anointed “fact checkers,” with the ability to suppress the reach of publications at will, leftist fact checker PolitiFact has now resorted to posting links to articles from rival publications in Facebook comments underneath Breitbart News posts.

A recent Breitbart News post on Facebook linked to editor-at-large Joel Pollak’s November 9 article about voters re-electing a dead Democrat state representative in Pennsylvania.

The PolitiFact comment pointed out that the state representative, Anthony “Tony” DeLuca, had died on October 9, just under a month before election day, which was too soon for any replacement to be found.

This was not disputed by Breitbart’s article, which emphasized the fact that Democrats, knowing their state representative was dead, still reelected him.

3) Leftist Facebook ‘Fact Checker’ Science Feedback Admits Wrongly Flagging Article on Mask Mandates

In December 2021, Science Feedback, a third-party Facebook fact-checking partner, acknowledged it was mistaken in flagging and censoring a Reason article that criticized a study used by the CDC to support mask mandates in schools.

Breitbart News reported:

The article that caught Science Feedback’s ire was published at the libertarian magazine Reason by Robby Soave, and was titled “The Study That Convinced the CDC To Support Mask Mandates in Schools Is Junk Science.”

The article quoted another piece from the Atlantic’s David Zweig — an article that was not fact-checked by Science Feedback. As Breitbart News has reported in the past, The Atlantic has become one of the leading voices of left-wing globalism, owned by billionaire Apple heiress Laurene Powell Jobs, whom Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex Marlow has called “the new Soros.”

Science Feedback later admitted that their fact check was erroneous, and reversed course.

“We have taken another look at the Reason article and confirm that the rating was applied in error to this article,” the fact-checkers told Reason. “The flag has been removed. We apologize for the mistake.”

4) Facebook ‘Fact Checkers’ Add ‘Context’ to Biden Clip That Requires No Context

In November 2021, Facebook’s fact-checking partners, including USA Today, Reuters, and Lead Stories, added warning labels to a video clip of Joe Biden interacting with his grandson at a funeral, claiming the post is “missing context” even though no description was provided.

Breitbart News reported:

Fake News Network, a popular Instagram meme page with 500,000 followers, posted the clip yesterday with the caption “cornpop is at it again,” only to be immediately “fact checked.

The warning label added by the Facebook fact-checkers states:

“The same information was reviewed in another post by fact-checkers. There may be small differences. Independent fact-checkers say information in this post is missing context and could mislead people.”

…

Following the links in the warning message takes viewers of the clip to pages informing them that Biden was “consoling” his grandson at Beau Biden’s funeral, even though the Instagram account did not claim otherwise.

5) John Stossel Sues Facebook Alleging Defamation over ‘Fact-Check’ Label

In September 2021, Former TV reporter John Stossel filed a defamation lawsuit against Facebook, seeking at least $2 million in damages.

Breitbart News reported:

Stossel’s lawsuit alleges that in the past year he posted two video reports to Facebook’s platform in which he “interviewed experts in the climate change arena.” One video was titled “Government Fueled Fires,” which related to the 2020 wildfires in California. Stossel claims that Facebook’s fact-checkers “falsely attributed to Stossel a claim he never made, and on that basis flagged the content as ‘misleading’ and ‘missing context,’ so that would-be viewers would be routed to the false attribution statement.”

Stossel’s lawsuit alleges that his video “explored a scientific hypothesis” that “while climate change undoubtedly contributes to forest fires, it was not the primary cause of the 2020 California fires.” Stossel alleges that he never made the claim that “Forest fires are caused by poor management. Not by climate change,” as Facebook’s fact-check stated.

Another video from Stossel titled “Are We Doomed?” received a “partly false/factual inaccuracies” label from Facebook. In the video, Stossel questioned a number of theories from what he called “environmental alarmists,” such as “claims that hurricanes are getting stronger, that sea level rise poses a catastrophic threat, and that humans will be unable to cope with the fallout.”

Facebook admitted in court proceedings related to Stossel’s lawsuit that its third-party fact checks were actually just opinions.

6) Facebook Fact Checker ‘Fact Checks’ Critique of Itself

In December 2020, The Federalist’s Molly Hemingway criticized Facebook fact-checker ‘Lead Stories’ for its handling of stories about alleged voter fraud in Georgia, only to have her own article ‘fact-checked’ by the very same organization.

Breitbart News reported:

Facebook fact-checker “Lead Stories” took the social network’s system of “fact-checking” to farcical levels earlier this week when it “fact-checked” a critique of itself by the Federalist’s Molly Hemingway.

An article by Molly Hemingway in the Federalist critiqued the fact-checker for its decision to fact check stories about voter fraud in Georgia:

…

Hemingway then reported on Twitter that her article, critiquing the fact-checker, had been fact-checked.

“With contemporaneous news stories and legal filings, I critiqued a Facebook-funded “fact” “checker.” So Facebook is using the very same “fact-checker” I criticized to censor me — and claiming that fact-checker is “independent.” This is Kafka-esque,” said Hemingway in a tweet.

“To be clear, nothing in the attached “fact” “check” actually deals with anything I wrote — and it is not claiming anything I wrote was erroneous or in need of correction. It’s just pasted on my piece to suppress it being shared.”

7) PolitiFact Admits Bogus Facebook Fact Check After Candace Owens Challenges ‘False’ Rating

In November 2020, Conservative commentator Candace Owens scored a victory against Facebook’s fact-checking partner PolitiFact, which was compelled to issue a correction and remove a “false” rating from a video in which Owens claimed that Joe Biden was not the president-elect.

Breitbart News reported:

“Correction: PolitiFact originally labeled this video false in our capacity as a third-party fact-checker for Facebook,” PolitiFact announced last week.

“On Nov. 20, an appeal to that decision was made on behalf of Ms. Owens. PolitiFact approved the appeal on Nov. 20, determined that a correction was appropriate, and removed the false rating,” the statement added.

“Anybody who understands politics, who passed a basic level of civics knows that right now, in this moment, Joe Biden is literally and legally not the president-elect,” said Owens in her video that was falsely “fact-checked” by PolitiFact.

“This information cannot be fact-checked, because that is the truth, so they cannot take that off, they cannot censor that. It is a fact,” continued Owens in her video.

8) Dispatch’s Fake Fact Check Results in Facebook Blacklisting Pro-Life Ad

In October 2020, Breitbart News reporter John Nolte reported that The Dispatch published a fake fact check that gave Facebook an excuse to blacklist a series of pro-life ads.

Breitbart News reported:

The Dispatch, a Never Trump website run by former intellectual Jonah Goldberg, Weekly Standard Destroyer Stephen Hayes, and David “Vichy” French, published a fake fact check that gave Facebook the cover it wanted to blacklist a series of pro-life ads.

Only after they were caught red-handed by the Federalist did the liars retract their lies.

Two ads from the Women Speak Out PAC were blacklisted by Facebook after the Dispatch published a fake fact check, a bald-faced lie that claimed the ads were “partly false.”

The ads correctly point out that the Democrat Party, and Joe Biden in particular, are now in favor of abortion-on-demand right up until the moment of birth.

9) Facebook ‘Fact Checks’ Pro-Trump Ads About the War on Women’s Sports

In September 2020, Facebook applied a “fact check” label to an ad campaign that drew attention to Democrats’ support for allowing transgender women, who are biologically male, to compete in women’s sports.

Breitbart News reported:

“All female athletes want is a fair shot at competition,” states the ad, which highlights Michigan Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) and Joe Biden’s support for legislation that would allow transgender women, i.e. biological men, to compete in women’s sports.

PolitiFact, one of Facebook’s “third party fact checkers” has added a note to the 38-second clip, stating that it “lacks context.” This note now appears across all instances of the ad on Facebook.

The basis of PolitiFact’s claim is the fact that the ad says Biden and Peters would “destroy girls’ sports.”

Facebook’s fact-checkers have not added any similar labels to Biden ads that post blatant falsehoods, such as Biden’s claim that Trump “ignored” health officials during the initial outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

10) Erroneous Facebook Fact Check Relied on Professor with Ties to Wuhan Lab

In April 2020, The New York Post‘s editorial board wrote a letter claiming that Facebook’s reliance on a professor with ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for a fact check on the origins of COVID-19 presented a glaring conflict of interest.

Breitbart News reported:

The New York Post’s editorial board has penned a scathing article about Facebook’s fact-checking operations, revealing that an erroneous fact check performed on one of the newspaper’s opinion pieces about the origins of the Chinese virus relied on information from a professor who has conducted projects with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The professor in question is the same individual whose research was used in a recent fact check against an Epoch Times video that sought to explore the lab as a possible origin point for the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.

Facebook’s reliance on research conducted by Danielle E. Anderson, an assistant professor at Duke-NUS medical school, presents a glaring conflict of interest because of her professional ties to the Wuhan institute, the Post‘s editorial board concluded.

11) Instagram ‘Fact-Checking,’ Filtering Satirical Posts and Memes

In December 2019, Instagram, the popular photo and video sharing platform owned by Facebook, started “fact-checking” satirical posts and memes on its platform through third-party fact-checkers.

Breitbart News reported:

A spokeswoman for Facebook confirmed that satirical images of far-left climate activist Greta Thunberg had indeed been tagged with warnings that “fact-checkers” had rated the images as “false,” as originally reported by Summit.

“We work with third-party fact-checkers to help identify, review, and label false information on Instagram,” said the spokeswoman. “When content is rated as false or partly false by a third-party fact-checker, we reduce its distribution by removing it from Explore and hashtag pages. In addition, we label the content so people can better decide for themselves what to read, trust, and share.”

Self-proclaimed “meme artist” LUSHUX reported on Twitter that a humorous image featuring Hillary Clinton claiming to have killed Jeffrey Epstein was also “fact-checked” as false.

The fact-check caption says: “False: there’s no evidence Hillary Clinton killed Jeffrey Epstein. It runs counter to medical examiner and federal prosecutor conclusions.”

This is not the first time that a Facebook property has confused satire with factual assertions. Facebook itself landed itself in controversy last summer when it warned the Christian conservative satirical website The Babylon Bee that its content would be suppressed on the platform if it continued to post articles that were disputed by fact-checkers.

12) Facebook Suppresses Pro-Life Group Live Action Based on ‘Fact-Checkers’

In September 2019, Facebook imposed restrictions on pro-life organization Live Action, citing “false news” determinations by supposed third-party fact-checkers who were actually abortion doctors.

Breitbart News reported:

Facebook notified Live Action founder and president Lila Rose on Friday that her organization’s pro-life posts would be subjected to “reduced distribution and other restrictions” after “additional reporting from an independent fact-checker” had deemed the content “false news.” Live Action is a non-profit organization “dedicated to exposing the truth about abortion and affirming the life of every child.” The alleged third-party “fact checkers” quoted abortion doctors as evidence that Live Action’s claim that “abortion is never medically necessary” is false.

“Facebook has informed us that the page of Live Action President Lila Rose, and any links to our website now have ‘reduced distribution and other restrictions because of repeated sharing of false news,’” said Live Action to Breitbart News.

The organization added that in addition to “reduced distribution,” Facebook had also notified Live Action and its founder’s combined 3 million followers that they had shared “false news.”

“Your Page has violations,” read an alert sent to Rose from Facebook alert sent to Rose. “Your page has reduced distribution and other restrictions because of repeated sharing of false news. People will also be able to see if a Page has a history of sharing false news.”

According to Live Action, the content marked “false” by Facebook had been two videos affirming that “abortion is never medically necessary.” One video featured neonatologist Dr. Kendra Kolb discussing the topic. The second video showed a recent speech by the organization’s founder speaking on the same subject.

Live Action told Breitbart News that Facebook’s third-party “fact-checking” consisted of an article that quoted two abortionists — Daniel Grossman and Robyn Schickler — “who both have a vested interest in profiting off of the procedure.”

These are just a few examples from nearly a decade of extreme bias by Facebook and it’s third-party fact-checkers. The company — and it’s founder Mark Zuckerberg — now claim to have turned over a new leaf, that they “got it wrong”, and want to take a new “pro-free speech” attitude towards moderation.

Breitbart News is dedicated to closely monitoring the actions of Zuckerberg and his company to ensure that he lives up to this promise.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.