In an attempt to correct the perception of a small but very vocal minority that claims Facebook’s silencing conservative voices on its platforms, the company’s reportedly swung too far in the opposite direction and essentially gave a free pass to conservative pages to spew their bullshit online.
According to leaked documents reviewed by NBC, Facebook relaxed its fact-checking rules for conservative news outlets and personalities, including Breitbart and former Fox News stooges Diamond and Silk, so that they wouldn’t be penalized for spreading misinformation. This report comes just a day after a Buzzfeed exposé detailing how a Facebook employee was allegedly fired after collecting evidence of this preferential treatment of right-wing pages.
Per its standards, Facebook issues strikes to pages that have repeatedly spread inaccurate or misleading information as determined by the company’s millions of fact-checking partners (news outlets, politicians, influencers, etc.). If an account receives two strikes in a 90-day period, it receives a “repeat offender” status and can be shadowbanned or even temporarily lose advertising privileges. Facebook employees work with fact-checking partners to triage these misinformation flags, with high-priority issues receiving an “escalation” tag that then pushes them on to company higher-ups for review.
According to an archive of these escalations with the last six months that was leaked to NBC, Facebook employees in the misinformation escalations team waived strikes issued to some conservative pages under direct oversight from senior leadership. Roughly two-thirds of the cases listed concerned conservative pages, including those of Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Gateway Pundit.
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Source: Facebook Relaxed Fact-Checking Standards on Conservative Pages: Report
An odd piece of news if not propoganda considering the big tech companies were slammed during their hearings buy the conspiracy seeing anti-vaxxer senators in the room
Robin Edgar
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