NPR still checks facts

Meta stopped fact checking. Their choice! Here’s a different one.

When NPR’s Morning Edition had a story this week about a decision at Meta, it occurred to me to say something on the air about NPR. Your favorite news network, for all its mistakes or flaws, does something fundamentally different from social media platforms. The Meta announcement shows the difference.

Company founder Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook and Instagram will abandon third party fact checking. The policy choice, a complete about-face for the CEO who instituted fact-checking eight years ago, occurred just in time for the advent of a new presidential administration that opposes fact checking.

Zuckerberg said third party professional fact checkers “destroyed more trust than they have created.” Republicans and right-wing media figures alleged a conspiracy against them to “censor”—okay, not censor, posts were still published—but to call attention to, or limit the spread of, egregious errors in some posts.

If we set aside the timing of the announcement, and also the nature of it—Meta is not taking down all content moderation, just the part that the party on its way into power dislikes—and also the motivation of the key players—Trump said aloud what his critics also claim, that Zuckerberg responded to his threat to prosecute him—also the loose way people talk about it—Meta is a private company and not the government, so the question here is not really about “censorship,” though some courts have acted otherwise—and if we also set aside the knee-jerk reactions to the whole debate… but I digress. If we set all that aside, there is another aspect of the discussion.

This account by a former Facebook fact checker gets at the issue. The fact checker gives evidence that she did her job capably, seriously and sincerely; and she disagrees with critics who alleged the process was biased. Even so, she concludes that fact-checking mostly didn’t work.

Some claims were checked or refuted. There was still a river of bullshit on all platforms.

Occasionally you can pluck something useful out of the flow—I have!—but it’s pretty much up to you to tell the difference.

Engagement is worth money, to creators and their platform. A controversial lie drives more engagement than the truth. And there was never any defense (other than your own judgment) against the social media post that is sort of true, arguably true, or even completely true, but just plain out of context, manipulative, or irrelevant.