Last week, Facebook announced two new partners for its fact-checking program in its attempt to stem the tide of fake news on the platform. One is ScienceFeedback, which checks science reporting, including with ClimateFeedback, a great resource we regularly use.
The other is another outlet we regularly use for content here, but… not in a good way. Because apparently in its attempts to atone for killing journalism and reduce the amount of fake news on its website, Facebook has brought the Daily Caller’s “Check your fact” on board.
Yes, you read that correctly. Facebook is bringing the Koch-funded, white nationalism peddling, polluter-defending Daily Caller in to fact check.
The Guardian’s Sam Levin asked Facebook about the decision, and apparently was told that any news organization can join if it’s certified by the Poynter Institute. (While Poynter is a legitimate, well-respected organization, it is a recipient of Koch money, and its principles seem designed for an era in which one could assume media outlets were operating in good faith, and not as arms of the Koch network...)
As Levin pointed out, the Daily Caller is frequently the subject of scathing fact checks. For example, ClimateFeedback has five different DC entries. Levin also highlighted a report from Harvard on disinformation campaigns in 2016, which found that the Daily Caller had a “key role” in spreading Islamophobia and otherwise “creating and disseminating stories” that “stoked the belief among core Trump followers” that Clinton is “criminal and treasonous.”
Let’s not jump to conclusions, though. Maybe the Caller’s fact check group is legit, despite the fact that it’s funded by the Searle Freedom Trust, a group that itself funds many of the groups in the Koch network.
For example, they fact checked President Trump’s recent comments about windmills causing cancer, finding that to be false. But even as they debunk the idea that wind turbines cause cancer, they repeat many other false claims about turbines causing health problems, including one from an anti-wind group implying that wind turbines cause cancer.
In another fact-check, they more or less confirm a string of Mitch McConnell’s attacks on the Green New Deal, taking the CREEP-y $93 trillion price tag at face value.
Other recent and very serious fact checks include whether the Moon would appear green on April 20th (turns out that was likely a joke…) or if a Beetlejuice sequel was in the works (it was a fan-made trailer.)
So sure, the Daily Caller’s fact checkers are capable of identifying obvious jokes. But when it comes to more sinister and serious issues, like climate change, it’s clear they’re more apt to be making false claims than they are correcting them. And given that Facebook seems perfectly willing to allow them to be a part of this project, maybe what really needs fact-checking is the company’s claim that they care about combating fake news...