Left-wing outlet is furious that Facebook did to them what they wanted to be done to the right

[WestVirginiaRebel]

The Blaze

Leftwing news outlet ThinkProgress expressed outrage that Facebook fact-checked their article, even though they had previously called for fact-checking against the right.

Here’s what happened

In a very critical article published Tuesday, Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress accused Facebook of bias against the left over a fact-checking finding against their article on Brett Kavanaugh, the nominee to the Supreme Court.

The article claimed that Kavanaugh had already stated that he was willing to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the landmark abortion decision.

The Weekly Standard fact-check denied the claim that Kavanaugh had ever stated that he would overturn the decision, even if that position could be argued from statements he has made.

“While ThinkProgress engages in an argument to suggest how Kavanaugh might vote in a Roe v. Wade redo,” they argued, “the article does not provide evidence that ‘Kavanaugh said he would kill Roe v. Wade.'”

Millhiser denounced the fact-check as a quibble over semantics in his counter-argument.

The Weekly Standard brought its third-party “fact-checking” power to bear against ThinkProgress on Monday, when the outlet determined a ThinkProgress story about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was “false,” a category defined by Facebook to indicate “the primary claim(s) in this content are factually inaccurate.”

He also noted that a fact-check of “false” meant that the views of an article so labeled would plummet precipitously on the social media site, and starve the website of ad revenue.

“Facebook’s entire relationship with The Weekly Standard appears driven by reckless disregard for the truth,” he complained.

Fact-check for thee, and not for me

But in a previous article at ThinkProgress, the outlet criticized Facebook for not fact-checking enough – against the right.

In a post that equates climate change denial with holocaust denial, editor Joe Romm complained that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “by explicitly partnering with climate deniers, he has guaranteed that Facebook will remain a major part of the fake news problem.”

“So much for policing Facebook against the anti-science disinformation campaign on climate change,” Romm said.

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When the shoe is on the other left foot...

[Valin]

Sept. 22, 2018