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Facebook's Fact-Checking Process Comes Under Fire

ThinkProgress claims that conservative pub The Weekly Standard, which fact-checks for Facebook, incorrectly marked one of its stories as 'false' and refuses to engage.

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Facebook's news fact-checking partnerships are under fire from ThinkProgress, which is accusing the company of deferring to conservative magazine The Weekly Standard after it marked a ThinkProgress piece on Roe vs. Wade as false.

Facebook defines stories as "false" when primary claims "are factually inaccurate." In this case, the debate centers on whether Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh "said" he would overturn Roe v. Wade.

ThinkProgress argues that its use of the word "said" is accurate, since Kavanauagh endorsed the Gluckberg test after saying that Gluckberg is inconsistent with Roe. The Weekly Standard's response is that Kavanauagh did not literally say it, therefore it is false.

Posts marked as false lose 80 percent of future traffic, and Facebook apparently told ThinkProgress that the social media platform defers to each independent fact-checker's process. ThinkProgress notes that restricting traffic will restrict revenue and therefore could impact readership and, by extension, its existence. When it reached out to The Weekly Standard, ThinkProgress got this response from its managing editor:

The Weekly Standard is one of five outlets that can fact-check other people's work on Facebook. The others are the Associated Press, Factcheck.org, PolitiFact, and Snopes.com.

To become a fact-checker, an outlet must complete a verification process managed by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at the Poynter Institute. Last November, the IFCN said The Weekly Standard was in "partial" compliance with its standards; although it was likely to meet the standards eventually, Facebook approved it before that time.

While a semantic debate over the word "said" could be valid, such a debate can only happen when both parties agree to it. The Weekly Standard's decision not to open such a dialogue does not bode well for Facebook's process.

It also comes amidst accusations from conservatives that social networks like Twitter and Facebook, as well as search engines like Google, are discriminating against them, something all three companies deny.

The social media platform is already looking to oversee images posted on its website—albeit via an algorithm—in the wake of fake news allegations.


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