Social media giant Facebook is censoring reports that link Democrat President Joe Bidenโs administration to last yearโs sabotage attack that destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines in Europe.
The governments of multiple nations concluded in their investigations that the pipelines, that pump natural gas from Russia to Europe, were deliberately destroyed by underwater explosions.
Earlier this year, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report asserting that the pipelines were destroyed by the U.S. government as part of a covert operation.
According to Hersh, the operation was led by the Biden admin and organized with the aid of the Norwegian government, the Norwegian Secret Service, and the Navy.
However, Facebook is now censoring the story from the renowned reporter and, instead, directs users to an article by unknown โfact-checkersโ that disputes Hershโs bombshell reporting.
Journalist Michael Shellenberger first noticed the issue when he tried to post Hershโs article on Facebook.
When Shellenberger tried to share the report with his followers, the social media giant slapped a warning label on the link.
The Facebook label warns users: โFalse information. Checked by independent fact-checkers.โ
Yet, the so-called โfact-checkersโ in question arenโt independent at all, however.
As Shellenbergerย notes, โHersh is infinitely more independent than Facebookโs Norwegian fact-checker.
โThe fact-checking organization is a partnership with a Norwegian government-owned media company, NRK, which has a direct self-interest in censoring the story.โ
Shellenberger posted a video to Twitter to demonstrate what happens when a person tries to share the report from Hersh.
There is a big debate over who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline. Instead of allowing the debate, Facebook has decided to take a side. It is censoring Pulitzer-winning journalist Seymour Hersh. And instead of explaining, Facebook sends readers to an article in Norwegian. Watch pic.twitter.com/nN18HovBPR
โ Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) April 19, 2023
By censoring the article with a dubious โfact check,โ Facebook is preventing it from reaching a much wider audience.
When an article is slapped with a โfact check,โ it is covered with a warning label buried in Facebookโs News Feed algorithm.
Despite Hersh being far more qualified than the failed journalists who resort to โfact-checkingโ other reporters, his article is automatically overruled on Facebook by the โfact-check.โ
If someone shares an article deemed โfalseโ by Facebookโs faceless โfact checkers,โ their friends and followers will likely never see it.
This is yet another example of how the โfact-checker industrial complexโ serves to censor legitimate information at the behest of governments by posing as an independent, non-bias actor.
In reality, โfact checkersโ are merely a front for state censorship control.
Several years ago, in defense of its โfact-checkingโ process, Facebook insisted that it cannot act as โthe arbiter of the truthโ for any contentious issue.
Nevertheless, this claim has now been proven dishonest once again.
โWhether Hersh is wrong or right, his reporting should be debated publicly, not censored,โ Shellenberger asserted on Twitter.
โFacebookโs actions are antithetical to Americaโs tradition of free and open debate and its rejection of secretive, authoritarian censorship.
โThe American people have given Facebook broad liability protections under Section 230 that other media companies donโt get.
โAnd yet Facebook is acting like a media company, not a platform.
โAs such, Facebook is putting its Section 230 protection at risk.
โAnd censoring Hersh may only attract more attention to it.โ
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