End of an era, but facts go on
This week: Donald Trump’s claim that presidential election vote counting isn’t over … From Poynter Institute: Experts wary of crowdsourced fact-checking’s effectiveness … Grok’s off-base claim about Presidential Medals of Freedom
Meta breaks up with fact-checkers. Here’s how it affects PolitiFact.
As I weigh Meta’s decision to break up with American fact-checkers, I keep returning to this: The censorious fact-checking program Meta described is not the fact-checking program I know.
On Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a five-minute video he was going to “get rid of fact-checkers” and replace them with a crowd-sourced model akin to Community Notes on X. "The fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they have created, especially in the U.S.," he said. He offered no examples or data.
Joel Kaplan, Meta’s new chief global affairs officer and a former senior adviser to President George W. Bush, said on “Fox & Friends” that the program was “well intentioned” at the start but there was too much bias in what fact-checking outlets chose to fact-check. Again, no examples or data.
Both officials cited a return to content moderation policies that center free expression, not censorship.
Facts are not censorship. The rhetoric in the headlines leaves the wrong impression of the day-in, day-out work of PolitiFact and nine outlets working in Meta’s U.S. fact-checking program.
PolitiFact and other fact-checkers work independently on the project Meta designed to investigate false claims and hoaxes on its platforms, while continuing to fact-check claims by politicians and pundits and on other platforms. We examine claims from across the political spectrum with the same scrutiny. Our journalism adheres to high standards of transparency, nonpartisanship and fairness, and, when we mess up, we issue public corrections.
Meta designed and adjusted its program of notices, flags and penalties for sharing false claims; fact-checkers did not and could not remove posts from Facebook or Instagram. We append our reports to posts containing false and misleading information in line with Meta’s rules, allowing users to retrace the research that drove our conclusions.
From Meta’s statements, you might think we spend our days pursuing political claims from only one side of the aisle. Not the case.
Our reporters look for viral, inaccurate claims to fact-check from across the web, prioritizing newsy events and claims about our focus areas on elections, immigration and LGBTQ+ issues, as well as claims that could have health or financial consequences.
Here’s what that looks like:
We uncover scams, in English and Spanish, that aim to fool users with false promises of subsidies and health care assistance. Users informed by our reports can decide not to click phony links or cede personal information.
We enter the chaotic information vacuum after mass shootings with carefully vetted information. Misinformers baselessly said the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooter was an illegal immigrant and a transgender leftist. Because of our work, people don’t have to fall for inflammatory misinformation; they can pause before they share.
After the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt on President-elect Donald Trump, we set the record straight as online commentators pushed conspiratorial claims about the suspect and Trump’s injury. They said Trump staged the shooting to help his election chances. They pinned the incident on an Italian sports blogger who had nothing to do with it. Months later, they said investigators were still locked out of the suspect’s phone.
After Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina, we published dozens of reports that countered conspiracy theories, including one that falsely accused federal relief workers of confiscating supplies. We explained how scientists knew that weather modification did not create the storm and how it was not a ploy to seize land for lithium mining.
That isn’t to mention all of the fact-checks we’ve written about false COVID-19 and election fraud claims — I think you get the point. When major news breaks, misinformation follows. We’re seeing it happen with the Southern California wildfires.
So, yes, the end of the U.S. fact-checking program after eight years will be a setback for people who want more reliable information in their Meta-owned social media feeds.
Critics will point to the times we got it wrong (and corrected ourselves). Personalities with shoddy truth records will point to our frequent fact-checks without explaining how their business models depend on shading the facts.
Fact-checking people with power and influence has always been gutsy and confrontational work, and we have pursued it anyway since 2007.
Meta’s investment over the years helped expand our staff and supported accountability journalism at outlets around the world. It is one of our largest revenue streams; losing this business will be painful for us and our colleagues.
But this news does not mean the end of PolitiFact; the work goes on. Our team is polishing a special report about President Joe Biden’s campaign promises. We’re preparing to cover confirmation hearings for Trump’s nominees and the transition of power. And, yes, we’re looking for your tips on suspicious online claims, wherever they may be.
Here’s what you can do.
Your online ecosystem is likely to become a messier place, filled with artificial intelligence-generated slop and unchallenged conspiracy theories. Make sure you are following our social accounts in those spaces (Facebook, Instagram, Threads, WhatsApp).
Send tips to truthometer@politifact.com when you see sketchy online claims. We check about one reader suggestion a week, and we want that to increase.
It’s time to sharpen your own media literacy tool kit. Do you know how to do a reverse-image search? Identify images and videos made with AI? With our Poynter Institute colleagues, we will continue to give you tools to discern fact from fiction.
We are heartened by our readers’ responses this week. Thank you for donating to support our mission — this revenue is all the more important for our short- and long-term sustainability.
In an ever-challenging world to practice journalism, our goal remains the same: bringing you factual information to understand the world and hold elected leaders to account.
I updated our readers about what the Meta decision to cut U.S. fact-checking means for PolitiFact's future. (YouTube)
Fact-checks of the week
The count is down. Congress on Jan. 6 certified the results of Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential election, affirming his victory. But the president-elect claimed a day later that the results may be incomplete. “We won the popular vote by millions and millions of people,” he said at a Mar-a-Lago press conference. “And they're still counting in some areas.” But the votes have been counted, the states have certified the votes, the Electoral College has voted and Congress has accepted the results. Some state and local races remain under litigation, but that is not the same as counting ballots. We rate his claim False.
Denmark’s (fake) counter. Trump has again raised the prospect of buying Greenland from Denmark, citing national security needs. One Threads user claimed Denmark responded to Trump’s offers to buy the Arctic island with a counteroffer. "Did you hear Trump tried to buy Greenland, and Denmark clapped back saying they’d buy the USA, give us free healthcare, and actually make America great again?" the Dec. 25 Threads post said. "Honestly, Denmark, we’re ready. Name your price." Danish officials’ responses to Trump’s statements have varied, but we found no Denmark officials had responded the way the post claimed. Turns out this post’s claim comes from a satirical 2019 article, which marked the last time Trump floated the prospect of buying Greenland. This claim is False.
Satirical response. Investor Mark Cuban is involved with multiple companies, but claims that he’s moving one or all of them from Texas to California because he wants to be in a state run by Democrats originated as a joke. "Mark Cuban shifts company from Texas to California: ‘Can’t operate in red states.’" a Jan. 2 Threads post said. This is False. We found no credible evidence such as news reports or public statements that Cuban, who partially owns the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, made such a statement, much less that he’s moving his operations.
Does crowdsourced fact-checking work? Experts are skeptical.
Meta’s decision to leave U.S. fact-checking to its platforms’ users in a crowdsourced community notes system made fact-checkers wary.
Such a system, which will resemble the one on Elon Musk’s X, will let participating users suggest notes to be displayed alongside misleading posts.
“We’ve seen this approach work on X — where they empower their community to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context, and people across a diverse range of perspectives decide what sort of context is helpful for other users to see,” Meta Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan wrote in a post announcing the change.
But many fact-checkers say X’s Community Notes program is ineffective, and sometimes furthers misinformation’s spread. Also, questions remain about how exactly Meta’s version will work.
“Just because in the past, we’ve seen some success in Community Notes, that doesn’t necessarily mean that any system that Facebook happens to roll out is going to be successful,” said Jennifer Allen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania who has studied misinformation and crowdsourced fact-checking.
Academic research is split on the effectiveness of X’s Community Notes and crowdsourced fact-checking. Much of the research predates changes made to X under Musk, who acquired the company in 2022, changed moderation policies and cut off access to certain data. “The research has not totally caught up with the current state of X,” Allen said.
But fact-checkers say that they’ve noticed misinformation go unchecked on X. Science Feedback, a fact-checking organization in the U.S. that was part of Meta’s program, analyzed X posts from the 2024 European Parliament elections. It found that out of the 894 tweets that professional fact-checkers identified as containing misinformation, 11.7% had a Community Note attached.
A separate analysis by Poynter and Faked Up into Community Notes made on Election Day in the U.S. found that only a small percentage of notes were rated as helpful.
Read Poynter media business reporter Angela Fu’s full story.
RELATED: Opinion | Meta will attempt crowdsourced fact-checking. Here’s why it won’t work
Quick links to more fact-checks & reports
There’s no evidence that North Carolina law enforcement officials stole generators donated for Hurricane Helene victims, PolitiFact NC reported.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., was wrong: There have been placebo-controlled studies on childhood vaccines, PolitiFact Wisconsin reported.
A poll shows Donald Trump won 18-to-24-year-olds in Wisconsin voting, but there’s a caveat, PolitiFact Wisconsin found.
Elon Musk didn’t acquire aircraft maker Boeing Co.
The FBI was able to unlock Thomas Matthew Crooks’ phone within days of the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump. Investigators haven’t been locked out for months.
Do you smell smoke?
Here's your Pants on Fire fact-check of the week: Grok, an artificial intelligence chatbot, said President Joe Biden rescinded a Medal of Freedom from “Trump’s campaign manager.” But there was no medal to rescind. See what else we've rated Pants on Fire this week.
Have questions or ideas for our coverage? Send me an email at ksanders@politifact.com.
Thanks for reading!
PolitiFact Editor-in-Chief