The business of the so-called ‘fact-checking’ is again in news. On January 7, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement in a video about phasing out fact-checkers in favour of crowd-sourced ‘Community Notes’ has rattled many media people and fact-checkers in India. Indian media is, quite amusingly, more concerned about the announcement than their counterparts in the USA. One newspaper wrote an editorial titled ‘What the Zuck’ and another wrote ‘Musk and Zuckerberg: As Meta follows the X model on free speech, growing alignment between two Big Tech sparks questions beyond US’. Their ‘unnatural’ concern actually stems from the ‘unholy intentions and power’ of the business of fact-checking in India, where it has been ‘weaponized’ to overawe people and even get them maliciously prosecuted. Because that power is now likely to slip away from their hands, that’s why they are flustered.
What has Meta decided to do now?
Meta, formerly known as Facebook, is the parent company of WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. Zuckerberg said that after Donald Trump’s election in 2016, the ‘legacy media’ had constantly written about how misinformation was a threat to democracy. He claimed that Meta (then Facebook), had tried to address it ‘without becoming the arbiters of truth’ but fact-checkers had just been too politically biased and had destroyed more trust than they created. “Getting rid of fact-checkers would start with the US”, he said.
What makes Community Notes better than fact-checking
Community Notes refer to a system where users of a platform can add context or corrections to posts they believe are misleading or inaccurate. This model was initially popularized by X (formerly Twitter) under Elon Musk and is now being adopted by Meta for its platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
Unlike traditional fact-checking, which involves third-party organizations or journalists verifying information, Community Notes allow any eligible user to contribute by adding notes to posts. These notes aim to provide context, corrections, or additional information to clarify or debunk claims made in posts. For a community note to be visible, it typically requires a consensus or approval from other users who might have diverse perspectives. This is intended to reduce bias by ensuring that only notes with broad agreement are shown.
Mark Zuckerberg has highlighted the shift towards community notes as moving back to ‘roots around free expression’. This approach is less restrictive and more aligned with platforms prioritizing open discourse. It engages the user base more directly in content moderation, potentially increasing community trust and involvement in maintaining platform integrity. Further, with a vast amount of content generated daily on social media, community notes would handle the volume better than a limited number of self-styled fact-checkers. This shift by Meta reflects a broader industry trend towards user-empowered content moderation, with the goal of fostering open dialogue.
This is perfectly alright as well as more democratic. Only those who believed themselves to be some sort of elites and who now find their monopoly on information threatened by this are dismayed.
Double standards of the fact-checkers
On March 21, 2024, the Supreme Court stayed a government notification of March 20 establishing the Press Information Bureau’s Fact Checking Unit (PIB FCU) to act as a ‘deterrent’ against the creation and dissemination of fake news or misinformation regarding the ‘business’ of the Centre. The changes had dictated that social media platforms make ‘reasonable efforts’ to not ‘publish, share or host’ information about the government that the unit deemed to be ‘fake, false or misleading’. The Supreme Court did not comment on the merits or legality of the Rule 3(1)(b)(v) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, saying the impact of the provision on the fundamental rights to free speech and expression would be analysed by the High Court.
Interestingly, one of the petitioners had contended that the establishment of the FCU would result in ‘every social media intermediary pulling down content for fear of consequences’ and that ‘this will set a deep chilling effect on free speech’. “By threatening intermediaries with the loss of their statutory safe harbour should they fail to take down content that the Central government’s FCU identifies as fake, false or misleading, the Rule coerces intermediaries to execute a regime of self-interested censorship of online content relating to the business of the Central government,” the petition said.
Another petitioner had said the implementation of the FCU run by the government would ensure that only the Centre would have monopoly over the truth. As you can clearly see, they have problems with fact-checking by the government but they want it to be done freely by private people, irrespective of how dumb they are.
There are no absolute truths; where is the question of fact-checking?
Question is who decides and on what authority that something is the ultimate truth? Even scientific matters are regularly challenged on merit. And they are not conspiracy theories. There are a large number of scientists in the world who challenge the merit of COVID vaccinations that were officially supported by the WHO and almost all national governments, and attribute several adverse health effects to them. You can search in Google yourself. However, for your convenience, I refer to a 2023 research paper in a most reputed journal like Lancet by five scientists from University of British Columbia, Johns Hopkins University, and University of Hong Kong.
They show that there is indeed an increased risk of post-vaccine myocarditis. In view of that, Hong Kong implemented a single dose mRNA COVID-19 vaccine policy on September 15, 2021 for adolescents (age 12–17 years). They also point out that a vaccine injury compensation program is available in Hong Kong. Hong Kong citizens who have suffered major complications (including vaccine-induced myocarditis) are eligible to apply for injury compensation.
So where is the absolute truth regarding the safety or ill-effects of COVID vaccines? On what grounds can you haul somebody over the coals for posting on social media about the adverse effects of COVID vaccines? More importantly, where and how does the question of fact-check even arise here? Who has got the authority to fact-check and on what grounds? For every research paper cited in support of something, an equal number of papers against a position can be cited. Then, are the fact-checkers masquerading as journalists qualified scientists? Most of them are likely to have very poor academic credentials.
Even in respect of the relatively simple and not-so-pretentious political fact-checking in respect of statements made by public figures, the research paper titled ‘Cross-checking journalistic fact-checkers…’ of David M. Markowitz et al concedes that defining what is false and misleading is ambiguous, and fact-checkers may differ in what counts as truthful, false, or misleading. Moreover, they point out; fact-checkers may overlook or misinterpret evidence or apply different standards for assessing the degree of truthfulness in a statement.
Fact-checkers intentions, credentials and competence all are farcical
Is fact-checking a science? No! Has any methodology been recognized as scientific through peer-reviewed publications? No! Is there any recognized course, degree or certification for this? No! Then, who cares for some journalists claim?
In fact, the move towards Community Notes started because of the known biases of the so-called fact-checkers, mostly from the left-liberal cabal. The Scientific American paper titled ‘The Psychology of Fact-Checking’ by Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams concludes that their biases can shroud the very truth they seek. They recommend that having each side’s fact-checkers checked by the other side’s fact-checkers could lead to an infinite regress toward an uncertain truth; but this is preferable to belief in an absolute truth that might not exist.
At present, the fact-checking partners ‘rate’ the content, which Meta then labels as ‘false’, ‘altered’, ‘partly false’ or ‘missing context’, with reduced distribution for such posts, and loss of ability to monetise and advertise for repeat offenders. Fact-checking thus directly affects such posts’ visibility and engagement. This is obviously ‘feudal’ in character and amounts to a sort of censorship. Community Notes add context without necessarily impacting the original post’s visibility.
Readers may like to read Matt Palumbo’s ‘Fact-Checking the Fact-Checkers: How the Left Hijacked and Weaponized the Fact-Checking Industry’ for learning more about the machinations of the fact-checkers.
Legal position in India regarding so-called fake news
The current legal position regarding fake news derives from the Supreme Court judgment in the case of Alakh Alok Srivastava (2020). Two petitions were filed in the Supreme Court in March 2020 about the plight of migrant labourers following the lockdown imposed by the government in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was implied that the government was not doing enough for them.
In response, the government referred to the various steps it had taken. The government also alleged that that the exodus of migrant labourers was triggered due to panic created by some fake/misleading news and social media and sought a direction to prevent fake and inaccurate reporting whether intended or not, either by electronic print or social medial which will cause panic in the society.
The Supreme Court said it expected the media (print, electronic or social) to maintain a strong sense of responsibility and ensure that unverified news capable of causing panic is not disseminated. The Court added, “We do not intend to interfere with the free discussion about the pandemic, but direct the media refer to and publish the official version about the developments.” Earlier, in April 2019, the Supreme Court had refused to interfere with a PIL aimed at regulating misinformation on social media. Then, in June 2020, a review petition was also dismissed.
The fact-checkers’ anxiety betrays their real intent
In India, 11 organisations currently partner with Meta through its third-party fact-checking network (3PFCN), that was launched in December 2016. For some fact-checkers, Meta partnerships account for over half their revenue. Truth or patent falsehood be damned, the revenue is the real reason, they are making all this noise.
If they have any brains, let them carry on with their business or research of fact-checking with their own resources. Why cry over what Zuckerberg does? It is reported that five Indian fact-checkers have written to Zuckerberg. Their dependence on foreign sources clearly shows that they do not have any brains of their own and they were actually willing or inadvertent pawns in the hands of foreign agenda.
Also Read: Deepfake videos will prove to be a nightmare for the courts
Legally, the position is simple. Everybody has a right to say whatever he wants to say. Some self-styled, self-proclaimed so-called ‘fact-checkers’ cannot claim a monopoly on truth and label everybody else a peddler of fake news, because there is no absolute truth anyway.
Fact-checkers can’t assume extra-constitutional authority
An argument of fact-checkers that everybody from cricketers to film stars is giving cures for diabetes and cancer and hence they need to be fact checked is puerile. Private enterprises or private individuals do not have any legal or moral right to educate people. As we showed above, there are no absolute truths and what is their competence to educate the public anyway? If anybody has to take action under Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954, it is the government, not them. Did the Supreme Court not make Ramdev apologize unconditionally and abide by the undertaking to not publish misleading advertisements of their herbal products in violation of the 1954 Act and making derogatory statements about other systems of treatment?
If public loves stupidity; public deserves stupidity. So be it. If the public is so stupid as to depend on social media for knowledge, they deserve what floats there. They have every right to wallow in whatever they like or want to believe in. Who cares? After all, there are many ‘Flat Earthers’ also in the world. Has their belief impeded the progress of science in the world? One can endeavour to become knowledgeable himself; he has no right to become ‘guardian’ of the public’s mind. Natural stupidity is any day better than ‘motivated’ or ‘agenda-driven’ stupidity of the fact-checkers imposed on others.
