Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to boot liberal partisan fact-checkers from his platforms is a welcome one, and it should be the end of any notion that the “fact-checkers” are anything but politically motivated censors.
Zuckerberg announced on Facebook that Meta would be shifting to a fact-checking system like X’s community notes, which allows users to fact-check posts and grade other users’ fact checks, requiring a level of agreement from users on the platform. That means Meta will no longer be empowering the liberal fact-checking cartel that pretentiously calls itself the “International Fact-Checking Network” to flag content on the site to be censored or shadowbanned.
Poynter, which launched the IFCN and runs PolitiFact, is obviously upset by this. PolitiFact Executive Director Aaron Sharockman said it wasn’t the fault of “independent journalists” serving as fact-checkers that Meta was censoring fact-checked posts. That is not entirely wrong, and Zuckerberg shoulders plenty of blame for his fickle commitment to free speech that only seems to rise when the Democrats he so fears don’t hold the institutional power to threaten him. But PolitiFact and other fact-checkers knew they were taking part in a censorship regime for, according to Sharockman, over eight years. They were a willing and indeed enthusiastic part of this process.
That is made worse when you consider the obvious bias of the liberal-slanted PolitiFact. For example, the Media Research Center found that PolitiFact gave President-elect Donald Trump 201 “pants on fire” false ratings in 2024, while both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris received zero. Biden, a career fabulist who lies regularly and often even repeats lies that have already been disproven, has received just seven of those ratings going back to 2007, including just one his entire presidency. PolitiFact actively runs interference for Democratic politicians and liberal activist groups, such as teachers unions.
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The fact-checking industry is and has been a de facto Democratic communications operation that has anointed itself as above-it-all “independent journalists” to grant itself an unearned legitimacy. It is the same modus operandi of “disinformation reporters” and even basic, mainstream liberal journalists, who act as if their title alone is reality to avoid criticism for their provable liberal bias.
PolitiFact and other liberal fact-checkers should have no say in what content gets flagged on social media, as they have proven that they are biased and all too eager to play a part in a rigorous censorship regime. With X and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram moving away from this fact-checking model, this should be the end of the unearned influence of liberal partisans cloaking themselves as unbiased arbiters of the truth.