Soon to be out of a job, Meta’s fact-checkers battle a blaze of wildfire conspiracy theories

Channel 3000 News/CNN ^ | January 13, 2025 | CNN Bitter LOSERS

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Just hours after Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg announced last Tuesday that the social media giant would eliminate its US-based fact-checkers, the iconic hills above Los Angeles began to smolder.

As fire crews scrambled in vain to contain the resulting firestorm, the fact-checking partners, still working for Meta, took on their own fight: trying to slow viral misinformation rapidly spreading around the wildfires.

Rumor and speculation about the disaster began to swirl online like glowing embers, before eventually becoming a wild blaze of vast conspiracy theories.

“Cutting fact checkers from social platforms is like disbanding your fire department,” said Alan Duke, a former CNN journalist who co-founded the fact-checking outlet Lead Stories, one of dozens of such organizations around the world funded by Meta.

Meta has not announced when it will formally end its fact-checking program, but a person familiar with the program said it could be eliminated as soon as March. The decision will force some of Meta’s fact-checking partners to lay off staff or shut down once the company’s financial support dries up.

Duke, a Los Angeles resident, could see the orange glow of the fires from his home as he and his colleagues at Lead Stories worked to tackle conspiracy theories about the blazes that have left at least two dozen people dead.

“Fires and looting. A regular Democrat run city,” read the caption on an Instagram video showing men removing a television from a home amid the fires.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Unlike fact-checking journalists, however, community users are not bound by ethical guidelines to provide fair and accurate assessments. Fact checks in the form of Community Notes have been added to posts on X, including on a video with more than 500,000 views that falsely purported to show the fire approaching the Hollywood sign (An assessment by Lead Stories found the video was likely created using artificial intelligence).

[Jane Long]

Maybe Greasy Gavin will hire all of them.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

“Cutting fact checkers from social platforms is like disbanding your fire department,” said Alan Duke, a former CNN journalist who co-founded the fact-checking outlet Lead Stories

Here we go. Now that the biased, politically-motivated fact checkers have been canned, the MSM storyline is going to blame every false fact that shows up on the internet on them being canned. And when you have a disaster like the LA fires, that's a great opportunity to use tragedy to score some points.

[1malumprohibitum]

Good lord! The world functioned just fine w/o “fact checkers” for like ever. Sure there was misinformation but so what. People today are cloaking themselves in so much bs sanctimony like the world will end because somebody thought a Mexican illegal set the palisades fire ( when actually it was an illegal Venezuelan).

[Ignatz]

“Cutting fact checkers from social platforms is like disbanding your fire department,” said Alan Duke

I think a closer simile would be, “It’s like cutting the FEMA response to the Southeastern United States.”

[Sirius Lee]

You know how the game is played. “The Hollywood sign on fire was an AI fake, therefore any criticism of newsom on or bass is just disinformation.”

[TigerClaws]

“FACT CHECKER” = anti-Free Speech Soviet-style arbiters of the truth who push their own political agenda and communist worldview on others.

They love the “Hollywood sign burning” because that justifies anyone questioning the empty Palisades reservoir, etc.

Fires and looting in a Democrat-run city. How is that not at least a reasonable description of the events in Los Angeles?

At least now Dems can’t wait for Trump to be POTUS so they can blame hi for everything again for four years.

[Maelstrom]

I have in fact NOT seen a lot of fact-checking journalists with any ethical guidelines provide fair and accurate assessments.

Or is that just a coincidence?

Let me go check Hunter Biden’s laptop again.

[Steve_Seattle]

"You know how the game is played. “The Hollywood sign on fire was an AI fake, therefore any criticism of Newsom or Bass is just disinformation.”

Bingo. Meanwhile, these smelly "fact checkers" are silent when the most outrageous claims are made about Trump.

[metmom]

*Fact checking* is a recently fabricated *profession*.

They just don’t want to have to go out and actually work for a living.

[The_Harlequin]

Today’s media fact checkers are just Assistant Ministers of Propaganda, subservient to the State.

[XRdsRev]

If fact checkers were truly unbiased, they would be beneficial. People believe a lot of things that are just plain untrue. Presidents do it, Congresspeople do it and everybody does it. People in general refuse to do any due diligence when they are presented information that easily could be fact checked.

[Seruzawa]

Oh no! Anyhow ...