Both the GraniteGrok Facebook Page and the Group are frequent targets for left-leaning “fact-checkers.” These folks are so good that they create the fact (we never asserted) then tell Facebook we did and label it fake news.
Related: Facebook Lets Third-Party Flag Me For Fake News Then Asks Me To Boost the Content
Facebook’s algorithm says duh, okay, and they throttle our content.
This is not a new problem. If you recall, a few months ago, I shared some satire from the Babylon Bee. The “Fact Checker” accused me of thinking it real, labeled it fake news, and we got the ruler across the knuckles. While, at the exact same time, Facebook’s other algorithm, was prompting me to give them money to boost the exact same content so more people could see it!
One algorithm knows not what the other is doing.
Our most famous case of fake news that was not fake was Ed Mosca’s piece challenging Cindy Warmington (and NH Dems) lie about Student Voting.
Anybody who bothered to read the post would know the LIE referred to the DemocRATS’ false claim ON THEIR WEBSITE that nonresidents can vote in New Hampshire and remain nonresidents.
Ed’s point was that students can vote in New Hampshire but if they do that is a declaration of residency. Which is true. But Fake Fact Checker Lead Stories never even mentions this and instead exhausts thousands of words pretending Ed was saying College Students can’t vote and proving that false-assumption fake news.
Facebook never challenges this straw man attack and dings us for posting fake news when it was the Fact checker who posted the fake news.
We’ve also got two posts pulled because Facebook says they are hate speech but I can’t tell what they blacklisted. There’s no way to see the content once they’ve disappeared it in the night (and probably removed and sold its organs on the Black Market).
The problem, as I note in my remarks to Facebook, is that we can’t see what offended them to police for that content ourselves nor can I challenge their presumption (that it is hate speech) – which I most certainly would. And that is probably why I can’t see it anymore. But I made the point to them, nonetheless. A point that I have made with regard to the Facebook Group as well.
In the cramped little window, they provide to document the object of your concern.
(1) Our page has been limited based on third-party fact-checkers who created a fact never asserted in two different articles that were never even in the original article we shared – then declared that false. The fact check is the fake news, not the actual news we shared. (first two items in screengrab). (2) You need a way for admins to see what was declared hate speech by Facebook or they can’t possibly police it or, god forbid, challenge the charge.
I’m not holding my breath.
Facebook has no incentive to police their own police and allowing us to do it is more of an administrative hassle than ignoring us. But I’d like to think there is some incentive to at least have fact-checking that is not itself fake news. And we’re not the only ones who’ve received this same treatment from Lead Stories or any of their other so-called fact-checkers.
Eventually, folks will get tired of this crap and pull their ad revenue out and use it elsewhere – which is what we have planned until further notice.
