Along with Google, Facebook and his Meta parent has long been a (largely failed) target of the Media Research Center for conducting the common social-media practice of content moderation regarding lies and misinformation, which the MRC dishonestly portrays as “censorship.” Last year, the MRC uncritically published a series of “Facebook Files,” a series of partisan attacks on the company released by Republican Rep. Jim Jordan that complained the company worked with the government on moderation regarding malicious information about things like so-called election fraud and anti-vaxx fearmongering — which the MRC laughably portrayed as “constitutionally-protected speech.”
The MRC also continued to be angry that Facebook employed fact-checkers, ridiculously portraying the act of making sure that information on Facebook is accurate as “election interference.” Gabriela Pariseau whined in an August 2023 post that “Fact-checkers rule the Wild West of Facebook and have now expanded their efforts to interfere in Australian elections. But if they can do it there, they can do it in America too just in time for 2024.” A Sept. 5 post by Autumn Johnson complained that Facebook gave its readers the option to see lies and misinformation (though that’s not how she described it):
Meta is taking a less aggressive approach to content moderation by allowing users to “opt out” of its fact-checking program in a move that is already facing pushback.
The leftist-biased fact-checking program claims to “fight the spread of misinformation and provide people with more reliable information.” And until recently, the platform automatically limited certain fact-checked content in user feeds. But now, users can “opt out” of that measure and choose the content they want to see. Instead of hiding content fact-checked as false by a biased fact-checker, users can change this default setting to “don’t reduce” content flagged by a fact-checker.
[…]“WashPost’s whining that Meta (Facebook/Instagram) isn’t doing enough to censor is rich, and Clegg’s comments aren’t anything to write home about,” said MRC Free Speech America Director Michael Morris. “Like so many leftist compulsory unions across America, Meta’s new ‘opt out’ feature does not go far enough. If Big Tech companies were truly interested in promoting free speech, they would stop censoring speech that they disagree with and instead of providing an ‘opt-out,’ allow users the freedom to choose to opt in if they wish to not see certain content on their social media feeds.”
Yes, the MRC demands that lies and misinformation be allowed to spread on Facebook without any of those pesky facts getting in the way.
Catherine Salgado cheered in a Sept. 19 post that Facebook would have to comply with a court order on the subject:
A federal court of appeals has mandated that Meta comply with a subpoena requiring documentation related to the Big Tech company’s oppressive censorship of alleged COVID-19 “misinformation.”
Meta, which owns both Facebook and Instagram, among other platforms, initially refused to comply with the subpoena requiring documents related to the company’s extensive COVID-19 censorship. The D.C. District Court of Appeals ruled on Sept. 14 that Meta must comply with the subpoena, presenting evidence to undercut Meta’s claim that the subpoena’s exposure of anti-free speech censorship would violate First Amendment rights.
While the court did not seem to disagree with Meta’s anti-free speech philosophy of censorship, its insistence on compliance with the subpoena could expose just how extensive the Big Tech company’s COVID-19 censorship was.
Salgado offered no explanation for why she put “misinformation” in scare quotes, as if she falsely believes that there is no objective definition for the word. Still, she touted the partisan “Facebook files” her employer published that purportedly “expose how Meta’s platforms censored Americans at the behest of the federal government’s pressure.”