Facebook asks wolves to guard chicken coop

Mark Zuckerberg wants to protect Facebook users from "fake" news reports by hiring independent fact-checkers. The proposed list of checkers already reads like a Who's Who of Democratic Party partisan news analysts. 

But actually the plan might work out if Facebook provided a scoring system for each report. In that event readers could simply click on the "Fake News" score button to find accurate news reports.

The larger issue, however, is whether news consumers should be treated like small children by a social media site -- or any organization. Although a way around this sticky question would be if Facebook renamed itself "Imbeciles and Children Only."

Clinton Donor Soros, Fake News Disseminator WashPo Among Facebook Fact Checkers
01:40 17.12.2016 (updated 06:16)
Sputnik

George Soros, a long-time liberal operative for the Deep State and massive supporter of Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential bid, is among a list of those who will finance Facebook’s third-party fact checker.

On Thursday Facebook detailed a plan to fight ‘fake news,’ asking users to flag suspicious articles, in hopes of limiting bogus stories from winding up in the Facebook news feed. George Soros, a major Clinton supporter, is among the list of donors for International Fact Checking Network’s (IFCN) code of principles. The Mountain View, California, company will partner with mainstream outlets including ABC News, FactCheck and Snopes. Later that list was updated to include The Washington Post.

The code of principles states that the group is nonpartisan in approaching facts, but conservatives are clearly baffled and even outraged at Facebook’s reliance on mainstream media outlets. Ironically, The Washington Post’s most famous ‘fake news’ exposé was later [as much] acknowledged by the news outlet to itself be fake.

The Post had listed over 200 websites from across the political and economic spectrum, from an anonymous, recently-started website called PropOrNot. The site accused popular sites such as The Drudge Report, Zero Hedge, TruthOut, WikiLeaks, and Sputnik News of promoting false narratives and so-called Russian propaganda. After a host of groups, including some outlets not listed by the site, questioned PropOrNot’s findings, the Washington Post added an editor’s note saying, "The Post…does not itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot’s findings regarding any individual media outlet."

Adrian Chen of the New Yorker writes, “the prospect of legitimate dissenting voices being labelled fake news or Russian propaganda by mysterious groups of ex-government employees, with the help of a national newspaper, is even scarier,” than the prospect of bogus stories touted as true that favored Trump.

After the election, the social network was criticized for displaying news in a biased format. This prompted CEO Mark Zuckerberg to meet with so-called conservative ‘thought leaders’ where he promised that the site would give equal weight to different points of view.

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