OPINION:
When Donald Trump said last May he was "confident" that a vaccine would be ready by the end of 2020, the US president was upbraided by NBC with what has become in recent years a popular journalistic and political device: the "fact check". "Experts say he needs a 'miracle' to be right," the broadcaster declared.
Facebook used the same device last week on a piece from UnHerd that criticised the World Health Organization's Covid-19 investigation for dismissing the possibility the virus leaked from a Wuhan laboratory as "extremely unlikely". The social media platform labelled the article with a "false information" tag, though the virus's origins have not been established. Facebook alleged the article contained "information . . . that independent fact-checkers say is false". After UnHerd objected, Facebook apologised; three days later the White House expressed "deep concerns" about the WHO probe.
I find these examples troubling. In both cases it wasn't facts that were being checked. Perhaps Trump had no evidence to justify his confidence. But to "fact-check" his views feels to me like the politicisation of a device meant to support objectivity. Fact-checking can be a powerful tool in the fight against online falsehood. But it can be used as a means of censorship if not only facts but also opinions and narratives are checked.
Facebook's intervention is particularly concerning, especially in light of the company's decision to block postings from legitimate news organisations in Australia. It did not remove UnHerd's article entirely but its algorithms are programmed so that anything with a "false information" tag appears lower on users' newsfeeds.