By Christopher Monckton
Die Welt reports that The Regional Court of Appeal in Karlsruhe has ruled against a fact-faking “fact-check” on Facebook. Last September Tichys Einblick (Tichy’s Insight), a centre-Right magazine in Germany, had published an open letter to the UN Secretary-General from more than 500 scientists, researchers and professionals in the worldwide Climate Intelligence Group (CLINTEL) saying that “There is no climate emergency”.
The “research” network Correctiv, which Facebook uses to ensure that non-Communist content is censored, had flagged Tichy’s article as “partly false”. Now a judge has found Facebook’s fact-faking “fact-check” false and has ordered it to be taken down, on pain of a fine of up to 250,000-euro fine or up to two years’ imprisonment in default.
According to Correctiv, not all of the signatories were scientists, some of the points in the open letter were incorrect, and the Party Line on climate had not been sufficiently taken into account. Tichy’s sued Facebook, saying that Correctiv’s supposed “fact-check” was merely an expression of opinion, and that Correctiv’s special status as Facebook’s fact-faker constituted unfair competition.
Tichy’s Insight complained that Correctiv’s assessment was not a fact-check at all, but a mere expression of opinion, and that its special status as a Facebook fact-checker constituted unfair competition.
The court found that, though both Tichy’s Insight and Correctiv could publish their articles on the social network, Correctiv was setting itself up as having the right to check and rate Tichy’s, establishing a false hierarchy of truths.
What is more, where Correctiv decides that a posting on Facebook is insufficiently far-Left, Facebook shadow-bans that posting to reduce its accessibility and hit-count. Worse, if users share the insufficiently Communistic posting, Facebook invariably attaches Correctiv’s commentary, together with a link so that readers can donate to Correctiv, giving it what the Court considered to be a further unreasonable commercial advantage.
In the first instance, the Mannheim Regional Court had ruled in favor of Correctiv. The Court of Appeal has now overturned the ruling. Correctiv is no longer allowed to mark the Tichy’s article with the words “No: they are not ‘500 scientists’: claims partly false”. The Court also ordered the bogus reference to “fact-checking” to be removed when the article is shared. If Facebook flouts the Court’s ruling, it faces an administrative fine of up to 250,000 euros or up to two years in prison.
The Karlsruhe Court’s ratio decidendi is that the link to the soi-disant “fact-check” is misleading. Correctiv’s fact-faking had overwhelmingly concentrated on the alleged errors in the open letter rather than to Tichy’s reporting.
Joachim Steinhöfel, who represented Tichy’s insight, described the Appeal Court’s judgment as a victory for freedom of opinion: “The fundamental question for decision by the Court was who should decide what is right and wrong in an open society. This case marks the beginning of the end of Facebook’s current ‘fact-checking’ system.”
However, the Court stressed that it had not decided on “the legality of fact-checks on Facebook in general”.
Commenting on the ruling, Correctiv said that the Court had only found its “fact-check” on the Tichy’s article misleading: “Therefore, the Court has questioned neither the Facebook fact-checking system nor our activities in general. Now we are waiting for the full judgment.Will then decide whether and how the proceedings will continue. Regardless, we will continue our work against fake news unabated.”
Meanwhile, Naomi Seibt’s lawyer has written to Reuters to insist upon corrections to a misleading “fact-check” article about her case against the State Media Authority in North-Rhine Westphalia, which had ordered her to take down two of her climate videos or face fines totaling $2640 or up to 14 days’ in prison in default.
Reuters had repeated the Authority’s press statement to the effect that it had not levied a fine on Naomi. In fact its “administrative act” – effectively a judgment issued by it in a case to which it is a party and without hearing Naomi’s side of the case – had menaced her with fines of 1000 euros plus 200 euros costs for each video unless she took the videos down.
Reuters had also said Naomi had not replied to its request for comment, but Naomi did not recall having received any such request. Finally, Reuters had said Naomi had been unable to answer the Authority’s allegations, when in fact she is able to answer them and is appealing against the Authority’s self-judgment.
That’s a bit of a kick in the Bollox for FB.
HeHeHe…………
My country of birth has an unfortunate history of using harsh administrative tools to silence dissent. Those knuckleheads really haven’t learned much. They probably think this okay since it’s being done for the right reasons. Whatever. We fight on.
If leftards didn’t have double standards they wouldn’t have any at all, as the Judge pointed out.
“The “research” network Correctiv, which Facebook uses to ensure that non-Communist content is censored…”
non-communist content?
Maybe they should censor “communist content”.
Just sayin…
– JPP
> If Facebook flouts the Court’s ruling, it faces an administrative fine of up to 250,000 euros or up to two years in prison.
This!
Reuters had also said Naomi had not replied to its request for comment, but Naomi did not recall having received any such request.
Ther’s no obligation to answer to media requests 😀
Deutsche Welle is another German media/propaganda outfit that is drunk on the climate Kool-Aid.
Does anyone read the phrase “fact-check” and not translate this immediately to “lies, BS, and other leftard crap”?
Impressionable kids, I guess.
Mockton’s support for Naomi is vigorous (there’s a “but” coming) and helpful, but he waters down his points by assuming climate-crisis-believers are Communist, or even left-wing.
Evidence shows conclusively that the effect, on all life, from using fossils fuels for our energy is a slightly beneficial one – nothing else.
A belief in any -ism is compatible with how Naomi, Moncton and I think on the subject.
FB is not a person. How do you put them in prison?
Calling Facebook censorship “communist” is really too kind m’lord. Stalinist is closer to the reality.
THat’s a much clearer statement on Naomi, thanks. This only has to get to court where the right to express the facts to challenge the unprovable or false assertions of authority are actually well demonstrated by the evidence, so the damage to the climate racket will be amplified many times.
e.g. facts and the absolute right to express them become important, so more people check for themselves.
Today:
Mark Zuckerberg Says Social Media Giants Shouldn’t Be In Position To Fact-Check Users
FCC Commissioner on Trump social media crackdown: companies should leave ‘speech police business’
Well I don’t know how German or EU works, but here in the US the social media companies have enjoyed a shielding from lawsuit, but now they are absuing that shielding granted by Congress.
It’s called Section 230 and it lives inside the Communications Decency Act of 1996, and it gives websites broad legal immunity: With some exceptions, online platforms can’t be sued for something posted by a user — and that remains true even if they act a little like publishers, by moderating posts or setting specific standards.
So but now with political correctness run amok on the Left and the Cancel Culture running to shutdown any dissenting opinions, they are censoring twitter posts, Facebook post, and YouTube videos. Google is skewing search results to politically favored sites.
They have immunity, but that could change if they keep censoring conservative views and views skeptical of the climate change scam.
fact-faking “fact-check” false…doesn’t that make the fake fact factual?
This basically boils down to who is fact checking the fact checkers? It is a good ruling.
“Now a judge has found Facebook’s fact-faking “fact-check” false and has ordered it to be taken down, on pain of a fine of up to 250,000-euro fine or up to two years’ imprisonment in default.”
It seems that German law is sometimes popular here, sometimes not.
“Joachim Steinhöfel, who represented Tichy’s insight, described the Appeal Court’s judgment as a victory for freedom of opinion”
So what about Correctiv’s freedom of opinion? Or Facebook’s? They are being threatened with a fine for expressing an opinion. Tichy was merely subject to a disagreeable opinion.
But as usual, there are no links offerred where we could check for ourselves on what happened. Here is Die Welt.
Someone needs to tell Monckton that red-baiting, like him, is so 1950’s.
Meanwhile:
“A federal appeals court is rejecting claims that tech companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter and Apple have conspired to suppress conservative viewpoints on their platforms.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Wednesday affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit that was filed by the conservative legal organization Freedom Watch and far-right activist Laura Loomer. Freedom Watch and Loomer alleged that the Silicon Valley giants were coordinating together to silence conservative viewpoints and that they were violating the First Amendment and antitrust policies.
“The district court dismissed the complaint, holding that Freedom Watch had standing to sue but failed to allege colorable legal claims,” the judges wrote in their decision. “On appeal, we reach the same conclusion.””
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/499808-appeals-court-rejects-claim-facebook-twitter-suppress-conservative-views
WHERE’S THE BEEF?
https://youtu.be/riH5EsGcmTw
Back in 1984, Wendy’s launched a wonderful series of commercials called “WHERE’S THE BEEF?”.
About the same time, the IPCC launched its fake scary story about catastrophic manmade global warming, aka CAGW, aka dangerous chaotic climate change, aka blah blah blah…
Since then, competent climate scientists have challenged that fraudulent story, and have provided literally dozens of credible facts that disprove that overheated hypothesis.
However, that scientific debate did not happen, because the hotheads of global warming refused to debate – they had no credible arguments – they had nothing, and they knew it.
Instead, they used Goebbels/Alinsky propaganda tactics to slander and persecute the honest scientists who challenged them – competent scientists who knew that climate change was primarily natural.
Why did this debacle happen? Because the very-scary global warming story was never about the climate. Global warming / climate change alarmism was always a false front for the far-left’s totalitarian political objectives – the drive to dictatorship. Remember that important fact then next time you hear anyone bleating about “saving the planet from climate change”.
The ability to predict is the best objective measure of scientific and technical competence. Every very-scary prediction of runaway global warming and climate chaos made by the global warming alarmists has failed to materialize. They are so far-left they’ve never been right!
So “WHERE’S THE BEEF? ”. The global warming fraudsters have been 100% wrong for decades and they knew it. Nobody should believe them about anything!
Regards, Allan MacRae
THE RADICAL GREEN ROAD TO VENEZUELA – POVERTY, MISERY AND DICTATORSHIP
By Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng., September 20, 2019
wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/20/the-radical-green-road-to-venezuela-poverty-misery-and-dictatorship/
[excerpts]
The following quotations by prominent leftists provide further support for these facts.
“The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”
Club of Rome, “The First Global Revolution”, by Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider, 1991
“…one has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. Instead, climate change policy is about how we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth…”
IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer, speaking in November 2010
“We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
Prof. Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, in the journal “Discover”
“A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.”
“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”
Dr. Paul Ehrlich, Anne Ehrlich, and Dr. John Holdren, Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment, 1970
“The threat of environmental crisis will be the international disaster key to unlock the New World Order.”
former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev, 1996
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme, Rio Climate Summit, 1992
“The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing.”
Christopher Manes, Earth First!
“I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems.”
John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal
“I must confess that I am tempted to ask for reincarnation as a particularly deadly virus.”
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, husband to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Foreword to If I Were an Animal (1987) by Fleur Cowles ISBN 978068806150
“A global warming treaty [Kyoto] must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the [enhanced] greenhouse effect.”
U.S. Deputy Assistant of State Richard Benedick, Rio Climate Summit, 1992
“No matter if the science of global warming is all phony… climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
Christine Stewart, former Canadian Minister of the Environment, Calgary Herald interview, 1988
“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.”
Timothy Wirth, former U.S. undersecretary of state for global issues, Rio Climate Summit, 1992
“The goal now is a socialist, redistributionist society, which is nature’s proper steward and society’s only hope.”
David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club, founder of Friends of the Earth
____________
The green extremists in Canada, the USA, Britain and the remaining democracies are saboteurs of our economies and enemies of democracy, whose true intent is to use the global warming smokescreen to destroy our prosperity and restrict our freedoms – by transforming our countries into socialist dictatorships.
Radical green extremists have cost society trillions of dollars and many millions of lives. For example, the effective banning of DDT and radical green opposition to golden rice have blinded and killed tens of millions of children.
Green energy and CO2 abatement schemes, driven by false fears of catastrophic global warming, have severely damaged the environment and squandered trillions of dollars of scarce global resources that should have been allocated to serve the real, immediate needs of humanity. Properly allocated, these wasted funds might have ended malaria and world hunger.
The number of shattered lives caused by radical-green activism rivals the death tolls of the great killers of the 20th Century – Stalin, Hitler and Mao. Radical greens advocate similar extreme-left totalitarian policies and are indifferent to the resulting environmental damage and human suffering… … and if unchecked, radical environmentalism will cost us our freedom.
Facebook is classed as a utility and as such should not be fact checking. It should remain neutral.
Farce Book Fake Check is analogous to empowering the wolves to fact check the sheep, before selecting a tasty one for dinner.
Meanwhile here is the take down of Reuters’ fake Factcheck:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2020/05/28/reuters-fake-factcheck/
Don’t see the point in repeatedly referring to Communism. Makes you sound like some old thing left over from the Cold War.
“Fact checkers” are invariably negativist left wingers incapable of rational thought. They can be found by the hundreds in any downtown bar. Mega rich who don’t like voters can find them by the hundreds, and they work cheap.