Facebook has admitted in a court of law that such fact checks are not factual at all, but merely opinions.
People send me stuff.
As we have previously reported, journalist John Stossel is suing Facebook after Facebook’s ‘fact checkers’ labeled climate change information that Stossel posted as “false and misleading”. In the middle of all this is the nefarious website “Climate Feedback” which has a bunch of climate zealots that write up what they claim are “fact checks” for articles, videos, and news stories they disagree with.
Facebook just blew the “fact check” claim right out of the water in court.
In its response to Stossel’s defamation claim, Facebook responds on Page 2, Line 8 in the court document (download it below) that Facebook cannot be sued for defamation (which is making a false and harmful assertion) because its ‘fact checks’ are mere statements of opinion rather than factual assertions.
Opinions are not subject to defamation claims, while false assertions of fact can be subject to defamation. The quote in Facebook’s complaint is,
“The labels themselves are neither false nor defamatory; to the contrary, they constitute protected opinion.”
So, in a court of law, in a legal filing, Facebook admits that its ‘fact checks’ are not really ‘fact’ checks at all, but merely ‘opinion assertions.’
This strikes me as public relations disaster, and possibly a looming legal disaster for Facebook, PolitiFact, Climate Feedback and other left-leaning entities that engage in biased “fact checking.”
Such “fact checks” are now shown to be simply an agenda to supress free speech and the open discussion of science by disguising liberal media activism as something supposedly factual, noble, neutral, trustworthy, and based on science.
It is none of those.
Here is the court filing:
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Why is the image of Rachel Maddow forming in my mind ?
Perhaps, it because to avoid losing a defamation suit, she got the judge to say you shouldn’t believe a word coming from her mouth had a factual content.
It’s not just the facts that are misleading, some of the graphs published can also be
misleading, especially when they are changed, for no good reason, other than to hide
a cooling trend.
I have just notice that the Polar Portal graphs have been changed as of the 7th December The previous graphs showed much thicker and extensive sea ice than previous years and the colour coding showed large area of red and yellow, indicating
thick ice from 3 to 4 metres thick, The graphs now show predominantly green and blue, indicating thinner ice.
The same colour coding was changed last year, in the Pacific, when the Pacific
showed a sudden cooling.
How can this be justified, as no comparison can be made with previous years.
It’s strange that adjustments are always made, when global temperatures are cooling. Or when historic temperature show it was warmer in the past.
Faebookers, Twitterati, et al publish truth to facts. Seek diversity in sources to reduce errors.
Meta-heads (not Metal) and Twits.
In other news: the sky is blue, space is black, the sun is blinding, and the neighbor’s dog still takes a dump exclusively next to my mailbox.
Sometimes the sky is grey or white, depending on water saturation. And occasionally the neighbor’s dog walks a bit farther out into the green grass, but not often enough, eh.
Stossel was censored by Facebook based on a “fact” check. Surely the court won’t allow such a self serving relabeling to twist out of the suit. They themselves have advised users that they will censor based on fact checks. Stossel should also include Climate Feedback as a defendant in his claim.
Maybe this precedent has status if a ruling against FB occurs for other cases such as Exxon Knew, etc.
See the Stossel video, linked in the “Related” section at the end of the post. The crux of Stossel’s suit is not that Facebook censored him, but that they defamed him by claiming he make specific statements that he did not in fact make and have refused to correct those claims.
The shoddy/biased “fact-checking” is just setting the context for the actual litigation issue.
So they are just opinion pieces sooooooo whoever wrote the opinion piece is now liable for slander / deformation and anything a good lawyer can come up with .
Typical of civil litigation, defendant lawyer will throw everything they can think of into their defense to win the argument and ignore the larger picture.
However, for me, Stossel is another victim of Peer Review is Pal Review. ie Climate Feedback
“Facebook has admitted in a court of law that such fact checks are not factual at all, but merely opinions.”
Who’d of thought as it’s not obvious.
Makes them publishers too, I’d say
For those who haven’t abandoned FB already…
…make sure you post that image on every fake FB fact check for everybody to see.
So now, by their own admission, they opened up themselves to freedom of speech lawsuits, as they are suppressing it, and others opinions, by facebook jailing “repeat offenders” as well as suppressing actual facts, promoting political agendas that favors certain actors, even during ongoing elections.
You do not have a right to freedom of speech when posting on a private website. The first amendment only restricts what the US government can do not what private individuals can do. Otherwise publishers would be forced to publish any book submitted, newspapers would be forced to publish every letter to the editor etc. Furthermore freedom of speech also applies to facebook since as a US company it has the same first amendment rights as a US citizen and so can write what it likes on its website.
Nonsense. The restrictions on the federal government as laid out in the Bill of Rights are not the origin of your rights. You have a right to free speech inherent in you as a human being. No one can take your rights without due process, whether they are government or otherwise. See the 10th amendment and the Declaration of Independence.
They’re supposed to be acting as a platform, not a publisher. Since they are acting as the latter, they aren’t under the protections of the Communications Decency Act section 230.
Also, it’s pretty obvious to everyone that they, Twitter, Google, are acting as an arm of the gov’t, since they’re protecting only Democrat speech.
Correct, FB, Twitter and Alphabet are operating as State actors rather than as private companies. This is the classical definition of fascism (as opposed to the contorted NewSpeak definition. )
The Stossel suit is not over censorship; it is for defamation. Stossel claims Facebook made and published defamatory statements. Whether Facebook is a publisher or a platform is not relevant to the defamation issue.
Ah, the old “libertarian” gambit adopted by progressives everywhere that private companies can do whatever they want to, unless, of course, the progressives wish to force certain less enlightened private companies to provide goods and services against their wishes under public accommodation laws.
You are a public accommodation when it suits the governmen’ts purpose, and a private company when it suits the government’s purpose.
When an entity of any kind acts as the agent for government they are very much able to violate the first amendment in every way possible you are beclowning yourself
When has Izaak ever not beclowned him/her/itself? It’s pretty much SOP for every post he/she/it makes.
Izaak
That’s why capitalism is so liberating! The whole of the US is a US company. So no-one has any freedom of speech at all except for the small handful of corporation bosses?
Beautiful trick that even George Orwell didn’t think of: push all communication onto “private” platforms. Then freedom of expression completely disappears.
Speaking of Orwell, it appears that Orwell’s estate has determined that it is time to rewrite “1984”, this time from a feminist perspective.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/orwell-estate-approves-retelling-of-1984-from-feminine-perspective
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.[REDACTED]Feminism has no perspective that isn’t synonymous with Marxism.
Hello, Wha…t??? Myfacebook is not interested in truth; but only opinions? And every morning I check myfacebook for the news….now where do I go for my daily news? Corporate media: fox, cnn, msnbc, cnbc, cbs, nbc, disney????
Please advise….
The Matrix has been watching you Peter. Get up from your desk now. They are coming for you Peter.
In the words of Ronald Reagan, “Trust, but verify.”
It seems to that the tax authorities ought to be interested. It shows that FB is censoring content with ‘opinions’ which makes it a publisher instead of a platform.
I’ll choose facts instead….
NOAA SST-NorthAtlantic GlobalMonthlyTempSince1979 With37monthRunningAverage.gif (880×481) (climate4you.com)
Weird, it eyeballs as an approximate 7-year cycle on top of an approximate 70-year cycle (from other data sources).
Yes, and only Grifter trolls would see of these as uncorrelated random points.
I’d be hesitant declaring a 7 year cycle on data that has a 3 year filter applied.
That is why I qualified my statement, Mark. There is, however, a clear cyclical element to the data, no matter how graphed.
So, has Facebook engaged in fraud? Can the sued for fraud? Wire fraud?
No commercial type transaction took place….so no fraud
FACT CHECK: My opinion is more equal than your opinion!
More equitable? Diverse? Inclusive?
How much did they monetize from this French opinion team posing as fact checkers?
Facebook is free to join
That’s not how they got to their capitalization level.
I hope he wins Billions
Said it many times…companies like Tweeter and Facebook are PUBLISHERS, not just platforms. All of their special protections need to be stripped away unless they stop editing, censoring, and opinionating on the content.
(hmm, is “opinionating” even a word? Well, whatever it fits)
I believe the word you’re looking for is ‘opining’.
I think its pretty clear that Farcebook just admitted to misrepresenting their actions. They just admitted the lawsuit is valid
According to Facebook:
“Stossel’s claims focus on the fact-check articles written by Climate Feedback, not the labels affixed through the the Facebook platform. The labels themselves are neither false nor defamatory; … they constitute protected opinion.”
But if the labels “affixed” by Facebook are based on an article that can be proven demonstrably false (by Stossel or someone else), then the labels are “false”. Facebook’s “opinions” may be protected under the First Amendment, but they are still false. By the same argument, Stossel’s opinions are also protected under the First Amendment, whether or not they are true.
Then, it could be argued that if Facebook’s labels based on Climate Feedback’s “fact checkers”‘ false statements are false, then Facebook’s labels could be considered “defamatory” if they are used to cast doubt on Stossel’s claims, if they can be proven true.
For any issue, there are as many opinions as people who discuss it, but only ONE set of true facts. The discussion then centers on who are the “fact checkers”, and are they repeating real facts or merely parroting their own or someone else’s “opinion” which is protected from scrutiny by gate-keepers or peer-reviewers, where the publishers select the “peers” to screen out facts that contradict the narrative desired by the publishers?
Are “fact checkers” really doing the digging to verify whether something is true or false, or are they paid to repeat someone’s opinions, regardless of the real facts?
In any discussion or ‘debate’ progressives are likely to declare, by way of counter argument; “that’s a matter of opinion”. However that is not an argument. It’s gainsaying. Even though there can be several opinions. Generally only one is correct. That cannot be disqualified simply because others disagree with it.
If those are opinions, then they should be labeled as opinions.
Instead they were written in a manner such that the average reader would assume them to be statements of fact.
You’re right. A “protected opinion” is a form of editorializing. A publisher is entitled to do that., thereby controlling the debate. Therefore, they are bound by the laws of libel.
Minor typo. The statement
“The labels themselves are neither false nor defamatory; to the contrary, they constitute protected opinion.”
appears on line 7 & 8 of page 10 (not page 2) of the article’s attached court document.
When will the liars bear the brunt of the financial damage they do? The misallocation of capital is no joke to fight an imaginary problem and to create the illusion of runaway global warming rather than the obvious cynical weather patterns that are shown in ice cores and other proxy data that shows cycles of cooling and heating.
I’ve posted a ling to the WUWT article in Face Book. I will be interested to see how they handle it.
Two days later and two shares no one has seen my original post. However I took a screenshot of the that post and and made a second post with only the jpg image of the screenshot containing the substance. I was careful to not use any words that might be caught by a filter. I started receiving comments within minutes but no one said they had seen the original. So my impression is that Facebook was looking for and supressing posts dealing with the topic.
However, this morning I saw another post repeating the same information so maybe Facebook is letting up?
Now, 2~3 days after my original post + 2 reposts, Facebook has released one of them which it has dated to 1 day previously, presumably the time when the released it. Obviously they have had to think about it.