Sky News finds "fact checkers" on Facebook meddling in Aussie referendum

Sky News finds "fact checkers" on Facebook meddling in Aussie referendum – a dry run for the 2024 U.S. elections?

By ramontomeydw // 2023-08-30

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Conservative-leaning news outlet Sky News has found that so-called "fact checkers" on Facebook, which is under Mark Zuckerberg's Meta Platforms, are meddling in Australia's referendum. Jack Houghton of Sky News Australia investigated on the matter and discovered that these fact-checkers are running wild on Facebook in the Land Down Under. Australia is set to vote on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament (IVTP) referendum on whether to amend its constitution this fall. Citizens' votes will decide on the establishment of a new legislative advisory body comprising of Native Australians. The outlet established 17 IVTP fact-checks from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology's (RMIT) Fact Lab that Facebook affixed to content between May 3, 2023 and June 23, 2023. All of the content examined was related to the IVTP referendum – and Houghton observed a disturbing result. "The entire operation is a sham," he told "Bolt Report" host Andrew Bolt. "They seem to be just targeting views of people who are against the [IVTP referendum]. All of the 17 IVTP checks were checking semantics, slight verbal missteps or just comments from people who don't want the [referendum] to go ahead." "There was plenty of stuff on the 'Yes' side that could have been fact-checked," Hougton added. Such claims include political leaders who made claims oversimplifying the legislative process. Moreover, the Sky News investigator disclosed that Meta is complicit in this election interference on Facebook. He wrote: "Meta maintains its fact-checking operation is at arm's length and independent, but Sky News can reveal the tech giant signed a secret commercial contract directly with RMIT." The university's Fact Lab, he added, gets paid up to AU$740,000 ($478,410) a year from a Meta subsidiary in Ireland. Gabriela Pariseau, assistant editor in the Media Research Center's (MRC) Free Speech America division, put in her two cents on the issue. She wrote: "Fact-checkers rule the Wild West of Facebook and have now expanded their efforts to interfere in Australian elections."

Fact-checkers on Facebook have expired certifications

Houghton also pointed out that Meta defers to the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) to certify the credibility of its fact-checkers. Interestingly, the IFCN is funded by Hungarian globalist billionaire George Soros. But according to reports, both Facebook's parent firm and the Soros-funded group are allowing biased fact-checkers with expired credentials to play the role of speech police on the social media site. Houghton pointed out that the RMIT Fact Lab should not have been doing fact-checks between May and June 2023, as its certification expired in December 2022. RMIT also reportedly reportedly violated IFCN's Code of Principles, which forbids applicants from "unduly concentrating its fact-checking on any one side." As the investigator pointed out, RMIT's fact-checks focused mainly on those opposing the referendum in Australia. "Well, that's what's happening here," Houghton told Bolten. "But when we pointed this out to the IFCN, they said: 'Well, we don't care. We're not going to tell them how to follow the rule.'" "What that tells me is that this entire ecosystem that Zuckerberg … has set up, [isn't] working the way that they have told the public it works. So it's not just in Australia." (Related: The "fact check" censorship scam is finally being exposed, dismantled.) Pariseau agreed with Houghton, saying: "If Facebook fact-checkers can interfere in an election in Australia, then the platform can do it anywhere." She mentioned that this interference has already happened in the U.S., with Facebook using fact-checks as an excuse to censor news about Hunter Biden's so-called "laptop from hell." The censorship incidentally began just before the November 2020 elections. A study by MRC done that year found that the suppression of the story contributed to the theft of that year's presidential elections, which put incumbent President Joe Biden in the White House. Pariseau noted that 9.4 percent of Biden voters would have changed their vote in favor of former President Donald Trump had they been aware of the "laptop from hell." Visit FactCheck.news for more stories about fact checkers meddling in elections. Watch Jack Houghton remarking that the journalists who broke the Hunter Biden "laptop from hell" story have been vindicated. This video is from the NewsChips channel on Brighteon.com.

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Fact-checkers on Facebook have expired certifications

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