July 16, 2020

Vox: Elizabeth Warren wants answers on Facebook’s fact-checking loophole

Controversy over Facebook’s handling of climate misinformation is drawing scrutiny on Capitol Hill.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Tom Carper, Brian Schatz, and Sheldon Whitehouse are demanding more information from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg about a reported “loophole” for climate misinformation in Facebook’s fact-checking program.

In a letter sent to Zuckerberg on Wednesday, the senators reference a widely reported-on incident from last year that involved a story about climate change models written by two people from an organization called the CO2 Coalition and published by the Washington Examiner. The piece questioned the extent of climate change and was flagged as false by one of Facebook’s third-party fact-checking partners, Science Feedback. Five scientists contributed to the fact-check and concluded that the piece had “very low” scientific credibility and misled people about how climate change models actually work, and the post was labeled as false. The label was later removed after Facebook reiterated to Science Feedback its policies about fact-checking opinion.

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Read the full article on the Vox website here


By:  Rebecca Heilweil
Source: Vox