Facebook and Factcheck.org flat out lied in an attempt to steer readers away from a viral True Pundit story last week that revealed China, NOT Russia hacked Hillary Clinton’s emails while she was Secretary of State.
The almighty, self-appointed sentinels of Conservative news content fabricated the report about True Pundit, notifying Facebook readers that the story was false. That was simply a lie. But neither Facebook nor FactCheck revealed they had added their own News content to True Pundit’s original story and THEN debunked the concocted content.
That is certainly dirty pool, especially for a an alleged fact-checking organization and a social media platform who purports to deal fairly with Conservatives.
“Truth is you don’t alter a story you are fact checking and then blast the original source for the inaccuracies you added,” said Thomas Paine, True Pundit’s chief muckraker. “That’s the kind of laziness that gets your ass sued.
If this is fact checking, then we can certainly do without it. Our story is accurate and true but we cannot say the same for the alleged fact checking.”
Paine said no one at Facebook or FactCheck has the journalistic chops or sources to vet a national security story anyway but in this instance, they stepped over the line and used fabricated content to needlessly hammer the Conservative site True Pundit.
“A sucker punch,” Paine said. “I expected more from Factcheck Director Eugene Kiely. He used to have a stellar reputation. I guess things have changed.”
What happens when Facebook’s highly touted fact checkers of conservative news lie and manipulate the facts just as they have in this situation? What are the damages for swaying readers — ultimately censoring the news — using manipulated falsehoods cooked up by the fact checker?
Isn’t this the sweeping fear that Congress grilled Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg about on the Hill?
Here is what went down on Friday and how it went down: FactCheck lifted content from a separate story on YourNewswire.com story alleging former FBI lawyer Lisa Page withheld information on whether the FBI knew that China had hacked the DNC server.
True Pundit’s original story — which also featured Page — never discussed the DNC hack, only the hacking of Hillary’s emails and server. But FactCheck deceivingly added that content to its story, failing to stipulate True Pundit’s story never mentioned the DNC. Instead, FactCheck went out of its way to make it look like True Pundit did allege China hacked the DNC. But that never happened. FactCheck then contacted Lisa Page’s attorney who denied page divulged to House lawmakers that China hacked the DNC.
But True Pundit never said it did. And never referenced any cover up on Page’s behalf. FactCheck manipulated the story to make it appear that way and then flagged the story by issuing an alert with Facebook to stop readers on Facebook from seeing the content.
Fake News from Facebook & FactCheck.org that lied about True Pundit illustrated in the above Facebook graphic.
“These people never even reached out to us,” Paine said. “I’m sure that was the point, to make us look like idiots but they are the liars here. Even the headline of their notice was fabricated because it said ‘Stories Falsely Claim Page Blamed Hacking on China.’ Not our story but they lumped it in any way to deceive the readers. Plain and simple, this is a disgrace.”
But by Friday night, the deceptive reporting had backfired on FactCheck and Facebook who were attacked on Twitter for not calling it straight.
I see they worked their disinfo Magic. Parroted your story then changed enough details to discredit the whole thing. Top level disinfo agents strike again. Mofos need to 🔥🔥🔥🔥
— Deep Diver KAG (@RyanOlah2) July 21, 2018
Their “fact checking” was a complete exercise in #FakeNews. In addition to conflating your article with other comments that DID make the china claim, they referenced the fact free #ICA from last January as “proof” that Russians hacked the DNC. The ICA is opinion only, not fact.
— A Voice of Liberty (@avoiceofliberty) July 21, 2018
That’s how they “debunk” claims. The embellish the original claim (by embellish I mean straight-up lie) and then disprove that twisted claim.
— EllenBlack (@EllenBlack55) July 21, 2018
The dumb fu*ks at FactCheck,org attack us saying No proof Lisa Page said China hacked the DNC. No shit. We said China hacked HILLARY’s EMAILS. Dumb bastards. Libs literally making up stories, you and Zuckerberg should stay in your lanes, you might get run over out here. #FakeNews
— Thomas Paine (@Thomas1774Paine) July 21, 2018
I believe that it has been reported that Lisa said that China hacked HRC not DNC.. Factcheck yourselves
— Doyle 🇺🇸 🇯🇵🔵 (@GunnyRob) July 21, 2018
FACT CHECK …………………………….IT WAS reported that she said China Hacked HRC’s emails !!!! pic.twitter.com/Ej6oxA3A5q
— Erika Strahl (@strahl_erika) July 21, 2018
Correct, the article say Hillary emails, not DNC… So will you FactCheck your own fact-checking!! (we all know the DNC was barely hit by Russia as stated but instead leaked via what is likely USB stick)
“…, Lisa did not say a single word about China hacking the DNC server”
— looney (@C8Luna) July 21, 2018
She said China hacked Hillary Clinton’s server not DNC. Use better sources for your claims, or did somebody in your org not pay attention?
— PeaceKeeper (@AsNbelPeacePriz) July 21, 2018
Funny I was just looking at them and snopes and putting together slides on how they “Source” the so called “facts”. They are complete garbage and left leaning. They try to call what they post as answers “facts” when its opinions using other liberal sources like CNNs opinions
— Real Johhnie Doe 🛡 (@RealJohhnieDoe) July 21, 2018
I had shared the article on Facebook and just yesterday FB sent me a msg. saying article was found to be erroneous because it was “fact checked”
— Wendy Crabtree (@wccrabtree) July 21, 2018
Ironically, the fact checking was itself provably erroneous AND dishonest.
— A Voice of Liberty (@avoiceofliberty) July 21, 2018
[give_form id=”79809″]— Penny Pinscher (@cwilder1977) July 21, 2018