At some point in the recent past, mainstream media figures decided they would abuse the ingrained trust people had in the media and created the concept of "fact-checking." It would be sold as a way for the media, with all of its resources and power, to help sift through the news and find what's true and what's not.
What it actually ended up being was a way to push narratives and course-correct society's thinking about any given event or person if they became too troublesome for the left or the Democrat Party. The worst of these abusers have been the Washington Post, Snopes, and PolitiFact, all of which have heavy demonstrable biases toward the left.
For years, these "fact-checkers" prayed on the ignorance and trust of the general populace, but as it became more and more clear that these people weren't so much checking facts as they were running defense for the left, people began turning on them.
In fact, they've so ruined their own reputations that people are openly mocking them now, including Elon Musk, who might just start having a little fun with these serial liars on X.
Great idea 😂
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 8, 2023
It is interesting to see how many so-called “fact checkers” are in fact some of the biggest liars.
You can go through RedState's tags like "PolitiFact" or see our writing on WaPo fact-checker Glenn Kessler, and understand just how unabashedly biased and willing to deceive these people are. If I'm being honest, Musk's agreement that clown emojis should be forcibly put next to fact-checkers who abuse their titles would be good for everyone.
And I don't mean that lightly.
A lot is made about misinformation and disinformation in our society and evidence shows that mainstream fact-checkers are some of the worst offenders. There is some truth in the idea that misinformation can be harmful, this is why free speech is so important, because it allows for the dissemination of truth without roadblocks. This is not what mainstream fact-checkers want because they aren't purveyors of facts and truths, but narratives.
In fact, they will use their position as so-called fact-checkers to influence platforms into censoring narratives they don't like or push corporations to punish websites that counter said narratives.
This can lead to some very dangerous outcomes.
Take, for instance, the issues that were found with the mRNA vaccines. When information was being distributed about some of the dangerous side effects, organizations like WaPo, PolitiFact, and FactCheck.org approached platforms like YouTube and pressured them into censoring these stories, leaving people without proper information for their choice about whether or not to get the vaccine.
“What we do not see is much effort by YouTube to implement policies that address the problem,” the group wrote. “On the contrary, YouTube is allowing its platform to be weaponized by unscrupulous actors to manipulate and exploit others, and to organize and fundraise themselves.”
Hilariously, but perhaps not surprisingly, the groups offered to help police YouTube in censorship efforts.
They also interfere in elections. In 2021, the White House released a statement claiming that a Republican-passed Georgia law made it a crime to give water to voters who were standing in line to vote and that it's being done in Black neighborhoods. This was only partly true, as the law stipulated that you could not give food or water to people standing in line to vote with the intent of swaying them to vote for a particular candidate, making the claim nothing more than a well-dressed lie.
Despite it clearly being a lie, Kessler and PolitiFact both ran to the White House's defense and supported the statement as true.
Why? Because it would likely activate people's spite response to go to the polls and vote for the Democrats who are currently being painted as both more humane and not racist.
Then there's the problem of bias through being paid off.
As Thomas Massie pointed out in 2021, while FactCheck.org was busy helping censor people questioning the vaccine on social media, one of its largest donors, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation was busy watching its $1.8 billion worth of stocks it owned in Johnson & Johnson skyrocket.
Moreover, the CEO of the foundation, Richard Besser, was the former acting director of the CDC under Obama and ABC News' former chief health and medical editor.
Who pays the paychecks of the factcheckers? The vaccine fact checkers at @factcheckdotorg, who claim to be independent, are funded by an organization that holds over $1.8 billion of stock in a vaccine company, and is run by a former director of @CDCgov.https://t.co/cmKuJ25Xki
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) April 27, 2021
Right off the top of your head, you can probably think of a few moments where fact-checkers have been biased yourself, and while I expect bias and lies from them, the issue is that too many people in high-powered positions believe them and use these fact-check sites as guides for everything from implementing censorship methods to policy-making.
The age of the mainstream fact-checker should come to a close as it was never truly fact-checking anything in the first place.
