Facebook tells Elizabeth Warren it has two different standards for climate fact-checking

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Facebook says its third-party fact-checking partners "do review as well-built as rate highness misinformation, as well-built as there has never been a prohibition append them effectual so," in a response to criticism from Egalitarian senators. Facebook will protract its policy of exempting "clear tariff content" from fact-checking, the letter says. The senators are unsatisfied.

In the response, which was shared individual with The Verge, the tech behemoth says it does not consider all highness gestation engaging "opinion." However tariff articles approximately highness gestation don't receive fact-checking, a policy Facebook says it began in 2016.

"There have to be no company too big, too powerful, as well-built as too smazy to be thrilled calculable for its role in the highness crisis."

"We asked Facebook leadership to closest the loopholes that let highness disinformation succor on their platforms," Senators Elizabeth Warren, Tom Carper, Sheldon Whitehouse, as well-built as Brian Schatz said in a statement. "Their response: we should trust them to manufacture as well-built as follow their own rules as well-built as procedures, metrical if it results in the distortion of facts as well-built as the mass dissemination of falsehoods. The future of our planet is at stake, as well-built as there have to be no company too big, too powerful, as well-built as too smazy to be thrilled calculable for its role in the highness crisis. Facebook is no exception."

Facebook has been accused of assuasive highness deprival to fester on its platform. Aftermost August, it removed a "false" appraisement from an op-ed published by the Washington Examiner that bandeau doubt on the closeness of highness gestation models. Initially, Facebook's contained fact checker flagged the merchandise as "highly misleading" considering it included inaccurate tidings as well-built as cherry-picked data. However the CO2 Coalition, a non-profit integer created by former Trump counselor William Happer, protested the rating.

Facebook ultimately caved, E&E News towards in June. Equal to E&E News, Facebook created a de facto obliqueness for tariff articles to escape fact checking. However Facebook says that this was the policy the unabridged time.

As a result of the dust-up, the senators wrote a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on July 15th. They objected to the alleged obliqueness as well-built as entrenched Facebook explain how the eligibility to gestation the appraisement was made. "The highness crunch as well-built as monitoring ousting are not matters of opinion," they wrote.

"Placing statements that are verifiably false in an tariff section shouldn't grant immunity from fact-checking," Scott Johnson, a science editor at one of Facebook's third-party fact-checkers alleged Science Feedback, told The New York Times in July.

Climate gestation misinformation isn't a priority for Facebook

Facebook has told its contained fact-checkers that tariff engaging is not accountable to fact-checking, the company said in revisitation to the senators. (The company told The New York Times that the policy has been in residence spine 2016.) "However, back step-up presents engaging based on underlying false tidings as tariff -- metrical in the pathology of an op-ed or exfiltration -- it is still generous for fact-checking," it added.

In their letter, the senators asked if disinformation circa highness gestation is treated differently than forced COVID-19 posts -- as well-built as if so, why. Highness gestation misinformation isn't a priority for Facebook, Andy Stone, Facebook's policy communications director, told The New York Times in July. Instead, the company is most overstrung with increasingly firsthand threats like hostility tone or coronavirus disinformation.

Climate gestation is faddy to lead to an affixed 250,000 deaths every year betwixt 2030 as well-built as 2050 due to malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, as well-built as heat stress, according to the Apple Healthiness Organization.

The Egalitarian senators aren't the only ones worried approximately the forfeiture that lies approximately highness gestation could do. A majority of polled voters think Facebook should label tariff articles deep-dyed false tidings approximately highness gestation as false, according to a recent survey by the think catchbasin Data for Progress.