Twitter Never ‘Fact-Checked’ Russia Hoaxers Schiff, Swalwell, and Lieu

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., left, and Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, arrive to interview former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, March 8, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

By KRISTINA WONG

Twitter on Tuesday began “fact-checking” President Trump’s tweets but let elected representatives of the U.S. Congress claim that the president’s campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 elections for three years.

Jack Dorsey, the founder and CEO of Twitter, said Wednesday evening that the company’s intention is to “connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves.”

However, for three years — throughout 2017, 2018, and 2019 — Democrat members of Congress stated as fact on Twitter that they had evidence that Trump colluded with Russia, which fueled the leftist narrative that the election was illegitimate.

Their claims were “in dispute” by other members of Congress, as well as members of the Trump administration and the president, but Twitter never flagged them as such, as it did with Trump’s recent tweets.

On April 21, 2019, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) tweeted that special counsel Robert Mueller “did find evidence of collusion.”

In fact, Mueller’s report — released three days before — said that since collusion was not a legal term, his team looked for any conspiracy or coordination with Russia and did not find any.

It said, “The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

However, there was no Twitter “fact check” for Schiff.

Similarly, almost a month after Mueller released his report, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) tweeted there was “some collusion.” He previously tweeted that he used the word “collusion” as “shorthand for conspiracy” — which Mueller explicitly did not find.

Lieu was not “fact-checked,” although Mueller’s report disputed his tweet.

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Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) on January 17, 2019, claimed that a BuzzFeed report was “MORE evidence of collusion.” No “fact-check” from Twitter. His tweet was retweeted more than 3,000 times and liked more than 12,500 times.

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He also claimed seven days earlier, “I saw collusion from the very beginning.”

In 2018, Schiff claimed that there was “evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia” in “plain sight.”

Swalwell claimed that the House Intelligence Committee had “unearthed evidence of collusion.” His tweet has not been “fact-checked” even though the committee recently released more than 50 interview transcripts with former Obama and Trump campaign officials who presented no evidence of collusion.

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On March 17, 2018, Schiff stated as fact, “We did find evidence of collusion.”

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On February 28, 2018, Lieu stated, “Issue is not whether there was collusion. Issue is how high up the campaign did the collusion go.”

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Lieu on January 10, 2018, tweeted, “The evidence shows not just collusion, but also Obstruction of Justice” by Trump “on multiple occasions.”

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“What They Are Doing Is Tantamount to Monopoly” – BREAKING: President Trump Signs Executive Order on Social Media Censorship with Warning to Far Left Tech Giants

Image result for memes of censorship

By Jim Hoft – May 28, 2020

President Trump signed his executive order on Thursday regarding social media and big technology companies.

The order comes on the heels of a illicit fact-check on the president from Twitter, related to President Trump’s sentiment regarding voting by mail.
Twitter’s fact-check was later revealed to be fake news.

President Trump directed the Attorney General to work with states to enforce their laws against deceptive business practices.

President Trump made his announcement today from the Oval Office.

President Trump told reporters what the social media giants are doing is tantamount to a monopoly.
Via KVIA:

“A small handful of social media monopolies controls a vast portion of all public and private communications in the United States,” he alleged.

“They’ve had unchecked power to censor, restrict, edit, shape, hide, alter, virtually any form of communication between private citizens and large public audiences. ”

 

TWITTER CEO JACK DORSEY STANDS BY DECISION TO ‘FACT-CHECK’ TRUMP

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Stands by Decision to 'Fact-Check' Trump

President expected to issue executive order on social media imminently

May 28, 2020

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has defended his platform’s decision to fact-check US President Donald Trump for the first time ever over his comments on the upcoming election.

A spat erupted between Twitter and Donald Trump, one of the platform’s most prolific users, after Twitter said that two of his posts could be misleading.

The President accused the social media giant of harbouring an anti-conservative bias, a sentiment that was fuelled by unearthed anti-Trump tweets from Twitter’s head of site integrity.

Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter in 2006, wrote that the site chose to put a fact-check warning on two of Trump’s tweets because they may “mislead people into thinking they don’t need to register to get a ballot.”

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What happened to Trump’s tweets?

Trump in the tweets accused the Democrat governor of California, without evidence, of sending vote-by-mail ballots to “anyone living on the state, no matter who they are or how they got there” and warned of rampant voter fraud in the November election.

The tweets were tagged with a fact-check label that redirects to reporting by media and journalists debunking Trump’s claim. The President in response accused Twitter of suppressing free speech and interfering in the election. He also threatened to “strongly regulate” or shut down social media platforms outright.

The controversy is likely to raise further questions as to whether Twitter is willing to continue to append the label to other presidential tweets that have been considered false by third parties.

Donald Trump has recently doubled down on unsupported claims that former Rep. Joe Scarborough was involved in the 2001 death of his staffer, which was ruled accidental by authorities. Twitter said it would not fact-check these tweets, because they did not violate its policies, and would not remove them despite a request from the staffer’s widower.

A rebuke from Facebook

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose platform refuses to fact-check political speech and leaves it up to the media, challenged Twitter’s misinformation policy.

“We have a different policy than, I think, Twitter on this,” he said in a Fox News interview on Wednesday. “I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn’t be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online.”

Referencing Zuckerberg’s remark, Dorsey tweeted that fact-checking politicians “does not make us an ‘arbiter of truth’.”

He added: “Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves. More transparency from us is critical so folks can clearly see the why behind our actions.”

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Lacking integrity?

Twitter has come under fire among conservatives over its perceived bias against Donald Trump. One argument that fuelled that sentiment was a series of derogatory tweets about Republicans which Twitter’s head of site integrity, Yoel Roth, posted in 2016 and 2017.

The tweets referred to Trump as a “racist tangerine” and to his administration as “Nazis in the White House.”

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Twitter, however, stood by Roth and explained that he was not the person who decided to fact-check Trump. “No one person at Twitter is responsible for our policies,” the company said in a statement to several news outlets. “It’s unfortunate to see individual employees targeted for company decisions.”

Dorsey tweeted: “Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that’s me. Please leave our employees out of this. We’ll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make.”

 

Nolte: Snopes Spreads Fake News to Blacklist Christian Satire Site the Babylon Bee

Woman with Bible in front of face.

By John Nolte

The far-left “fact check” outlet Snopes is using fake news to blacklist the Christian satire site the Babylon Bee.

Although the Babylon Bee’s own name points to the fact it’s a satire site, although the Babylon Bee is widely known and recognized as a satire site, although the Babylon Bee clearly advertises itself as a satire and “fake news” site, Snopes has launched a fake news jihad to deplatform the Babylon Bee and put it out of business.

Everyone was laughing at Snopes when it started fact-checking the Babylon Bee’s satire pieces; we all howled as the self-serious Snopes labeled obvious satire as “false.” But now we know Snopes actually has an agenda here — and that is to abuse its power as a Facebook-recognized fact checker to blacklist the Babylon Bee, to get the openly Christian satire site algorithmically hidden and demonetized, which will effectively put it out of business.

The Babylon Bee is concerned enough — and rightfully so — that it has retained an attorney.

In a statement released Tuesday, the satire site writes:

Last week, Snopes fact-checked us again. We’re pretty used to that. But this time, instead of merely rating the article as “false,” they questioned whether our work qualifies as satire, and even went so far as to suggest that we were deliberately deceiving our readers. Basically, they treated us as a source of intentionally misleading fake news, rather than as the legitimate, well-known satire publication that we are. This is a big deal.

Yes, this is a big deal, because as we all now know, once the fascist left smears ideas and opinion they do not approve of as “fake news,” people and web sites start to disappear forever.

Although Snopes has been “fact-checking” the Babylon Bee since July of 2016, everyone took notice back in March when Snopes published a disingenuous fact check that resulted in Facebook threatening the Babylon Bee with “limitations and demonetization.”

CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine to Spin News Before Publication” was the Bee’s title, but Snopes still pretended it needed to “fact check” a ridiculous satire piece.

Facebook eventually backed off, but it is likely no accident that the Snopes’ attack and Facebook’s subsequent blacklisting threat occurred just after CNN’s Brian Stelter — a rabid left-winger and conspiracy theorist — published a tweet accusing the Bee of being a “fake news site” disguising itself as satire. He eventually deleted it.

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In April, Snopes again “fact-checked” another blatantly obvious piece of satire, this one aimed at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

“Did U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez Repeatedly Guess ‘Free’ on TV Show ‘The Price is Right?’” asked Snopes in its stupid “fact-checking” article.

Obviously, she didn’t. That’s the joke.

Things got a whole lot more serious last week, though, when Snopes openly accused the Babylon Bee of engaging in the spreading of fake news.

Snopes “fact checked” a July 22 Babylon Bee piece satirizing State Rep. Erica Thomas (D-GA), the lawmaker who was caught lying earlier this month about being told by a white man in a Publix grocery store to “go back where she came from.”

In the end, Thomas was forced to admit she lied. The man in question is not only Cuban, he’s a Democrat who probably voted for her. What’s more, witnesses claim she was the one screaming “go back,” not him.

Anyway, the Babylon Bee satire piece was titled: “Georgia Lawmaker Claims Chick-Fil-A Employee Told Her To Go Back To Her Country, Later Clarifies He Actually Said ‘My Pleasure.’”

But for its pedantic “fact check,” Snopes accused the Babylon Bee of deliberately misleading people.

“We’re not sure if fanning the flames of controversy and muddying the details of a news story classify an article as ‘satire,’” Snopes wrote as its sub-headline, adding:

The Babylon Bee has managed to fool readers with its brand of satire in the past. This particular story was especially confusing for some readers, however, as it closely mirrored the events of a genuine news story, with the exception of the website’s changing the location from “Publix” to the more controversial Chick-Fil-A.

Babylon Bee founder Adam Ford exposes Snopes in this must-read Twitter thread.

Over the past couple years, Snopes has “fact-checked” the Babylon Bee some 20 times! But if you look at the most recent “fact-checks,” the nine since June of last year, they are all in defense of leftists: Bernie Sanders. Ilhan Omar, CNN, Bill Clinton, California legislators, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, etc.

Although the Babylon Bee regularly satirizes President Trump, Republicans, and even Christians, it is quite telling that Snopes — which falsely identifies itself as non-partisan — never rushes in to save right-leaning targets from the Babylon Bee’s effort to mislead people.

Obviously, what we have here is CNN and Snopes manufacturing a “fake news” controversy as a means to blacklist a satire site — not because the satire site is effective at spreading fake news, but because it is  effective at mocking the media, Democrat politicians, and their inane ideas; effective at using comedy to illuminate a truth the far-leftists at Snopes do not want illuminated.

Thankfully, the Babylon Bee sees this “latest smear from Snopes [as] both dishonest and disconcerting.”

“Snopes appears to be actively engaged in an effort to discredit and deplatform us. While we wish it wasn’t necessary, we have retained a law firm to retain us in this matter,” the statement reads.

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