Here he has a go at Facebook whose fact checking company, Lead Stories, did a job on an article in the venerable British Medical Journal. This all happened December 2021, so it’s very much a reheated story, one I remember from the time.
The BMJ ran an article, online, stating that a whistleblower had called out faulty research on a Pfizer vaccine. Lead Stories said it was “Lacking Context”. BMJ hit back with an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg. Lead Stories returned the serve with an “Our Response” (with relevant links). Net-net: deuce.
Dr John has a go at Lead Stories. It’s not clear if he’s read their “Our Response”. If so, he doesn’t give it it’s due, for it’s quite persuasive.
Finding fault: I don’t like Dr John’s appeal to authority. Because BMJ was founded in 1840, it’s old and venerable. How dare the “amateurs” at Lead Stories question them? I don’t like Lead Stories’ view of itself that it’s there to pursue a WHO campaign against a “pandemic of misinformation”. It should just check facts. It ought not be concerned that the facts, presuming correct, may enable other narratives which are clear misinformation. That way lies misdirection.
We remember that the WHO was itself source of much pandemic misinformation. Covid was not a pandemic, until it was. It was not transmitted by humans, until it was. Covid was transmitted by droplets not aerosols, until it was. Masks were not useful, until they were (well…). Misinformation much, WHO?
Also: what good do these fact checking sites do, in the end? In today’s climate, not much, I reckon. I remember half a century ago, when I subscribed to The New Yorker and learning they had a “team of fact checkers”. That I liked; you could trust they didn’t have any facts wrong! But today, fact checkers are employed in a partisan war, proving the opposite side wrong. Anyone quoting a Lead Stories fact check to someone believing the opposite, will find it rebuked. The only people convinced by a fact check will be those already convinced by it. Meantime they can do harm by labelling things misinformation that are later proven not. The lab leak theory on Covid origins comes to mind.
Best to get rid of them in my view. Close down all fact-checkers. Take them off the court.
ADDED: I do think that “lacking context” is a relevant criticism. For example: it’s true that anyone of any age can catch Covid and die from it. But that’s lacking the context: it’s overwhelmingly the case that older people, with comorbidities, are at risk of death. Not youngsters. Saying “anyone can die” from it is only trivially true. And misleading, one could argue.
