Fact-Blockers

Guest Post by John Stossel

Fact-Blockers

I’ve reported how Facebook censors me.

Now I’ve learned that they also censor environmentalist Michael Shellenberger, statistician Bjorn Lomborg and former New York Times columnist John Tierney.

Facebook’s “fact-checkers” claim we spread “misinformation.”

In my new video, Tierney argues that the “people guilty of spreading misinformation are Facebook and its fact-checkers.”

He’s right.

Facebook doesn’t do its censoring alone. It partners with groups approved by something called the Poynter Institute, a group that claims “a commitment to nonpartisanship.”

But Poynter isn’t nonpartisan. It promotes progressive jargon like “decolonize the media,” and it praises left-leaning journalists. Once they even proposed blacklisting conservative news sites.

One “fact-checker” Poynter approved is a Paris-based group calling itself “Science Feedback.”

Science Feedback objected to an article Tierney wrote that says forcing children to wear masks can be harmful. He cited a study, which later passed peer-review, in which parents complained about masks “giving their children headaches and making it difficult for them to concentrate.” Facebook calls Tierney’s article “partly false.”

That “partly false” label is nasty because it leads Facebook to stop showing Tierney’s work to many people.

But his article was accurate. Science Feedback censored it because parents’ comments are not a random sample. But it’s obvious that such comments are not random. Tierney acknowledges that in his article.

What should be labeled “false” is Science Feedback’s sloppy fact-check. It includes a “key takeaway” that says that masks are fine for children over 2. But “that’s not something that most scientists believe,” says Tierney. “Not what the World Health Organization believes.”

Again, he’s right. The World Health Organization says kids under should generally not be required to wear masks.

“There are all kinds of well-documented effects of wearing a mask,” adds Tierney. “Workers who wear masks for a couple hours in Germany have to stop and take a half-hour break. This shouldn’t be a controversial thing to say.”

No, it shouldn’t.

Facebook often censors things that should be talked about. They banned discussion of the idea of that COVID-19 escaped from a lab, only reversing course when the Biden administration did.

Science Feedback also doesn’t like articles questioning the “climate crisis.” That’s what got Shellenberger punished.

“They censored me for saying we’re not in a sixth mass extinction,” Shellenberger complains. “We’re not!

Lomborg was censored for pointing out “rising temperatures have actually saved lives.” That’s because cold weather kills more people than warm weather.

No scientific study has yet proven that a recent drop in deaths was caused by the temperature rise. But so what? His main point — temperature-related deaths fell while the planet warmed — is true.

Yet Science Feedback works with Facebook to keep that out of your Facebook feed.

Lomborg says the “fact-checkers” want people alarmed by climate change. “It makes it a lot easier to get people to donate money.”

Science Feedback’s leader now plans to expand his censorship powers — so he can censor not only Facebook, but other social media.

That’s frightening.

I sympathize with Facebook. Some users spread lies. Politicians blame Facebook and demand the company “do something.”

But there’s no way Facebook can police all the posts, so it does destructive things like partnering with Poynter Institute “fact-checkers.”

The fact-checkers “have a mission outside just facts,” says Lomborg. “They also want you to not know stuff. That’s not fact check. That’s simply saying, ‘We don’t want to hear this opinion in the public space.’ Frankly, that’s terrifying … The goal is nice … less misinformation on the internet. But you could very well end up in a place where we only have approved facts that fit the current narrative. That would be a terrible outcome.”

But that’s the outcome we’ve got.

Facebook and its censors are now the enemy of open debate.

“They’re trying to suppress people whose opinions and whose evidence they don’t like,” concludes Tierney. “They’re not fact-checkers, they’re fact-blockers.”

The world doesn’t need fact-blockers.

We need more freedom to speak, not less.

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Sotero the Sodomizer
Sotero the Sodomizer

” the Poynter Institute” aka The Department of Truth

Saxons Wrath
Saxons Wrath

Hmmm, Poytner Institute??? Where have I heard that before??? Well, lets see, what does wiki say??

Ok, it was founded as the Modern Media Institute, by newspaper owner Nelson Poynter, a legit guy, but who was married to Henrietta (((Malkiel))) for almost 30 years. Henrietta was the “only child of Russian Jewish immigrants who founded the New York daily call, a Socialist newspaper”. She died in 1968, and he in 1978.

Oh, well, there it is, the (((problem))), by proxy marriage.

I Don’t know about you, but when something is important to my spouse, it becomes “important” to me, whether I want it to be or not.

And their (((legacy))) continues to inflict damages still today, over 50 years after her death.

Every.
Single.
Time.

B_MC
B_MC

A look at Poynter’s major donors should explain its SPLC connections and left-leaning bias. Under the heading “Largest funders of Poynter” on the organization’s website, one finds the prolific Open Society Foundations, run by progressive billionaire George Soros. Another major donor is the Tides Foundation, which also happens to be “[one of] the largest contributors to” the notorious leftist agitating group Media Matters, activistfacts.com reports. Media Matters, founded by Clintonite David Brock, focuses most of its efforts on trying to shut down conservative media voices. Free-market libertarian billionaire Charles Koch’s charitable foundation is also a donor, which shows an interesting connection between global capitalism and radical progressives like Soros.

Poynter Institute Goes Down in Flames over Fake News

The Refusers

Our band’s reggae/rock song: Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies

“truth is treason in the empire of lies, empire of lies!”

Leah
Leah

Very appropriate.

very old white guy
very old white guy

Facebook like twitter is unnecessary for life on the planet. Don’t use them and they die.

Balbinus

If everyone with two or more working brain cells would get off these junk sites they would go broke and collapse. They only bring harm to mankind.

Yahsure
Yahsure

It’s simple, If the fact checkers agree with you then you don’t get censored. This makes you wonder about how many decent people just went along with various tyrants over the years so they could keep their jobs and not be persecuted in some way. 2021, almost 2022, and how little some things have changed.

ursel doran
ursel doran

Climate change HOAX for raising taxes, and more money to the U.N., *to change the weather*, is of course virtuous.
“Men, it is well said, think in herds. They go MAD in herds, and only regain their sanity slowly, one by one!”
https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/the-real-threat-to-banks-isnt-from

John Pietrusiewicz

Look at the bright side. If they block you, you are more or less, are 100% correct. I still have my MSN page up when I turn on the computer. Got to see the propaganda of the day.

lamont cranston
lamont cranston

My company policy for crawl space mold cleanup was that crew members had to take a 5 min break every hour and change to new N95s. Or, if the mask got saturated earlier, change it ASAP.

Forcing a child to wear a filthy mask is not only a physical health hazard, it’s a mental health hazard as well.

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