Last week, Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook would be eliminating its fact-checker program. In a video posted across all Meta platforms, Zuckerberg said they would be moving away from what NBC News called “independent, non-partisan fact checking” in a segment on the January 7 Today show. Instead, Zuckerberg explained they will be implementing a community notes section to posts, similar to what X does, where users can add a note to a post to either add context to explain the background, or disprove it entirely.
ABC News explained community notes with the following example on the January 8 episode of the “Start Here” podcast: “If somebody is like ‘New York City subways are terribly violent,’ and then there would be a community post underneath that says ‘actually, subway crime is down over the last year.’”
And these two explanations of what Zuckerberg said could not have been more appropriate for why he is moving Meta away from fact-checking organizations and into a community notes direction. For too long, legacy media like NBC and ABC have determined themselves to be the arbiters of truth. They - and they alone - will be the ones to tell you what is true and what is false. However, just in covering the story about fact checking, they can’t help but tell you straight up lies and burying the truth behind smokescreens.
So, let’s start with the obvious lie told by NBC News. Senior Washington Correspondent Hallie Jackson claimed that Meta is getting rid of “independent, non-partisan fact checking.” That statement of fact runs exactly counter to the announcement that Zuckerberg made – the announcement that they were covering in that very segment. In the next clip after explaining that the fact-checkers were non-partisan, they play the clip of Zuckerberg stating that “the fact-checkers have just been too politically biased, and have destroyed more trust that they have created, especially in the U.S.” That description does not sound “independent” or “non-partisan” to me.
This is the Senior Washington Correspondent for NBC News straight-up lying to your face right before she plays the clip that exposes the lie. You can’t have a clip that is more deserving of a community note than that... or can you?
Let’s look at the claim made by “Start Here” host Brad Mielke. Mielke stated that if someone made the claim that New York City subways are dangerous, users can put a community note under that post explaining that crime in the subways is actually down over the last year.
Before we even look at the data to see if the statement is actually true, we obviously need to state that even if it were true that crime in the subways over the last year is down, it would in no way refute the claim that the subway is dangerous. It may add some incorrect context, but let’s look at the crime rates as reported by the NYPD Transit Bureau.
This report shows that when it comes to violent crime, you know the crime that make places dangerous, the subways are actually more dangerous year-over-year. Murder is up 100% from 2023 to 2024, and while felony assault is about the same year-over-year, when comparing December 2023 to December 2024, felony assault is up 40%. The other type of assault we are not allowed to mention in writing is equal year-over-year.
What gives the propogandists over at ABC News the ability to tell you crime is down is theft crimes are down. Robbery, burglary, and grand larceny are down, and since there are more total crimes of those nature, total crime is technically down. But Brad Mielke thinks that a rise in violent crime means that the subways are actually safer now than they were last year.
Or perhaps ABC News needs a community note on their reporting.
Those who have made a career telling you what is true, working for organizations that have existed largely unchallenged over the last 85 years, want you to believe truth is what they tell you it is. The reason Meta is moving away from those who claim to monopolize truth is for the exact reason they are not truthful: They believe what they want to believe. They spin how they want to spin. There is no way to fact-check the fact-checkers. Except now there is. Welcome to the new era of truth, one where something is not true simply because a reporter tells you it is.
Izzo Zwiren works in healthcare administration, constantly concerning himself with the state of healthcare politics. The topic of healthcare has led Izzo to become passionate about a variety of political issues affecting our country today. Aside from politics, Izzo is a fan of trivia, stand-up comedy, and the New York Giants. Izzo lives on Long Island with his wife and two adorable, hilarious daughters.
