Facebook has slapped an unfair fact-check label on yet another post from the Media Research Center.
Facebook fact-checker Health Feedback fact-checked a video from MRCTV Managing Editor Brittany Hughes for “Partly False Information.” Health Feedback particularly took issue with a statement made by Hughes concerning comments by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Health Feedback claimed that “The claim that Fauci knew ‘masks don’t work’ commonly referred to his response to Sylvia Burwell, a former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, sent on 5 February 2020.
Facebook slapped a label on the MRCTV video that stated: “Partly False Information: The same information was checked in another post by independent fact-checkers.”
In an email to the Media Research Center, Health Feedback called Hughes’ characterization of Fauci’s statement “inaccurate.” It claimed: “The spread of viruses can be reduced by masks in two ways: one is by protecting the wearer from other people’s infectious material; the other is by protecting other people from an infected person’s respiratory droplets, also known as source control. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends mask-wearing primarily as a means of source control.”
Fauci’s comments about masks originated in a collection of thousands of his emails that were released via a Freedom of Information Act request. Fauci said: “Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection.”
Facebook clearly has not learned its lesson from censoring information about COVID-19. Early in the pandemic, Facebook and its “fraudulent” fact-checker program censored claims that COVID-19 was manufactured in a laboratory in Wuhan, China. However, the platform later reversed course and confirmed that it would no longer censor the Wuhan laboratory theory in light of new information. “In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that COVID-19 is man-made from our apps,” a Facebook spokesperson told MRC Free Speech America in a statement.
Media Research Center President Brent Bozell said in a tweet: “Facebook, which claims to be fighting ‘misinformation’ essentially admitted today that THEY have been spreading misinformation for over a year. Yet another reason to remove the protections Facebook and others receive from section 230.”
Facebook’s fact-checkers are all part of the liberal Poynter Institute's International Fact Checking Network, which received $1.3 million from liberal billionaires George Soros and Pierre Omidyar. Facebook’s fact-checkers must be approved by the Poynter Institute
Facebook has previously censored the MRC on its platform. The Associated Press fact-checked a graphic about the dangerous H.R. 1 bill from the Media Research Center on Facebook and claimed it was “Missing Context.”
Conservatives are under attack. Contact Facebook headquarters at 1-650-308-7300 and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
