MSNBC host Ali Velshi is focusing this weekend on what they call a "Disinformation Epidemic," and by disinformation, these leftists mean information spread by President Trump. NBC investigative tech reporter Brandy Zadrozny joined Velshi to trash Facebook for not being bossy enough with its stupider (i.e. conservative) consumers.
Velshi introduced Zadrozny by reading some of her tweets on Facebook's new policy that says candidates will not be allowed to run new ads one week prior to Election Day. One Zardrozny tweet sarcastically said, "wow, a whole week, this that should do it." Velshi asked: "I take it you don't think this is a full throated job on Facebook's part?" Zadrozny complained Facebook's policy is "absolutely toothless. This is one of the most toothless things I've seen them roll out, actually."
Nobody in this conversation acknowledged that candidates have been airing controversial ads on television for decades, and no one needed a moderator like Facebook to rule one side was airing "disinformation." That was hashed out by the opposing candidates.
Zadrozny then unwittingly admitted this is not about misinformation per se, but about Trump winning fraudulently: "So if I'm in the Trump campaign and I want to have an ad that says something terribly false or delegitimize the results, I'm going to go one week and one day and I'm going to place an ad and I'm going to blow it up and run it ‘till Election Day."
Earlier in the week MSNBC had problems with first grade-level math when discussing a poll that shows more Biden supporters are prepared to delegitimize the election in the event of a loss than Trump supporters. For some reason Zadrozny didn't urge Facebook to label those claims false.
Speaking of fact-checking, Zadrozny also condemned Facebook for, "not fact checking politicians, so Donald Trump has been using and the Trump campaign has been lying in their ads forever. And they're still doing it right now."
One example Zadrozny cited was that Facebook refuses to mark Trump's claim that Biden wants to defund the police as false. Of course, she didn't lament that Facebook has also refused to mark Biden's claim that Trump is "rooting for violence" as false.
Another example of Facebook dropping the ball on fact-checking has been Trump "calling the election rigged and questioning the legitimacy and the safety and the -- of mail-in voting ballots. He's using it for misinformation. He will continue to do so."
Of course, Trump's claims about mail-in ballots are more of a prediction, but Facebook's decision to not flag them still represent "a joke" according to Zadrozny.
This segment was sponsored by Fidelity.
Here is a transcript for the September 5 show:
MSNBC
Velshi
9:39 AM ET
ALI VELSHI: Good morning to you. I have seen a couple tweets from you when Facebook made this announcement. The first one was, “wow, a whole week, this that should do it.” Another one you tweeted someone else and you said “also, not sure how you can concede that there are legitimate concerns about how your platform used to manipulate elections and then say you're only going to do something about it for one week.” I take it you don't think this is a full throated job on Facebook's part?
BRANDY ZADROZNY: It's absolutely toothless. This is one of the most toothless things I've seen them roll out, actually. At least with vaccines and with hate groups they took a more full-throated approach to their new policy. But there's a number of problems with this. One, by the time it goes into effect, half of Americans will have already voted.Two, Facebook, as you noticed, isn't banning all ads, it's just banning new ads. So if I'm in the Trump campaign and I want to have an ad that says something terribly false or delegitimize the results, I'm going to go one week and one day and I'm going to place an ad and I'm going to blow it up and run it ‘till Election Day. So it's just -- it doesn't quite make sense.
Another problem is, you know, the biggest way that misinformation spreads isn't really through ads, it's more organically. It's videos, posts, a lot of private Facebook groups. Facebook has done very little to quell misinformation in those places. They're not fact-checking politicians, so Donald Trump has been using and the Trump campaign has been lying in their ads forever. And they're still doing it right now. They're saying that Biden wants to defund the police, fact checkers have proven that's true. He's been calling the election rigged and questioning the legitimacy and the safety and the -- of mail-in voting ballots. He's using it for misinformation. He will continue to do so. This week long pause and a couple labels. It's a joke.
