Facebook 'Fact Checkers' Add 'Context' to Biden Clip That Requires No Context

Facebook “fact checkers” including USA Today, Reuters, and Lead Stories, are “fact checking” a video clip on Instagram of Joe Biden caressing his grandson a a funeral, alleging that the clip is “missing context” even when no description has been added. The fact checkers are adding warning labels to the post across Facebook and Instagram.

Fake News Network, a popular Instagram meme page with 500,000 followers, posted the clip yesterday with the caption “cornpop is at it again,” only to be immediately “fact checked.”

The warning label added by the Facebook fact-checkers states:

“The same information was reviewed in another post by fact-checkers. There may be small differences. Independent fact-checkers say information in this post is missing context and could mislead people.”

Vice President Joe Biden eats ice cream during a visit to Little Man Ice Cream, in Denver, Tuesday, July 21, 2015. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

Following the links in the warning message takes viewers of the clip to pages informing them that Biden was “consoling” his grandson at Beau Biden’s funeral, even though the Instagram account did not claim otherwise.

The “independent fact-checkers” include Lead Stories, which once “fact checked” a critique of itself on Facebook, and mainstream news outlets USA Today and Reuters.

USA Today, a competitor of Breitbart News, once “fact checked” one of Breitbart’s stories because of its use of the term “amnesty,” which an intern at the newspaper disagreed with.

Via Breitbart News:

Why? USA Today did not say, but it had published the following article on May 14, written by an intern serving on its Facebook fact-checking team: “Fact check: House bill does not grant amnesty to immigrants illegally in U.S.” In its article, USA Today contends that the term “amnesty” can only be used if it aligns with its intern’s subjective and restrictive interpretation of the Black’s Law Dictionary definition of the term; basically, that the word “amnesty” can only be used to refer to a permanent pardon for an offense.

This is despite the fact that the phrase “amnesty” has been used to apply to temporary relief from the consequences of illegal immigration by the New York Times, The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, and NPR.

“Fact checking” a post on Facebook typically leads to the post’s reach on the platform being suppressed, giving outlets like USA Today the ability to suppress their competition.

Breitbart News has reached out to Instagram for comment.

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.

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