Facebook finally admits that their so-called “fact-checkers” are just opinion checkers. The truth came out in a court of law from a lawsuit filed against Facebook by journalist John Stossel. Stossel is suing Facebook after information he put out regarding climate change was labeled as “false and misleading.”
Facebook responded to Stossel’s defamation claim in the court document by saying they cannot be sued for defamation because their fact-checkers “are mere statements of opinion rather than factual assertions.”
Opinions cannot be part of a defamation lawsuit, only facts.
“The labels themselves are neither false nor defamatory; to the contrary, they constitute protected opinion.” – Statement from Facebook.
Interestingly, Facebook calls them fact-checkers until it comes time to appear in court when they finally admit that they are not fact-checkers but simply people’s opinions. It would appear that this has the potential to open up a massive lawsuit against Facebook for all the people who had had their content taken down due to it being labeled as false by Facebook when in reality, it was just someone who disagreed with the information.
The entire court filing can be found here.
Article Source: Facebook Makes Stunning Admission About Their Fact Checkers In Recent Court Filing