Under the cover of fighting “fake news,”
Facebook is currently attempting to
mute views on the COVID-19 “crisis” that are not in lockstep with the popular
narrative. Many people understand that the “independent” “fact checkers” are
anything but independent,1 and do
not actually refute the claims made by many of the posts they mark as
containing “false” information. But what isn’t usually discussed, as far as I
can tell at least, is their justification for their judgments.
Here is what usually happens. An article claims that some person or
organization has said something about COVID-19, or any of its many tentacles.
The article’s claim takes the following form –
Bill Gates says x about COVID-19 treatments.
The article is labeled as “false” because it asserts that Bill Gates has said
x, when a perusal of Gates’ words does not record him as having explicitly
stating x. Rather than treating the assertion “Bill Gates says x about
COVID-19 treatments” as a summary of some statement or series of statements
that Bill Gates has made about COVID-19 treatments, the fact checkers treat it
as if it were reporting an explicit statement made by Gates.
This is not only deceptive, but fallacious. What is attacked is a straw man of
what is actually being claimed by the article under consideration, and it
hinges on the fact checkers’ misinterpretation of the phrase “Bill Gates
says.” Under one interpretation, the phrase can mean that Bill Gates has made
the assertion in question verbatim. Under another interpretation, however, the
phrase can mean that Bill Gates has made an assertion or set of assertions
that is/are logically equivalent to the assertion reported by the article. One
would only need to read the article in question to determine how to properly
interpret the phrase.
Now if the article in question was read by the fact checkers, then their
interpretation is either due to their ignorance of basic English or, what is
more likely the case, it is due to their desire to silence dissenting voices
on the matter of COVID-19. In either case, however, the fact checkers should
not be trusted because they are either completely incompetent or completely
dishonest.
Sadly, our contemporary culture, still somewhat under spell of postmodern
philosophy, gives the fact checkers’ bad reasoning a pass. If a person has not
explicitly stated x, many believe, then they have not stated x implicitly
either. For many today, if we assert that Gates, for instance, made an
assertion x about COVID-19 when he has not used those exact words, then we are
guilty of the sin of bearing false witness about Gates. However, this is an
irrational and anti-Christian sentiment, as we can clearly see upon reflecting on the
following example taken from Mark 7:14-19 –
And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.)
Note the parenthetical comment made by Mark: Thus, he declared all foods
clean. Jesus did not utter the assertion “I declare foods clean!” but,
instead, necessarily implies that all foods are clean by his declaration that
“whatever goes into a person cannot defile him.” This is logically equivalent
to Christ declaring that all foods are clean, so Mark, borne along by the Holy
Spirit, infers that “all foods are clean” and attributes that inference to
Christ, calling it a declaration.
If Christ is himself examined according to the implications of his explicit
assertions, then on what basis do so many today exempt themselves and others
from such an examination? In most cases, it is because they are either
impetuous and don’t want to be held accountable for their rashly uttered
words, or they are concealing immorality of one kind or another and do not
want others to be aware of it. And this is the case with the Facebook “fact
checkers” who will flag an article as false because it identifies an inferred
proposition as having been uttered by a particular person, e.g. Bill Gates.
The concern with these fact
checkers, in other words, is not the truth, but the promotion of a particular
narrative, detractors of which they do not tolerate in the least.2
[Continued in Part 4]
1 See Weaver, Corrine. “All 9
Facebook Fact-Checkers Ignore Media’s Promotion of Chinese Propaganda,” News
Busters,
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/techwatch/corinne-weaver/2020/04/16/all-9-facebook-fact-checkers-ignore-medias-promotion, April 16, 2020.
2 See “Facebook Content Moderator:
‘If Someone is Wearing a MAGA Hat, I Am Going to Delete Them for Terrorism’,”
Project Veritas, June 23, 2020.
https://www.projectveritas.com/news/facebook-content-moderator-if-someone-is-wearing-a-maga-hat-i-am-going-to/.
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