Soon to be out of a job, Meta’s fact-checkers battle a blaze of wildfire conspiracy theories
CNN
Just hours after Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg announced last Tuesday that the social media giant would eliminate its US-based fact-checkers, the iconic hills above Los Angeles began to smolder.
Just hours after Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg announced last Tuesday that the social media giant would eliminate its US-based fact-checkers, the iconic hills above Los Angeles began to smolder. As fire crews scrambled in vain to contain the resulting firestorm, the fact-checking partners, still working for Meta, took on their own fight: trying to slow viral misinformation rapidly spreading around the wildfires. Rumor and speculation about the disaster began to swirl online like glowing embers, before eventually becoming a wild blaze of vast conspiracy theories. “Cutting fact checkers from social platforms is like disbanding your fire department,” said Alan Duke, a former CNN journalist who co-founded the fact-checking outlet Lead Stories, one of dozens of such organizations around the world funded by Meta. Meta has not announced when it will formally end its fact-checking program, but a person familiar with the program said it could be eliminated as soon as March. The decision will force some of Meta’s fact-checking partners to lay off staff or shut down once the company’s financial support dries up. Duke, a Los Angeles resident, could see the orange glow of the fires from his home as he and his colleagues at Lead Stories worked to tackle conspiracy theories about the blazes that have left at least two dozen people dead.
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Just hours after Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg announced last Tuesday that the social media giant would eliminate its US-based fact-checkers, the iconic hills above Los Angeles began to smolder.
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