Facebook tells fact-checkers to back off Donald Trump if he runs for president: report

15 November 2022

Facebook and its parent company Meta have instructed its army of fact-checkers that if former President Donald Trump declares his candidacy for 2024, anything he says that is reposted to the platform is off-limits.

CNN obtained a memo on Tuesday ahead of Trump's anticipated announcement of another White House bid. The internal document, according to the outlet's reporting, "underscores the challenges social media platforms face in deciding how to handle another potential Trump presidential campaign. The former president is widely expected to announce his third presidential bid on Tuesday."

CNN also noted that "the carve-out is not exclusive to Trump and applies to all politicians, but given the rate fact-checkers find themselves dealing with claims made by the former president, a manager on Meta’s 'news integrity partnership' team emailed fact-checkers on Tuesday."

Per CNN, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone confirmed that the edict is a "reiteration" of policies that Facebook adopted in 2019, which state that “political speech is ineligible for fact-checking. This includes the words a politician says as well as photo, video, or other content that is clearly labeled as created by the politician or their campaign.”

After Trump left office in January 2021, The Washington Post calculated that he made over 30,000 "false or misleading" claims during his presidency.

From Your Site Articles