As wildfires swept through Los Angeles, devastating the Pacific Palisades and surrounding neighborhoods, many took to the internet to blame the destruction on the mayor and budget cuts. The critics included the Los Angeles Times owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong. “Fires in LA are sadly no surprise,” Soon-Shiong wrote Jan. 8 on X, “yet the Mayor cut […]
As Joe Biden campaigned for president in 2020, national and global discussion focused on one issue: the COVID-19 pandemic. As then-President Donald Trump downplayed the pandemic’s severity, Biden pledged to increase COVID-19 testing, vaccinate 50 million people in 100 days and get the virus under control. But his campaign promises extended beyond the pandemic. Biden […]
Starting Jan. 14, the Republican-led U.S. Senate plans to hold hearings for President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks, with the aim of confirming their appointments directly after Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration. PolitiFact will provide fact-checking and analysis on some of these public reviews for officials who are in line to run, for example, the State, Treasury, […]
Alongside the announcement that Meta was ending its relationship with independent fact-checkers, the social media company outlined new “hateful conduct” policies. Those policies explicitly permit users to call LGBTQ+ people “mentally ill” or “abnormal” without violating platform rules. These changes are part of a larger shift in how Meta plans to moderate content and speech […]
President-elect Donald Trump and some social media users and pundits blamed Los Angeles’ deadly fires on California Gov. Gavin Newsom, saying the Democrat’s environmental policies enabled the blazes’ danger and wreckage. As of Jan. 10, authorities counted at least 10 people dead, more than 35,000 acres burned and thousands of structures damaged or destroyed. Some […]
President-elect Donald Trump’s Jan. 10 felony sentencing raised questions on social media about his rights: Can he vote, travel internationally and own a gun? Yes, likely, and no. A Manhattan jury on May 30 found Trump guilty of 34 counts of felony falsifying business records in a scheme to cover up a hush money payment […]
Although the person suspected of ramming a pickup truck into a New Orleans crowd on New Year’s Day, killing 14 people, was born and raised in the U.S., Republican politicians have sought to tie the attack to U.S. border security. Talking with anchor Jake Tapper on Jan. 5 on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. […]
Column by PolitiFact Editor-in-Chief Katie Sanders: As I weigh Meta’s decision to break up with American fact-checkers, I keep returning to this: The censorious fact-checking program Meta described is not the fact-checking program I know. On Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a five-minute video he was going to “get rid of fact-checkers” and […]
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., reintroduced legislation Jan. 3 she said would keep dangerous immigrants out of the country — people who have committed sex crimes or domestic abuse. On social media, critics used the occasion to deride House Democrats who first voted against the bill in September. “There is no justification. 158 Democrats voted […]
After eight years of working with professional journalists to flag misinformation on its platforms, Meta will turn that task over to users. The tech giant — which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads — announced Tuesday that in the United States, it will switch to a crowdsourced fact-checking model similar to X’s Community Notes system. Under […]
Meta pondrá fin a su colaboración de ocho años con periodistas estadounidenses independientes, incluyendo a PolitiFact, para identificar información falsa y engaños en sus plataformas. Meta moderará su contenido con un modelo similar al de Notas Comunitarias de X, dijo el CEO de Meta, Mark Zuckerberg. En un video de cinco minutos publicado el 7 […]
Meta will end its eight-year partnership with independent American journalists, including PolitiFact, to identify false information and hoaxes on its platforms. Meta’s content moderation approach will resemble X’s Community Notes model, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said. In a five-minute video posted Jan. 7, Zuckerberg cited the political environment after President-elect Donald Trump’s victory and a […]