"Facts are becoming less sacred by the day in Donald Trump's US, where many of his supporters now deny the very existence of truths. To them, inconvenient evidence is by definition bias. His followers and those who fear his fist are falling into line: media, universities and that infamous regiment of tech zillionaires who stood right behind him on inauguration day."
"The day after Trump's election victory was certified by an electoral vote tally in Congress, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg announced that, starting with the US, the company would get rid of factcheckers and replace them with community notes similar to X. A similar hammer blow has just struck Full Fact, the exceptionally valuable UK factchecker whose word is a gold standard for honesty. Google has pulled its 1m funding."
"Full Fact's CEO, Chris Morris, says: We think Google's decisions, and those of other big US tech companies, are influenced by the perceived need to please the current US administration, feeding a harmful new narrative that attacks factchecking and all it stands for. Verifiable facts matter and the big internet companies have responsibilities when it comes to curtailing the spread of harmful misinformation."
Facts are becoming less sacred in the US as many supporters deny objective truths and dismiss inconvenient evidence as bias. Major technology companies are abandoning professional factchecking, with Meta replacing factcheckers by community notes and Google withdrawing funding from independent factcheckers such as Full Fact. Full Fact has lost about a third of its funding after Google and Meta donations ended. Full Fact's CEO says big US tech decisions are influenced by a perceived need to please the current administration, creating a narrative that attacks factchecking. Community notes systems crowdsource judgments and allow algorithmic consensus to override evidence-based truth, enabling misinformation.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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