Facebook Orders Employees To STOP Fact Checking Trump

Facebook's parent company Meta sent a memo to employees this week telling them that they are no longer going to be fact checking Donald Trump. The notice specifically mentioned Trump, but they also said that they won't be fact checking other politicians, either, leaving the door wide open for politicians and political candidates to say whatever crazy thing they want on Facebook without any pushback. Farron Cousins explains what this means for the future of our political system.

Don't forget to like, comment, and share! And subscribe to stay connected!

Connect with Farron on Twitter

*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Donald Trump announcing that he's running for president isn't going to save him from any of the ongoing investigations into his, uh, many different activities that pretty much all skirt the law. But there is one thing that it now saves him from because according to a memo sent out by Facebook parent company Meta on Tuesday, because he is now running for president. Facebook employees are no longer allowed to fact check Donald Trump. Facebook met their parent company, but it's Facebook. Facebook sent employees a memo saying, you can't fact check Donald Trump anymore, because now he's running for office. This is part of a memo. Some of you have reached out seeking guidance regarding fact checking political speech and anticipation of a potential, uh, candidacy announcement from former President Trump. It is not our role to intervene when politicians speak. Meta executive Nick Clegg, a former politician, said the memo noted that quote, 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. It concluded, if former President Trump makes a clear public announcement that he is running for office, he would be considered a politician under our program policies, which of course means when he lies. You can't let anybody know that he is lying, even though Trump is banned from Facebook. Obviously there's other Trump fan pages all over the place with millions of followers. They post his crap left and right and Facebook says, well, it's not Trump himself. He is not banned. But now, now you can't even fact check it. Donald Trump, the man who according to the Washington Post fact checkers, told tens of thousands of lies while an office averaging more than five lies per day during his four year term. We can't fact check him. Facebook says, Nope, he's a politician. Now. Ah, our hands are tied. It's not our job to intervene when politicians speak.

So, so why are you even paying fact checkers? Like what are your fact checkers gonna do now? Are they gonna fact check when I post on Facebook like, Hey, just had an awesome dinner. Are they gonna come interview my family and be like, Hey, was the dinner really awesome? We've gotta get these facts correct. We need to know if we have to. Like, what? What do they do? What are they gonna do? If you can't fact check what politicians are saying, then, then what other things are you gonna do? You guys are just letting covid misinformation fly left and right, so we know you're not fact checking that the way you're supposed to be.

So what is the point of anything at this point? Especially because we are talking about Facebook and unfortunately the generation that uses Facebook most, it's the older folks and the older folks on the right are far more inclined to believe literally anything they see on Facebook. Like it doesn't matter that the websites they're going to are totally unreliable, like Daily eagle.net that says Hillary Clinton's a fricking alien. Well, I always thought that I pretty much assume that's what was happening. I mean, it's right here, it's in an article, but now when Trump comes out, makes these absolutely ridiculous claim or any politician because they made it clear like, listen, it's not just about Trump. We're only now sending this out. Now that Donald Trump, of course, is running for office, but any politician, they could say whatever the hell they want, Marjorie Taylor Green could come out and make a Jewish Space Lasers claim again, and you can't say a word about it, Facebook employees.

You just gotta let it go. People are gonna have to believe it. This is idiotic, this is irresponsible, and it's just downright stupid. But that's what Facebook has become flat out stupid, because it's run by idiots who are too terrified of their own frigging shadows to do the right thing. And by the way, we all know why they don't wanna fact check politicians, right? I hope everybody understands that they don't wanna these people off because they don't want to be regulated, right?