Popular Conservative author and commentator Candace Owens challenged left-leaning fact-checking site PolitiFact, a partner with Facebook, over a “false” rating — and won.
Not only did PolitiFact remove their “false” rating and retract an article on why Owens’ video was allegedly false, but the site offered an added “correction” admitting their fault.
The video was captioned, “Joe Biden is literally and legally not the president-elect. So why is the media pretending he is?”
“Correction: PolitiFact originally labeled this video false in our capacity as a third-party fact-checker for Facebook. On Nov. 20, an appeal to that decision was made on behalf of Ms. Owens. PolitiFact approved the appeal on Nov. 20, determined that a correction was appropriate, and removed the false rating,” a note from PolitiFact reads.
PolitiFact told Owens the video was “[u]pon first glance, labeled ‘false’ … in error” and that they “still don’t know how or why the post was labeled ‘false.'” They hope to share more information with Owens on Monday.
Owens said she could set a precedent for a class action lawsuit against Facebook from others who have been falsely “fact-checked.”
“I wanted to show that these fact-checkers just lie, and they usually go unchecked because most people don’t have the money, don’t have the time, and don’t have the platform to go after them — and I have all three,” Owens said.
“These people are sitting back thinking they’re the gods of tech; opinion-checkers, they’re censorship lords.”
“I want to make it so there’s no incentive for PolitFact, USAToday, Lead Stories to sign-on to be a fact-checker. I want to show that they can get sued and lose money.”
“We went after Facebook and sent them a letter, and they said, we have nothing to do with the fact checkers. … So, if Facebook isn’t coming to their aid, and they’re being sued by individuals, there will be no upside. And that’s sort of the corner we’re trying to pinch them into.”
