British Medical Journal “Fact-Checked” by Facebook

Here’s an article from The British Medical Journal from November 2021 titled, “Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial”. I won’t go into the details of the article, but recently, due to its content, unsurprisingly the article has been shared many times on the world’s largest social network, Facebook. Consequently, Facebook fact-checked this article and said (among others), “The post includes information that independent fact-checkers said was missing context. Missing context. Missing context. Independent fact-checkers reviewed the information and said it was missing context and could mislead people. Partly false information.

Fact Check: The British Medical Journal Did NOT Reveal Disqualifying and Ignored Reports of Flaws in Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Trials”. The fact-check was accompanied by a screenshot of the investigation with a stamp over the article stating “Flaws Reviewed”. Facebook noted that, “People who repeatedly share false information might have their posts moved lower in the News Feed”.

Understandably, the editors at the prestigious British Medical Journal were a bit upset. In response, they published an article titled, “Facebook versus the BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong”. They also wrote a letter to Facebook. “Dear Mark Zuckerberg, We are Fiona Godlee and Kamran Abbasi, editors of The BMJ, one of the world’s oldest and most influential general medical journals. We are writing to raise serious concerns about the “fact checking” being undertaken by third party providers on behalf of Facebook/Meta. In September, a former employee of Ventavia, a contract research company helping carry out the main Pfizer covid-19 vaccine trial, began providing The BMJ with dozens of internal company documents, photos, audio recordings, and emails. These materials revealed a host of poor clinical trial research practices occurring at Ventavia that could impact data integrity and patient safety. We also discovered that, despite receiving a direct complaint about these problems over a year ago, the FDA did not inspect Ventavia’s trial sites. The BMJ commissioned an investigative reporter to write up the story for our journal. The article was published on 2 November, following legal review, external peer review and subject to The BMJ’s usual high level editorial oversight and review. But from November 10, readers began reporting a variety of problems when trying to share our article. Some reported being unable to share it. Many others reported having their posts flagged with a warning about “Missing context... Independent fact-checkers say this information could mislead people.” Those trying to post the article were informed by Facebook that people who repeatedly share “false information” might have their posts moved lower in Facebook’s News Feed. Group administrators where the article was shared received messages from Facebook informing them that such posts were “partly false”. Readers were directed to a “fact check” performed by a Facebook contractor named Lead Stories. We find the “fact check” performed by Lead Stories to be inaccurate, incompetent and irresponsible. -- It fails to provide any assertions of fact that The BMJ article got wrong.
-- It has a nonsensical title: “Fact Check: The British Medical Journal Did NOT Reveal Disqualifying And Ignored Reports Of Flaws In Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Trials”. -- The first paragraph inaccurately labels The BMJ a “news blog”. -- It contains a screenshot of our article with a stamp over it stating “Flaws Reviewed,” despite the Lead Stories article not identifying anything false or untrue in The BMJ article. -- It published the story on its website under a URL that contains the phrase “hoax-alert”.

Anyway, I won’t go on. The point is, so-called Facebook fact-checkers are calling into question leading medical journals and claiming they are spreading misinformation. They seem to think that they know more than these leading scientists and medical practitioners.

MUSIC
Blacksmith by Godmode

#BritishMedicalJournal #Facebook #Censorship

[BloodofTheLamb]

“What?! My market cap dropped 240B USD in one day?! Get me a fact check on this - Stat !!”

- Zuck

[gregrichey]

They should sue facebook and Lead stories.

[aaronhogan]

When a person "believes" in Science, yet doesn't understand it, the individual is engaging in religion, not science. Worse still, if they are prepared to shout down or cancel an opposing opinion because they disagree they may be a member of a cult.

[theskeptic]

Just watched Dr John Campbell, debunking Facebook . They called it a blog lol

[griegs]

A mouse attacks an elephant, it is both tragic and funny at the same time. I hope the META-mouse gets crushed.