On September 2nd, Levan Vasadze, the founder of the homophobic and violent political party “ERI,” published chapter 15 of the “Diary of the Feeble” on the Facebook page of the World Congress Of Families. Vasadze claims that the fact-checkers of “Myth Detector” made Facebook remove the letter “Unnatural Circumstances of my Illness” due to “hate speech.” The letter also appeared on the official web and Facebook pages of “ERI.”
The accusation of Levan Vasadze is false since the letter “Unnatural Circumstances of my Illness” has not been removed and is still available on Facebook. Independent fact-checking organizations, including “Myth Detector,” are not involved in removing content from Facebook, as their partnership with Facebook entails identifying and informing the audience about false information and not deleting it.
“Myth Detector” is partnered up with Facebook to fight against misinformation in the framework of Facebook’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program. Myth Detector reviews and rates the accuracy of content, aiming to improve the quality and authenticity of stories in the News Feed. When rated false, Facebook shows the story lower in News Feed, significantly reducing its distribution and warning people who see the post or try to share the post that it has been marked as false. “Myth Detector” only tackles false and manipulative information and informs society about it. Reacting to hate speech and other content violating the community standards is the discretion of Facebook itself, while all the independent fact-checking organizations are not and cannot be included in this process. Not to mention, politicians and political organizations are exempted from Facebook’s third-party fact-checking program. In addition, the program does not entail assessing the correctness of opinions.
The letter of Levan Vasadze claims that fact-checkers are blocking the “like” and “share” options of the “Diary of the Feeble,” however, the pages of both WCF and “ERI” include several chapters of the diary. In chapter six of the Diary, Vasadze claims that “the matrix named Facebook” blocked his letter because one of the “minions reported it.” In chapter seven, Vasadze claims that the admin of the WCF Facebook page has been restricted from accessing it, while chapter eight claims that the page was marked “red” by Facebook.
The letter “Unnatural Circumstances of my Illness,” where Vasadze labelled the critical media as “Liberasts” [Liberal + Pederast], calls the violent events of July 5th “fair wrath of people,” was published on August 9th on the Facebook page of “ERI” and is available until this very day.
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