Facebook ending fact-checking will deepen social media bias

All right, I want to talk about the magnification of the social media news space as we are now just days away from the Donald Trump second term. We don’t really know what much of social media is going to look like over the next few months, but we are starting to get the impression that it’s going to be far more Trumpy. And there’s a couple of different things going on up. All of the social media platforms other than Tik Tok, are skewed to the right wing Twitter more so than others. But other than tick tock, they all skew right. Tick tock is the one platform that is closer to 5050 and depending on the study, it leans very slightly more left than right, or is basically 5050, tick tock may be banned. We don’t know what’s going to happen. The Supreme Court is going to get involved. Trump used to want to ban it. Now he wants to save it. We don’t know what’s going to happen with tick tock, but certainly, if in two months, there’s no more Tiktok in the United States that is going to push the balance of social media news to the right away from the left. In addition to this, Facebook is going big time. Trumpy, back in October of 2023 Facebook decided we are no longer going to promote news and political content. At that time, my views on Facebook dropped 90%

and it was again, Facebook saying this just hasn’t been great for us. We don’t want to be involved in this. And of course, it disproportionately hurts the left, since we struggle in so many other media platforms. The latest from Facebook is number one. That matter is bringing Dana White from UFC, the ultimate fighting guy, to their board of directors. Why does he have expertise or knowledge? Subject matter, knowledge and the issues facing Facebook? No, he is basically benefiting from Mark Zuckerberg fanboying. Mark Zuckerberg has gotten really into mold mix martial arts in UFC over the last few years to kind of reinvent his image. And so he just really likes Dana White, and he’s like, Dana, come join us. White is an over supporter of Trump, and is yet another voice on the meta board that is a pro Trump voice. And then, most recently, Facebook has announced they will be ending their fact checking program. And think about the 180 that has taken place at the start of the COVID pandemic because so much medical disinformation and misinformation was spreading on Facebook. Facebook instituted fact checking. Hey, maybe don’t start guzzling hydroxychloroquine. They were criticized for the Maga right was upset with Facebook. Slowly but surely, Mark Zuckerberg has become more and more friendly to Maga and to Trump, and now they are eliminating the fact checking program altogether, which of course, will benefit Trump, who is the president formerly, who lied more than any other president, and I expect will continue to do so as president. So what is it that the left should or can do? Well, a lot of the things I’ve been trying to do for a long time, one aspect of this is diversify your platforms. Why am I on YouTube and Facebook and Tiktok and Snapchat and podcasting and all of this stuff, because we know that with the flip of a switch, any one of these platforms can crush us now, just spreading around doesn’t change the fact that independent news on Facebook or Instagram or Tiktok can be decimated at the push of a button. The problem there is that the solution is different. On each one of these platforms, Face Book will start allowing community notes rather than fact checking, sort of the way that Twitter, now known as x does. Well, we need to be ready to participate in and submit those community notes, tick tock. As a platform, if it goes away, is going to buy a slight proportion hurt the left rather than the right. But I think one of the bigger takeaways is we really do have to start building some of our own platforms and building out organizations. Turning Point, USA, the daily wire, et cetera. Yes, to a degree, the stuff they put out is still mediated by the same algorithms that our content is mediated by. But the bigger you get, and the more of the ecosystem you control, in person, events, shows that are hosted directly on your website, all of these things, the more we can do that, the more robust and prepared we will be for what listen. I’ll admit I think is going to be a very uphill battle in this forthcoming Trump era. What are you doing to prepare in terms of media consumption is something interesting. I would want to hear from you. I know people who are changing around their subscriptions, cutting the cord so they don’t send Fox news a few bucks a month, as cable subscriptions do. Others are saying I’m actually temporarily tuning out so that I’m ready to tune back in when the rubber meets the road and it’s time to really get up there and oppose.

BISM, let me know what you’re doing. Let me know what you think you.