Facebook punishes ThinkProgress after fact check by Weekly Standard

Facebook  gave a "false rating" to an article after the Weekly Standard, a conservative publication used by Facebook as a fact checker, claimed the article was incorrect. The article in question, published by ThinkProgress, was titled, "Brett Kavanaugh said he would kill Roe v. Wade last week and almost no one noticed." While Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh didn't literally say that he would vote to overturn the abortion ruling from 1973, ThinkProgress writer Ian Millhiser made a reasonable argument that Judge Kavanaugh's statements show that he believes Roe v. Wade was decided incorrectly. The right-wing Weekly Standard called ThinkProgress's article false in a fact check, based on the rather obvious fact that Judge Kavanaugh never specifically said he would vote to overturn Roe. Because The Weekly Standard is one of five news outlets that Facebook relies on to fact check articles posted by other sites, ThinkProgress was given the dreaded false rating, which could hurt ThinkProgress' business by dramatically reducing referrals to the site. ThinkProgress argues that The Weekly Standard's objection "appears to hinge on the definition of the word 'said.'"