To most conservatives, it’s always been obvious that the current regime of “independent third-party fact-checkers” was nothing more than a band of political activists.
Fact-checking, to them, isn’t about fighting misinformation. It’s about deciding which opinions the public is allowed to hear.
There is perhaps no better example of this than Instagram’s move on Sunday to add a “missing context” claim to a photograph of former President Donald Trump at Ground Zero in 2001.
Jack Posobiec of Human Events posted the photograph to his Instagram account along with the text “No one told him to go. He went anyway.”
Trump was in fact at Ground Zero shortly following the attack. An NBC News interview from 2001 posted by Posobiec confirms as much.
Keep RTing this so BlueAnon cult funking loses it pic.twitter.com/hgR68Ie9vs
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) September 11, 2022
Nevertheless, Instragam added the “Missing Context” label to the photograph. If clicked, the label redirects to two stories from two different independent fact-checkers.
The first story published by Lead Stories claims is titled “Fact Check: NO Evidence That Donald Trump Paid Hundreds of Workers To Help With Search And Rescue After 9/11.”
Should this label be removed and an apology issued?
Yes: 98% (825 Votes)
No: 2% (13 Votes)
Posobiec never made that claim in his own post.
The second fact-check, published by Snopes, claimed it is “unproven” that “Trump and hundreds of workers” searched for survivors after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack.
Again, neither of these claims is made in the photograph, which is originally attributed to Getty Images.
Nevertheless, when social media users come across this photo on their feeds, they’ll see a “missing context” label, making them think that the photograph is in some way dishonest.
But Instagram continues to keep the label in place.
So, if the two fact-checks have nothing to do with the photograph, what’s the missing context?
Perhaps Instagram wants every picture of Trump to have the label “Orange Man Bad” affixed to it.
Otherwise, someone may view this picture of the former president at Ground Zero and think that Trump is actually a human being who cares about others.
It’s likely Instagram would label such an idea as “misinformation.”
