Gun Owners of America Files Campaign Finance Law Complaint Against Facebook, AFP Fact Check, and Kamala Harris for Arbitrary Fact-Checking and Foreign Election Interference
In the complaint, the pro-gun organization alleged that the aforementioned actors violated provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) by being involved in “fact checking” of articles that criticized Kamala Harris’s track record on Second Amendment policies.
Facebook fights the dissemination of so-called “false news” on its platform by using “fact-checkers” to refute and limit the reach of information shared on its platform. One of the “fact checkers” is AFP Fact Check, a foreign media organization that is a recipient of subsidies coming from the French government.
GOA Director of Communications Jordan Stein listed some of the faulty “fact checks”:
Examples of erroneous “fact checks” are two articles concerning VP candidate Kamala Harris’ record on the Second Amendment. Both articles – written by Cam Edwards and GOA’s own Rachel Malone – correctly demonstrated Harris’ anti-gun record, but were rated “false” by Facebook, which used the foreign AFP as its source.
AFP argued that Harris is in favor of gun ownership. However, the articles that were targeted by the fact check noted that Harris penned an amicus brief expressing her opposition to an individual’s right to keep and bear arms. When the articles were posted on Facebook, their reach was largely reduced and a label was slapped on them that read “false news.” Instead, Facebook users were offered the AFP’s version of the “truth.”
GOA’s complaint stated:
Facebook has recruited an agent of a European government to control which messages about U.S. elections may be heard, and which should be suppressed. Based on its favored status within Facebook, AFP Fact Check has been given access to the Facebook site, along with the unilateral powers to declare information it opposes to be “False News,” to censor, diminish, or even remove opposing views that are posted on Facebook, and to superimpose AFP’s own version of the alleged “truth” in its place.
Read more at Big League Politics