facebook女程序员_Facebook正在悄悄地向其独立的事实检查员施加压力，要求他们改变裁决

By Alex Pasternack

亚历克斯·帕斯特纳克(Alex Pasternack)

When Mark Zuckerberg went to Washington for a rare, three-day charm tour last September, his schedule featured behind-closed-doors lunches, dinner with President Trump and Peter Thiel, and one-on-ones with lawmakers who, among other things, wanted to talk about a video on Facebook.

去年9月，马克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)前往华盛顿进行为期三天的罕见的魅力之旅时，他的日程安排有闭门午餐，与特朗普总统和彼得·泰尔(Peter Thiel)的晚餐，以及与立法者的一对一交流，想谈谈在Facebook上的视频。

The two-minute-40-second clip, titled “Abortion is never medically necessary,” had racked up a few thousand shares since it had appeared weeks earlier, and had already stirred up a litany of outrage. The anger wasn’t over the video’s misleading title or its content, but because Facebook had slapped the video with a “false” label.

长达2分钟40秒的剪辑名为“堕胎从来没有在医学上是必要的”，自从几周前出现以来已经累积了几千股，并且已经激起了一连串的愤怒。 愤怒的原因不是视频的误导性标题或内容，而是因为Facebook用“假”标签拍了视频。

A post-2016 innovation, the labels aren’t placed by Facebook but by harried subcontractors, fact-checkers and journalists, and scientists who are fed a never-ending feed of potential misinformation. They can flag extreme misinformation for total removal — think dangerous coronavirus hoaxes — but mostly they place “false” or “partly false” labels on content, which gray out posts with a warning message and a link to an article explaining the fact-checkers’ reasoning. Fact-checks bring internal penalties too, like limits on content distribution or on a page’s ability to microtarget ads. In some cases, Facebook says repeat offenders can be deleted entirely.

标签是2016年之后的一项创新，不是由Facebook而是由烦恼的分包商，事实检查人员和新闻记者以及科学家们贴上标签，这些科学家被喂饱了无休止的潜在错误信息。 他们可能会标记出极端错误信息以将其完全删除-认为是危险的冠状病毒骗局-但大多数情况下，它们会在内容上贴上“假”或“部分假”标签，这些标签会以灰色显示，并带有警告信息和指向说明事实检查人员的文章的链接推理。 事实检查也会带来内部惩罚，例如限制内容分发或页面微定位广告的能力。 Facebook说，在某些情况下，屡犯者可以被完全删除。

The video was notable because it had been shared by Lila Rose, the founder of antiabortion group Live Action, who has upwards of five million Facebook followers. Rose, leery of restrictions on her page and handy with claims of Big Tech censorship, quickly launched a petition protesting what she alleged was bias by Facebook’s fact-checking partner, a nonprofit called Health Feedback. Soon, four Republican senators, including Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, wrote a letter to Zuckerberg condemning what they called a “pattern of censorship.” They demanded a correction, a removal of all restrictions on Lila Rose and her group, and a “meaningful” audit of Facebook.

该视频之所以引人注目，是因为该视频已由反堕胎组织Live Action的创建者Lila Rose分享，他拥有超过500万的Facebook关注者。 罗斯(Rose)对自己的页面限制不多，对大技术审查(Big Tech)的要求也派上了用场。她Swift发起了一份请愿书，抗议她所谓的Facebook事实检查合作伙伴(一家名为Health Feedback)的非营利组织的偏见。 不久，包括密苏里州的乔什·霍利和德克萨斯州的特德·克鲁兹在内的四名共和党参议员给扎克伯格写了一封信，谴责他们所谓的“审查制度”。 他们要求更正，取消对Lila Rose及其团队的所有限制，并对Facebook进行“有意义的”审核。

Soon, the fact-check labels were gone. A Facebook spokesperson told BuzzFeed News at the time that the labels would be removed pending an investigation “to determine whether the fact checkers who rated this content did so by following procedures designed to ensure impartiality.”

不久，事实检查标签消失了。 一位Facebook发言人当时对BuzzFeed新闻说，在调查之前，这些标签将被删除，“以便确定对这一内容进行评级的事实检查员是否遵循旨在确保公正性的程序进行了评级。”

A week later, its CEO was on Capitol Hill, sitting in front of the letter’s lead author.

一周后，其首席执行官在国会山上，坐在这封信的主要作者面前。

“Zuckerberg admitted there ‘clearly was bias’ in the @LiveAction @LilaGraceRose censorship,” Senator Hawley tweeted after the meeting. “Said bias is ‘an issue we’ve struggled with for a long time.’” (Facebook fact-checked Hawley’s account: The spokesperson says the CEO only “said it appeared there might be bias” in the handling of the fact-checks.)

“扎克伯格承认@LiveAction @LilaGraceRose审查制度中'显然存在偏见'，”参议员霍利在会议后发推文说。 “所说的偏见是'我们长期以来一直在努力解决的一个问题。'”(Facebook事实检查了霍利的帐户：发言人说，首席执行官仅表示“在事实检查的过程中似乎存在偏见”)。 )

But there was no bias, according to the investigation conducted by the Independent Fact Checking Network, the nonpartisan group that certifies Facebook’s fact-checkers. Two of the doctors should have disclosed affiliations with pro-choice advocacy groups, the IFCN said, but after reviewing the fact-check and 10 previous fact-checks, it found Health Feedback’s assessment to be accurate, unbiased, and based on sound science.

但根据独立事实检查网(Independent Fact Checking Network)进行的调查 ，这没有偏见，该组织是对Facebook事实检查人员进行认证的无党派组织。 IFCN表示，其中两名医生本应披露与选择拥护者团体的隶属关系，但在审查了事实检查和10项以前的事实检查后，它发现Health Feedback的评估是准确，公正的，并且基于可靠的科学依据。

Two of the fact checkers, Daniel Grossman and Robyn Schickler, defended their evaluation in a Washington Post op-ed, calling it a matter of life-or-death medicine, not opinion. “Everyone is entitled to his or her views of abortion,” they wrote. “But promulgating misinformation about when abortion is medically necessary is dangerous.”

事实检查员中的两个，丹尼尔·格罗斯曼和罗宾·希克勒，在《 华盛顿邮报》的专栏中为他们的评估辩护，称这是生死攸关的问题，而不是观点。 他们写道： “人人有权享有自己的堕胎观点。” “但是发布有关何时需要流产的错误信息是危险的。”

Perplexingly, Facebook did not reinstate the false label.

令人困惑的是，Facebook没有恢复虚假标签。

Emmanuel Vincent, the director of Science Feedback, the parent of Health Feedback, tells Fast Company that, despite the investigation, Facebook concluded that the videos should be classified as “opinion/advocacy,” and thus not subject to fact-checking labels at all.

健康反馈的母公司科学反馈总监Emmanuel Vincent告诉《 快速公司》 ，尽管进行了调查，但Facebook仍认为视频应归类为“意见/主张”，因此完全不需经过事实核查标签。

Facebook did not comment on its involvement in the label, except to say that it had “talked with” the IFCN. Since Zuckerberg’s visit to D.C., the original video alone has racked up an estimated three million views.

Facebook没有评论其参与该标签，只是说它已与IFCN“交谈”。 自从扎克伯格访问DC以来，仅原始视频的观看次数就达到了300万。

The removed labels are among more than half a dozen instances in which Facebook managers have interfered with fact-checks in ways that appear at odds with the program’s spirit of independence and nonpartisanship. At times, its employees have used a broad exemption for opinion content and previously undisclosed powers to make editorial decisions in ways that appeared to favor certain publishers. Content that has been deemed false by its fact-checkers has not always been labeled false on Facebook. In some cases, Facebook has reevaluated fact-check labels or penalties after fact-checkers had acted, often in the wake of political, financial, and PR pressures.

被删除的标签是在超过六起实例中，Facebook经理以与该程序的独立性和无党派精神不同的方式干扰了事实检查。 有时，它的员工对意见内容使用了广泛的豁免，并且以前未公开的权力以似乎偏向某些出版商的方式做出编辑决定。 被事实检查者认为是虚假的内容在Facebook上并不总是被标记为假。 在某些情况下，在事实检查人员采取行动之后，Facebook通常会在政治，财务和公关压力后重新评估事实检查标签或处罚。

In one previously unreported label change, for example, Facebook pressured fact-checkers to downgrade a label on a video shared by influential conservative publisher PragerU from “false” to “partly false.”

例如，在以前未报告的标签更改中，Facebook要求事实检查人员将有影响力的保守派出版商PragerU分享的视频上的标签从“假”降级为“部分错误”。

Was the change warranted? “Let me put it this way,” says Scott Johnson, an editor at Climate Feedback, another Facebook partner and sister to Health Feedback. “Our reviewers gave it a -2 rating on our +2 to -2 scale and our summary describes it as ‘incorrect and misleading to viewers,’ so we had selected the ‘false’ label accordingly.”

是否需要进行更改？ “让我这样说，”气候反馈杂志的编辑斯科特·约翰逊说，他是Facebook的另一位合伙人，也是健康反馈杂志的姐妹。 “我们的审阅者在+2到-2的等级上给它给出了-2的评分，我们的摘要将其描述为'对观众不正确且具有误导性，因此我们相应地选择了'假'标签。”

“Our summary describes it as ‘incorrect and misleading to viewers,’ so we had selected the ‘false’ label accordingly.” — Scott Johnson

“我们的摘要将其描述为“不正确且会误导观众”，因此我们相应地选择了“假”标签。” —斯科特·约翰逊(Scott Johnson)

In recent days, Facebook has clarified that while opinion is generally not eligible for fact-check labels, fact-checkers can still label op-eds and similar content if they contain misinformation. And, the company says, it does not consider content on controversial topics like abortion and climate change to automatically constitute opinion. But Facebook still decides what counts as opinion, and it can compel changes to fact-check labels or remove misinformation strikes from a page accordingly.

最近几天，Facebook澄清说，虽然一般来说意见不符合事实核查标签的条件，但事实核查人员仍然可以在标签中包含错误信息的情况下对操作和类似内容进行标签。 而且，该公司表示，它不认为人工流产和气候变化等争议性话题的内容会自动构成意见。 但是Facebook仍然决定什么才是意见，它可以强迫更改事实检查标签或相应地删除页面上的错误信息提示。

Facebook’s landmark fact-checking program “has many seemingly valuable aspects,” says Brendan Nyhan, a professor of government at Dartmouth College who has studied fact-checking. But Facebook’s management of the program is raising pressing questions about the world’s largest organized battle against misinformation.

达特茅斯学院的政府教授布伦丹·尼汉(Brendan Nyhan)说，Facebook具有里程碑意义的事实检查程序“具有许多看似有价值的方面”，他研究了事实检查。 但是，Facebook对该计划的管理正引发有关全球最大的有组织的反对错误信息之战的紧迫问题。

“Facebook is making what are essentially policy decisions for a huge amount of public debate with little oversight or accountability,” he says. “We should know if fact-checkers can be overruled, and the extent to which opinion content is exempt from fact-checking.”

他说：“ Facebook正在针对大量公众辩论制定基本的政策决定，几乎没有监督或问责。” “我们应该知道事实调查员是否可以被否决，以及意见内容在多大程度上不受事实调查的影响。”

我们对Facebook事实核查工作的了解 (What We Know About How Fact-Checking Works at Facebook)

How do you correct a fact? That’s a tough one, especially in a time of fact-free politics. Americans are rapidly losing faith in an objective media and increasingly getting their political news from social media, which already struggles to stem tides of lies. Facebook has touted its program of independent fact-checkers as central to its fight against the kind of garbage that flooded its platforms in 2016, a bulwark against hoaxes around elections and viruses and vaccines. Facebook now says it pays over 70 independent third-party groups, with nine in the U.S., to review a never-ending stream of potential misinformation.

您如何纠正事实？ 这是一个艰难的过程，尤其是在没有事实根据的政治时代。 美国人正在Swift失去对客观媒体的信仰 ，越来越多地从社交媒体获得政治新闻，而社交媒体已经努力遏制谎言浪潮 。 Facebook吹捧其独立的事实检查员计划，作为其与2016年淹没其平台的那种垃圾的斗争的中心，这是反对围绕选举，病毒和疫苗的恶作剧的堡垒。 Facebook现在表示，它将向70多个独立的第三方组织(其中有9个在美国)支付费用，以审查源源不断的潜在错误信息。

“We do not believe that a private company like Facebook should be the arbiters of truth,” Facebook says in a blog post about the program, emphasizing standards like independence, fairness, and transparency. Any content is eligible for review, except politicians’ posts and opinion content, an exemption designed to avoid appearing to be an “arbiter of truth” — and more pointedly, to deter persistent allegations of anti-right-wing censorship. (Those allegations remain as loud as ever, notwithstanding a lack of evidence that Facebook perpetrates systematic bias against conservatives, and despite Facebook’s own data showing that right-wing content is consistently the platform’s most engaging.)

Facebook在有关该程序的博客文章中说：“我们不认为像Facebook这样的私营公司应该成为真理的仲裁者。”他强调了独立性，公平性和透明度等标准。 除政客的帖子和意见内容外，任何内容都可以进行审核，这种免除旨在避免看起来像是“真理的仲裁者”，更明确地说，是为了阻止对反右翼审查制度的持续指控。 (尽管缺乏证据表明Facebook对保守派采取了系统性偏见，而且尽管Facebook的数据表明右翼内容始终是该平台最吸引人的 ，但这些指控仍然像以往一样大声疾呼 。)

But in trying to avoid the appearance of bias and cater to certain advertisers, Facebook has also appeared to soften its rules. In recent months, Facebook’s interference in fact-checks, particularly on climate change content — reported variously by BuzzFeed News, the Wall Street Journal, E&E News, Heated, Popular Information, and NBC News — have perplexed fact-checkers and incensed lawmakers.

但是，为了避免出现偏见并迎合某些广告客户，Facebook似乎也放宽了规则。 近几个月来，Facebook对事实检查的干预，尤其是对气候变化内容的干预(由BuzzFeed新闻 ，《 华尔街日报》 ，《 电子与电气新闻》 ，《 加热》 ，《 大众信息 》和NBC新闻多次报道 )使事实检查员和立法者感到困惑。

“Facebook clearly doesn’t get it: Climate denial is the original fake news,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, tells Fast Company. “The facts are that climate change is happening and human beings are driving it. Either Facebook recognizes that and makes good on its commitment to [combat] false information on its platform, or it tacitly endorses climate denial drivel.”

来自罗德岛的民主党参议员谢尔登·怀特豪斯(Sheldon Whitehouse)告诉《 快速公司 》：“ Facebook显然没有得到：拒绝气候是原始的假新闻。” “事实是气候变化正在发生，而人类正在推动气候变化。 Facebook要么意识到这一点，要么履行其承诺，与平台上的[打击]虚假信息作斗争，或者默认支持气候否认手段。”

In a series of conversations with Fast Company and in a letter to a group of Democratic senators, Facebook emphasized an important exception to its exemption for opinion content. “[W]hen someone posts content based on false facts — even if it’s an op-ed or editorial — it is still eligible for fact-checking,” Kevin Martin, Facebook’s vice president for U.S. public policy, told Democratic senators including Elizabeth Warren and Sheldon Whitehouse in an August 7 letter, echoing comments sent to Fast Company. And, Martin told the senators: “If a publisher wishes to dispute a fact-check rating, they can do so directly with the fact-checker.”

在与Fast Company的一系列对话中，以及在致民主党参议员的一封信中，Facebook强调了免除舆论内容的一个重要例外。 Facebook美国公共政策副总裁凯文·马丁(Kevin Martin)对包括伊丽莎白·沃伦(Elizabeth Warren)在内的民主党参议员说：“ [当有人发布基于虚假事实的内容时，即使是发表评论或社论，也仍然可以进行事实检查。”和谢尔顿·怀特豪斯(Sheldon Whitehouse)在8月7日的来信中，呼应了发送给Fast Company的评论。 而且，马丁对参议员说：“如果出版商希望对事实核对等级提出异议，则可以直接与事实核对者进行争议。”

But in its letter to the senators, Facebook did not address other significant exceptions to these rules, caveats that the company has not previously disclosed.

但是，在致信众议员的信中，Facebook并未提及这些规则的其他重大例外，该警告此前该公司尚未披露。

While fact-checkers decide which ratings to place on content, Facebook says it makes a superseding decision: It “sets the guidelines for the scope of the program,” says a Facebook spokesperson — that is, it determines what content is eligible for fact-checking.

Facebook发言人说，虽然事实检查人员决定对内容进行分级，但Facebook表示这是一项取代性的决定：“它确定了该计划范围的准则”，也就是说，它确定哪些内容符合事实条件-检查。

In some cases, Facebook may intervene if it thinks that a piece of content was mistakenly rated, by asking fact-checkers to adjust their ratings, a spokesperson acknowledged to Fast Company. This would seem to break with the company policy that says fact-checkers, not Facebook, are responsible for determining the rating on a piece of content, and that publishers must appeal their ratings to the fact-checkers directly.

发言人向《 快速公司》 ( Fast Company)承认，在某些情况下，如果Facebook认为某个内容被错误地评分，可以通过要求事实检查人员调整其评分来进行干预。 这似乎违反了公司政策，即事实检查员而非Facebook负责确定某项内容的评级，发布者必须直接向事实检查员上诉其评级，这与公司政策相违背。

Facebook’s power to determine what counts as “opinion” is still based on an expansive definition, thanks in part to a single clause in its policy. The company says that opinion content includes not only articles like op-eds, but posts “shared from a website or Page with the main purpose of expressing the opinions or agendas of public figures, think tanks, NGOs, and businesses.” That broad exemption would appear to cover people like Lila Rose, who is now designated as a “Public Figure” on Facebook.

Facebook确定什么是“意见”的权力仍然基于广泛的定义，部分原因是其政策中只有一个条款。 该公司表示，意见内容不仅包括像opeds之类的文章，而且还包括“从网站或Page共享的帖子，其主要目的是表达公众人物，智囊团，非政府组织和企业的意见或议程。” 这种广泛的豁免似乎涵盖了像Lila Rose这样的人，他现在在Facebook上被指定为“公众人物”。

Additionally, apart from the fact-check labels, Facebook also reserves the power to remove a page’s “misinformation strikes,” the internal penalties that come with false ratings and that can restrict a page’s distribution and its ability to monetize.

此外，除了事实检查标签之外，Facebook还保留删除页面“错误信息警告”的权力，这些错误信息带有错误的评分，并可能限制页面的分布及其获利能力。

Facebook did not disclose to Fast Company how often it intervened in fact-checks or misinformation strikes, saying it only occurred in “rare” instances. The company also declined to share a list of specific URLs that had recently been given fact-check labels, or content that had been labeled but later lost a label for any reason. That has left the discovery of altered fact-check labels up to journalists and the fact-checkers themselves.

Facebook没有向Fast Company透露它多久介入一次事实检查或错误信息警告，称它仅发生在“罕见”情况下。 该公司还拒绝共享最近被赋予事实检查标签的特定URL列表，或已被标记但后来由于任何原因而丢失标签的内容的列表。 这就使发现的事实核对标签被发现的问题留给了新闻记者和事实核对者本身。

气候标签融化的奥秘 (The Mystery of the Melting Climate Labels)

On May 8, Prager University, which is not in fact a university but instead a prolific right-wing nonprofit content creator, republished a video that claimed that “there is no evidence that CO2 emissions are the dominant factor” in climate change. Soon, fact-checkers with Climate Feedback rated the video false, saying it was “incorrect and misleading to viewers,” and a label popped up on PragerU’s page. PragerU appealed to the fact-checkers, but they upheld their verdict.

5月8日，实际上不是大学，而是多产的右翼非营利内容创作者的普拉格大学重新发布了一段视频，声称“没有证据表明CO2排放是气候变化的主要因素”。 很快，带有气候反馈的事实检查人员将该视频评为“错误”，称该视频“不正确且会误导观众”，并且在PragerU的页面上弹出了一个标签。 PragerU呼吁事实检查员，但他们维持了判决。

That’s when Facebook called.

那是Facebook打电话的时候。

“The Facebook team reached out to suggest we change the rating from ‘false’ to ‘partly false’ based on the content of our review,” says Johnson, the Climate Feedback editor. Climate Feedback complied, changing the label to “partly false,” which brings lesser penalties.

气候反馈编辑约翰逊说：“ Facebook团队根据我们的评论内容，建议我们将评级从'假'更改为'部分假”。 符合气候反馈，将标签更改为“部分错误”，从而减少了罚款。

In some cases the post now appears without any apparent label at all. After an update that Facebook announced last week, the company is using what it calls a “lighter-weight warning label” for “partly false” content in the U.S.: an unobtrusive box below the video under “related articles” that says “fact check,” with a link. Meanwhile, older versions of the video appeared to evade labels completely: A handful of other PragerU posts containing the video appear without labels, a review by Fast Company found. Versions of the labeled and unlabeled video have now racked up millions of views since April 2016, when it was first published.

在某些情况下，该帖子现在似乎根本没有任何明显的标签。 Facebook上周宣布了更新之后，该公司正在使用所谓的“轻型警告标签”来表示美国的“部分虚假”内容：视频下方“相关文章”下方的方框，上面写着“事实核对” ，”带有链接。 同时，较早版本的视频似乎完全逃避了标签：《 快速公司》 ( Fast Company)的一项评论发现，其他一些包含视频的PragerU帖子都没有标签。 自2016年4月首次发布以来，带标签和无标签视频的版本现在已经吸引了数百万的观看次数。

Facebook did not explain why PragerU’s label was downgraded. But internal Facebook messages first obtained by BuzzFeed News and NBC News this month shed more light on the company’s behind-the-scenes treatment of PragerU.

Facebook没有解释为什么PragerU的标签被降级。 但是，本月BuzzFeed新闻和NBC新闻首先获得的内部Facebook消息为该公司对PragerU的幕后待遇提供了更多线索。

Shortly after Climate Feedback labeled the May 8 video, a Facebook employee argued for a review by pointing to PragerU’s ad spend — the organization had “500 active ads on our platform” — which is another factor that can influence Facebook’s decisions about what labels to change. The fact-check was PragerU’s second “false” rating that month — in another video it had asserted that the polar bear population was increasing. According to Facebook’s policies for “repeat offenders,” that could mean limits to PragerU’s distribution and advertising. Ultimately, Facebook removed the misinformation strikes from PragerU’s internal record.

在气候反馈为5月8日的视频贴上标签后不久，一位Facebook员工通过指出PragerU的广告支出(该组织在我们的平台上有500个活跃广告)来进行评论，这是另一个可能影响Facebook决定更改标签的决定的因素。 。 事实调查是PragerU当月对PragerU的第二次“虚假”评级-在另一个视频中，它断言北极熊的数量正在增加。 根据Facebook的 “重复犯规” 政策 ，这可能意味着限制PragerU的发行和广告投放。 最终，Facebook从PragerU的内部记录中删除了误报。

The change, according to data collected by a Facebook engineer and reported last week by BuzzFeed News, went unreported to the public or to the fact-checkers. Facebook’s decision to also push Climate Feedback to downgrade its rating has not been previously reported.

根据Facebook工程师收集的数据，该变化是BuzzFeed News上周报告的，但尚未向公众或事实检查者报告。 此前尚未有报道称Facebook决定将气候反馈降级。

A Facebook spokesperson did not explain why it downgraded the PragerU label, but acknowledged the power the company exercises over its penalty system. Fact-checkers are responsible for rating content, but Facebook is “responsible for how we manage our internal systems for repeat offenders.” Facebook issues more serious penalties, “unless we determine that one or more of those ratings does not warrant additional consequences,” spokesperson Liz Bourgeois tells Fast Company.

Facebook发言人没有解释为什么降低PragerU标签的等级，但承认该公司在其罚款制度上行使权力。 事实检查人员负责对内容进行评级，但是Facebook“负责我们如何管理屡犯者的内部系统。” 脸谱网发言人利兹·布尔乔瓦(Liz Bourgeois)告诉《 快速公司 》，Facebook会施加更严厉的处罚，“除非我们确定其中一个或多个评级不值得承担其他后果”。

The label was one of over two dozen fact-check penalties “escalated” for review by Facebook managers in recent months, often in ways that supported conservative publishers including Breitbart News and Diamond and Silk. According to the Facebook engineer’s data, the reasons for the interventions included that the content should been classified as opinion, or because of “PR risk,” a page’s “ad spend,” or “partner sensitivity” over perceived bias.

该标签是最近几个月Facebook经理“升级”以审查的二十多项事实检查处罚之一，通常以支持保守派出版商(包括Breitbart News和Diamond and Silk)的方式进行。 根据Facebook工程师的数据，干预的原因包括应将内容归类为意见，或者是由于“公关风险”，页面的“广告支出”或“合作伙伴对感知偏差的敏感度”。

That sensitivity has become an animating cause for PragerU. Since its founding in 2009 with funding from fracking billionaires Dan and Farris Wilks, the nonprofit has become a right-wing megalith in the Trump era culture wars, a kind of Fox News for millennials. Last summer, it was one of a number of right-wing figures and provocateurs at President Trump’s Social Media Summit, where social media censorship was a main focus.

这种敏感性已成为PragerU的动画原因。 自2009年成立以来，这家非营利组织获得了来自不堪重负的亿万富翁丹尼尔和法里斯·威尔克斯(Farris Wilks)的资助，现已成为特朗普时代文化大战中的右翼巨人，这是千禧一代的福克斯新闻。 去年夏天，它是特朗普总统的社交媒体峰会上众多右翼人物和挑衅者之一，社交媒体审查是主要重点。

For Prager, alleged bias by Facebook is not only a source of grievance and a badge of honor but a lucrative fundraising cause. In May, after another video was marked false, PragerU raked in $16,000 in a Facebook fundraiser protesting alleged censorship. Since 2018, PragerU has raised at least $400,000 in similar fundraisers, according to BuzzFeed News, a fraction of its estimated $25 million in income this year.

对于普拉格(Prager)而言，Facebook的所谓偏见不仅是不满和荣誉的象征，而且是可观的筹款活动。 5月，在另一个视频被标记为虚假之后，PragerU在一个Facebook筹款活动中筹集了16,000美元，以抗议所谓的审查制度。 根据BuzzFeed News的数据 ，自2018年以来，PragerU已通过类似的筹款活动筹集了至少40万美元，仅占其今年估计的 2500万美元收入的一小部分。

And, despite its ongoing protest, much of that cash is likely to go to Facebook ads. Its page consistently spends more on Facebook advertising than major political campaigns and national advocacy groups, and ranks among the 10 biggest political spenders on the platform, the Los Angeles Times reported last year. PragerU says its videos have been watched more than two billion times.

而且，尽管抗议活动一直在进行，但大部分现金很可能会流向Facebook广告。 据《洛杉矶时报》去年报道，其页面在Facebook广告上的花费始终超过主要的政治运动和全国倡导团体，并且在该平台上排名前十位。 PragerU说，其视频已被观看超过20亿次。

Craig Strazzeri, PragerU’s chief marketing officer, says its page was not the recipient of favoritism, but the opposite. “As a result of the fact-check labels, Facebook has significantly suppressed our content and prohibited us from reaching large portions of our own audience who have opted in to follow PragerU content,” he says.

PragerU的首席营销官Craig Strazzeri说，它的页面不是受到偏爱的，而是相反。 他说：“由于事实检查标签的存在，Facebook极大地压制了我们的内容，并禁止我们接触选择跟随PragerU内容的大部分受众。”

In the past two months, Strazzeri says PragerU has had four videos labeled false, and “several additional videos” completely removed from Facebook. Recent reports of favoritism came as Facebook was also threatening to “unpublish” its page completely, he says. “The notion that Facebook has insiders actively working to help our page is absurd.”

Strazzeri说，在过去的两个月中，PragerU已将四个视频标记为虚假，并且“其他一些视频”已从Facebook上完全删除。 他说，最近有报道称，Facebook也扬言要完全“取消公开”其页面。 “ Facebook有内部人员积极致力于帮助我们页面的想法是荒谬的。”

So far, however, the misinformation labels have not appeared to impact the page’s ability to run ads. This week, PragerU is running five Facebook ads with a total estimated reach of over five million users, each asking for signatures on a petition protesting Big Tech’s censorship against conservatives.

但是，到目前为止，错误信息标签似乎并未影响该页面的广告投放能力。 本周，PragerU投放了5个Facebook广告，估计总共覆盖了500万用户，每个广告都在请愿书上要求签名，以抗议Big Tech对保守派的审查。

“Mark Zuckerberg has recently stated how Facebook doesn’t want to be the arbiter of truth and that Facebook errs on the side of free speech, but talk is cheap,” Strazzeri says of the fact-check system. “The entire program was an attempt for them to not have to flag content themselves, but clearly the fact-checkers they chose have weaponized this process to target conservatives.”

Strazzeri谈到事实检查系统时说：“马克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)最近表示，Facebook不想成为事实的仲裁者，而Facebook则在言论自由方面犯了错误，但谈话费用不高。” “整个计划是他们没有必要标记自己的内容的尝试，但很明显，他们选择的事实检查人员已经将该过程武器化为针对保守派的武器。”

'没有任何意义' (‘It Didn’t Make Any Sense’)

Last August, similar complaints derailed another fact check label on another post about climate change. Around the time that Lila Rose shared her video about abortion, a pro-carbon advocacy group called the CO2 Coalition posted an op-ed on its Facebook page, an article in The Washington Examiner titled “The Great Failure of the Climate Models.”

去年八月，类似的投诉使有关气候变化的另一篇文章的另一个事实检查标签脱轨。 在莉拉·罗斯(Lila Rose)分享有关堕胎的视频的那段时间，一个名为CO2联盟的支持碳的倡导组织在其Facebook页面上发布了一篇专栏文章， 该文章在《华盛顿检验员 》上发表，题为“气候模式的巨大失败”。

As the post began to trend on Facebook, it was flagged to scientists working with Climate Feedback. The article, they wrote in their fact-check, is “highly misleading, including a number of false factual assertions, cherry-picking datasets that support their point, failing to account for uncertainties in those datasets, and failing to assess the performance of climate models in an objective and rigorous manner.” On August 31, they rated the story “false,” threatening restrictions on the CO2 Coalition’s ability to advertise.

随着该帖子在Facebook上开始流行，它被标记为与气候反馈合作的科学家。 他们在事实核对中写道，该文章“极具误导性，包括许多虚假的事实断言，挑剔的数据集来支持他们的观点，未能考虑这些数据集的不确定性以及无法评估气候表现”以客观而严格的方式进行建模。” 8月31日，他们将这个故事评为“假”，威胁到对CO2联盟广告能力的限制。

Within days, the label was gone.

几天之内，标签消失了。

“The Facebook team informed us that it should not be subject to a fact-check and we should remove the rating,” says Johnson of Climate Feedback.

“ Facebook团队通知我们，不应对其进行事实检查，我们应该删除该等级，”气候反馈的约翰逊说。

“It didn’t make any sense,” says Andrew Dessler, one of seven fact-checkers on the post, and a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University. Facebook’s policy says that pages must file appeals only with fact-checkers, not Facebook. And the post would appear to be eligible for a label under the Facebook rule that says that opinion content and op-eds can still be labeled false if they contain falsehoods. (You can read the full fact-check here.)

“没有任何意义，”安德鲁·戴斯勒(Andrew Dessler)说，他是该职位的七个事实检查员之一，也是德克萨斯农工大学大气科学教授。 Facebook的政策规定，页面必须仅向事实检查员提出上诉，而不能向Facebook提出上诉。 根据Facebook规则，该帖子似乎符合标签资格，该规则规定，意见内容和意见如果包含虚假内容，仍可以标记为错误。 (您可以在此处阅读完整的事实检查 。)

Dessler is still confused about the circumstances of Facebook’s actions around climate content, but he has an opinion. “I think their decision to exempt pieces like this from fact-checking is a business decision designed to minimize anger from people who don’t want action on climate,” he says, “who are very powerful.”

戴斯勒仍然对Facebook围绕气候内容采取行动的情况感到困惑，但他有自己的见解。 他说：“我认为他们做出免除事实检查之类的决定是一项商业决策，旨在最大程度地减少不想采取气候行动的人们的愤怒，”他说，他们非常有能力。

Caleb Rossiter, executive director of the CO2 Coalition and one of the article’s authors, thinks that Facebook removed the label for another reason: The fact-checkers were biased. He told Facebook that Science Feedback, “as they had on the abortion stuff, [they] had been censoring opinion — which is, as with climate models, all opinion.”

二氧化碳联盟执行董事卡勒布·罗西特(Caleb Rossiter)也是本文的作者之一，他认为Facebook取消标签的另一个原因是：事实检查员有偏见。 他告诉Facebook，“科学反馈”“就像他们对堕胎材料一样，[他们]一直在审查意见-与气候模型一样，所有意见也都在审查。”

“I think their decision to exempt pieces like this from fact-checking is a business decision.” — Andrew Dessler

“我认为他们决定免除此类事实的决定是一项商业决定。” —安德鲁·戴斯勒

After Rossiter appealed to Climate Feedback and Facebook, a “conservative” employee at Facebook intervened to change the label, E&E News reported in June. Rossiter denies that the employee was conservative. “She said she would do it for anybody,” he says.

据《 E＆E新闻》 6月报道 ，在罗西特(Rosseter)向气候反馈和Facebook提出上诉后，Facebook的一名“保守”员工进行了干预以更改标签。 罗西特否认该雇员是保守的。 他说：“她说她会为任何人做。”

Facebook also likely understood that not removing the label from the CO2 Coalition’s page could lead to more loud complaints of bias, or what Facebook refers to internally as “partner sensitivity.”

Facebook还可能理解，不从CO2联盟的页面上删除标签可能导致抱怨声更大，或者Facebook内部称之为“合作伙伴敏感性”。

The Washington, D.C.-based group has about 5,000 followers on Facebook, but boasts a number of influential friends in its hometown: One of its founders, William Happer, served on Trump’s National Security Council, where he pursued an adversarial review of climate science; member Mandy Gunasekara was recently sworn in as chief of staff at the Environmental Protection Agency. Largely funded by foundations that oppose energy regulations, the group spends much of its time providing lawmakers with talking points to challenge climate science.

这家总部位于华盛顿特区的组织在Facebook上拥有约5,000个关注者，但在其家乡拥有许多有影响力的朋友：其创始人之一威廉·哈珀(William Happer)在特朗普的国家安全委员会任职，他在这里进行了气候科学的对抗性审查； 成员Mandy Gunasekara最近宣誓就职环境保护署(EPA)。 该组织主要由反对能源法规的基金会资助，该组织花费大量时间为立法者提供对话点，以挑战气候科学。

“They were aware of the fact that we work with Senator Cruz’s office and advise him on climate science,” Rossiter says. “I think Facebook had the sense that we were not going to lie down either, like the anti-abortion groups.”

“他们意识到我们与克鲁兹参议员的办公室合作，并就气候科学向他提供建议，”罗西特说。 “我认为Facebook感觉到我们也不会像反堕胎组织那样躺下。”

系统性问题 (A Systemic Problem)

Facebook’s puzzling interventions are not aberrations but part of a systemic problem, says Melissa Ryan, a disinformation researcher who has studied social media platforms. When Facebook’s fight on falsehoods collides with some of the influential advertisers spreading them, “you have this policy that’s designed to make no sense,” she says.

研究社交媒体平台的虚假信息研究员梅利莎·瑞安(Melissa Ryan)说，Facebook令人费解的干预措施不是畸变，而是系统性问题的一部分。 她说，当Facebook的虚假斗争与一些有影响力的广告主传播时发生冲突时，“您制定的这项政策毫无意义。”

Along with fact-checkers and lawmakers, some Facebook employees are demanding more transparency around its fact-checking. After reporting by Buzzfeed News revealed preferential treatment for conservative pages — and that Facebook had fired the engineer who had gathered the supporting evidence — an internal message board has since swelled with suggestions on how to “fix Facebook.”

除了事实检查员和立法者外，一些Facebook员工还要求其事实检查具有更高的透明度。 后报告由来自Buzzfeed新闻透露优惠待遇保守的网页-和Facebook此前解雇谁曾收集的证据支持工程师-内部留言板自膨胀与建议，就如何“修复Facebook的。”

“I think Facebook had the sense that we were not going to lie down either, like the anti-abortion groups.” — Caleb Rossiter

“我认为Facebook感觉到我们也不会像反堕胎组织那样躺下。” —迦勒·罗西特(Caleb Rossiter)

“Can we also use this as an opportunity to be more transparent about fact-checking in general?” one employee asked, according to messages obtained by BuzzFeed. “Not just internally but also to our users? How escalations and appeals work, who can do them, who is doing them, aggregated statistics about posts labeled . . .”

“我们是否也可以以此为契机，使一般情况下的事实检查更加透明？” 根据BuzzFeed获得的消息，一名员工问。 “不仅是内部的，而且还包括我们的用户？ 上报和申诉的工作方式，谁可以执行，谁正在执行，汇总了标有的帖子的统计信息。 。 。”

Last week, Facebook reiterated how its opinion rule works and announced a slightly revised rating system, including the lighter-weight labels. It also sent Fast Company a new “high level statement.” “There is no playbook for a program like ours and we’re constantly working to improve it based on feedback from our partners and what we see on our platform,” it said.

上周，Facebook重申了其意见规则的运作方式，并宣布了稍作修订的评分系统 ，包括重量较轻的标签。 它还向Fast Company发送了新的“高级声明”。 它说：“没有像我们这样的程序的剧本，我们将根据合作伙伴的反馈以及我们在平台上看到的内容，不断进行改进。”

To Dessler, the scientist and fact-checker, the muddy, Byzantine policies — and Facebook’s response to recent revelations — underscores a more global problem. “We need to have a society-wide discussion about how corporations should deal with disinformation, and then the government should require corporations to adopt that policy.”

对于科学家兼事实检验员戴斯勒(Dessler)而言，混乱的拜占庭政策以及Facebook对最近启示的回应强调了一个更全球性的问题。 “我们需要在全社会范围内讨论公司应如何处理虚假信息，然后政府应要求公司采用该政策。”

“The most important thing about the story, and something that doesn’t seem to bother a lot of people, is that we have outsourced decisions like this to corporations,” he says. “This is a truly terrible situation to be in.”

他说：“关于这个故事的最重要的事情，似乎并没有引起很多人的困扰，是我们将这样的决定外包给了公司。” “这真是一个可怕的情况。”