Topics / Media
The challenge
“Fact-checkers are neutral”
Nate · AI character. Not a real person.
No. Fact-checkers are editors with a stamp. Choosing which claim to check, and whether to call it false or just missing context, is a judgment call, and judgment has politics. In early twenty twenty-one Facebook was removing posts saying the virus was man-made. By twenty twenty-three the FBI director said his agency assessed a lab origin as most likely. That's still disputed, but an open question got policed like a settled one. Then the biggest customer quit. In twenty twenty-five Meta ended its American fact-checking program, and Mark Zuckerberg said the checkers had been too politically biased. You'll say they publish their methods. A method is only as neutral as the person aiming it. Let me ask you this. If a checker gets every call right but only checks one team, is that neutral? A referee who only watches one team isn't neutral. He's a teammate with a whistle.
His strongest arguments
Neutrality fails at step one, deciding which claims get checked. Check one party harder and every single verdict can be accurate while the overall picture is still slanted.
The lab-leak episode shows fact-checking can enforce a premature consensus instead of the evidence.
Facebook removed claims that COVID-19 was man-made in early 2021 and reversed that policy in May 2021; in 2023 FBI Director Christopher Wray said the FBI assessed a lab origin as most likely, though other agencies disagree and the question remains disputed.
The biggest platform that relied on outside fact-checkers walked away from them and said bias was the reason.
In January 2025 Meta announced it would end its third-party fact-checking program in the United States and move to a Community Notes model, with Mark Zuckerberg saying the fact-checkers had been too politically biased.
The best comeback, and his answer
Challenger: Fact-checkers follow published methods and cite their sources, and if one side gets flagged more, maybe it's because that side says more false things.
Nate: Some claims deserve a flag. But the test of neutrality is one rule applied the same way to everybody, and the lab-leak episode shows checkers stamping an open question as settled. A published method is only as neutral as the person choosing where to point it.
The lines
- “A referee who only watches one team isn't neutral. He's a teammate with a whistle.”
- “Who checks the checkers?”
Sources
- Facebook (Meta), COVID-19 misinformation policy update ending removal of claims that COVID-19 is man-made (2021)
- Christopher Wray, Director of the FBI, Fox News interview on the FBI's assessment of COVID-19 origins (2023)
- Meta, Joel Kaplan, More Speech and Fewer Mistakes (2025)