Key House Member Eyes Internet Liability Changes Before Election

By and | January 29, 2020

  • January 29, 2020 at 11:28 am
    Rosenblatt says:
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    Considering FB said they’re not going to fact-check statements or advertisements made by politicians even if it’s been thoroughly debunked and proven to be a complete lie, I think removing the liability shield is a good thing. Since FB already removes ad’s that lie, the system is already in place and they could easily do the same for ad’s made by politicians.

    From FB: “Per our Advertising Policies, we do not allow advertisers to run ads that contain content that has been marked false, or is similar to content marked false, by third-party fact-checkers. We disapprove ads that contain content rated false, which means these ads can’t run.”

    Also from FB: “Thus, when a politician speaks or makes an ad, we do not send it to third party fact checkers.”

    • January 29, 2020 at 1:17 pm
      Craig Cornell says:
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      You are simplifying a very complicated issue. What is a “lie”, exactly? You have to get inside someone’s mind to know if they are actually saying something they know not to be true.

      When Obama said that the ACA would reduce household premiums by $2,500. per family, was he lying? Or did he really believe it? And if Facebook at the time deleted every Obama statement about the predicted savings, would you support it? Would CNN, the NY Times and millions of liberals have supported it? Of course not.

      The danger is what we have already seen (including on Insurance Journal): the political leanings of the “fact checkers” have a huge influence on what is deleted and what is allowed to stay up.

      And the political pressure – especially from woke progressives – that would be put on Facebook or anyone else who decided to play truth-cop would be enormous, forcing Facebook to have to fight the mob on a daily basis.

      • January 29, 2020 at 1:24 pm
        Rosenblatt says:
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        It’s not complicated … if something is “marked false…by third-party fact-checkers” it should be removed, regardless of the statement being made by an advertising company or a politician.

        Your Obama question is faulty. Let me rephrase the statement: If Obama said that the ACA reduced household premiums by $2,500 per family after the ACA was implemented and data existed to prove that was a lie (which it was), then that statement should not be allowed on FB.

        • January 29, 2020 at 1:48 pm
          Craig Cornell says:
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          I know you are immensely frustrating to communicate with, but here goes:

          My Obama example was a perfect one. Political ads by definition talk about future projections nearly always. “Making Mexico pay for the wall” would be okay under your new, revised definition. But would it by okay for a third party fact checking group run by liberals?

          How about claiming that people coming over the border are “not the best, drug dealers, rapists, and some of them are good people”. Is that true? Many in the media claimed it was not. How about you, if you are an almighty-third party-truth-only-fact-checker”? Do you leave it up?

          You are oversimplifying to the extreme if you think the Mob wouldn’t be hounding Facebook on every single one of the above comments.

          • January 29, 2020 at 3:01 pm
            Common Sense says:
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            Craig, I have seen a number of Bloomberg ad buys on FB and they are all lies. FB does like the money they are getting from him to post Progressive lies.

          • January 29, 2020 at 3:17 pm
            Rosenblatt says:
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            What about … what about … what about ….

            Since I already directly answered a few of yours, let me ask you a simple question: do you think FB should be removing ANY false advertisements what-so-ever?

            Or do you think the site should allow ALL postings even if it’s something blatant like “Joe Biden was born in China, lived there until he was 12, and has 3 vehicular homicides on his record”?

          • January 29, 2020 at 4:44 pm
            Craig Cornell says:
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            I think anything should be allowed by Facebook that doesn’t advocate violence.

            Snopes – respected by liberals but not conservatives as a fact checker – recently fact checked the satire site, Babylon Bee!

            By definition, satire is NOT TRUE. And yet because the Bee is conservative-leaning, Snopes never retracted their “fact check”.

            Free speech with the fewest limits possible. Period. (

            CNN and the NY Times lied for two years about the Russia Collusion hoax when there was tons of information in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere that cast doubt on the whole theory. If a conservative fact checker found those lies of the NY Times in advance, would you approve of shutting down their dishonest stories? No, you wouldn’t.

          • January 29, 2020 at 4:59 pm
            Rosenblatt says:
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            Thank you for answering my question directly, Craig.

          • January 30, 2020 at 7:40 am
            PolarBeaRepeal says:
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            “I know you are immensely frustrating to communicate with…”

            All Conservatives and Libertarians on these comment pages do, and trolling is the reason.

          • January 30, 2020 at 7:46 am
            PolarBeaRepeal says:
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            ” You are oversimplifying to the extreme if you think the Mob wouldn’t be hounding Facebook on every single one of the above comments. ”

            Liberals residing here often hound the IJ Administrators to remove posts by Conservatives that they cannot reply to with any substantive rebuttal, and on which they only down-vote…. now that ‘BOTting’ them into hidden status is more difficult and time-consuming.

        • February 5, 2020 at 2:34 pm
          Ohio Agent says:
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          Doesn’t Progressive say it can save on average $1000 on personal auto and homeowners a year? Haven’t found anybody yet that saving that much.

          For those reading and taking this post seriously, it’s meant to be sarcasm.

          As far I know the FCC doesn’t make any of the companies prove it when they say they can save you money.

  • January 30, 2020 at 7:37 am
    PolarBeaRepeal says:
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    If Scakowsky (sp?) were truly concerned with fairness of elections and avoiding fake news, she’d write to the FCC and FEC to investigate (most likely resulting in shutting down) CNN and MSNBC, the two greatest purveyors of fake news.

    Not only does Sect 230 protect HONEST media outlets, they are also protected (erroneously when they produce fake news) by the 1st Amendment to the USC.

    This is another attempt by Democrats to pre-emptively challenge the pending re-election of Trump and control of both chambers of Congress by Republicans. They have run out of ideas, so they’ve stolen ‘fake news’ from those who were/ are actually adversely impacted by it.

    • January 30, 2020 at 2:52 pm
      Well... says:
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      Fox is the biggest purveyor of fake news. So much so, that they had to call themselves an entertainment company rather than a news company so that they could avoid having to issue retractions for all of their fake news.

      I also down voted your comment 7 times.

      • January 31, 2020 at 1:09 pm
        PolarBeaRepeal says:
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        Say what you wish. The proof is much more difficult.

        • January 31, 2020 at 1:15 pm
          Rosenblatt says:
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          Polar – we all know you believe snopes is not an independent fact checker and I’m not here to convince you otherwise. My question is straight-forward, simple, and relevant to your last 2 posts … please name ONE fact check site you DO believe is independent or, if not independent, at least one that we can rely on for their services.



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