from Friends of Science:

Australian Wildfire Facts Blocked by IFCN, Poynter and Facebook

VIDEO:

The horrific Australian wildfires are the result of many causes, not just climate change – and much can be done to reduce wildfire risk through well-researched, well-known mitigation techniques. The public should know this. But Poytner Institute’s ‘fact check’ network and Facebook are preventing the public from learning about wildfire mitigation techniques that were not properly implemented or arsonists who are known to start many wildfires. Poynter Institute claims to be a global leader in journalism and in support of a free press, and democracy. Poynter has partnered with Facebook on a journalism integrity project to supposedly prevent false news from distribution, but instead it is blocking important facts from getting to the public. Poytner set up the “International Fact Checking Network” (IFCN) which is a network of journalists and scientists of various disciplines who are supposed to provide non-partisan and objective review of news items to ensure that false news is not distributed. Based on IFCN pronouncements, Facebook will then demote page quality is a post is deemed to be ‘false news’ (i.e. does not promote climate change as the cause of wildfires). The problem is that Poytner, IFCN, its sub-networks of Science Feedback and Climate Feedback, and Facebook all seem to be stuck in climate dogma. This video summarizes much of the material in Friends of Science Society’s open letter to Poynter and Facebook on this topic. https://blog.friendsofscience.org/202…