The Bioregulatory Medicine Institute (brmi.online)
In the past, fact-checkers tended to focus mainly on debunking urban myths or clearly false claims made by political leaders. But lately, fact-checkers have appointed themselves as arbiters of the credibility of numerous news outlets. And now, giant tech companies like Google and Facebook have enlisted these "experts" to weed out "fake news."
The problem is that fact-checkers themselves can be unreliable sources for what is true or not. Not only do fact-checkers make mistakes, or have opinions that influence their conclusions, but many fact-checking companies are employed by special interest groups with strong agendas of censorship for subjects that conflict with their economic politics. Fact checker funding is an undeniable influencing element in revealing truth or misinformation. Corporations and technology platforms’ interest have been pushing their agendas into this fact-checking field. This raises a lot of questions around both mission and methods.
Fact checkers often change ratings or make determinations based on arbitrary standards that can change from one review to the next. Even worse, many media "fact checks" use other media sources to check facts, apparently forgetting that journalists get their facts wrong almost as often as politicians.
In the thorny search for truth, there is no substitute for doing one’s own research and applying one’s own considered judgment before thinking oneself informed. In the end, the best way to judge the veracity of claims being tossed around is to become better informed about the issues, not contract out that job to people who are not necessarily qualified to do for you.