In a Thursday piece on Substack , journalist Glenn Greenwald claimed that Instagram is using its fact-checking to shield President-elect Joe Biden from criticism.
The Intercept co-founder pointed in particular to comments about the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which was first written by Biden before it was passed by Bill Clinton.
“With Joe Biden about to enter the White House — one that will exercise significant influence in determining Silicon Valley’s interests, will be filled with tech executives, and was made possible in large part by Silicon Valley’s largesse poured into the Biden/Harris campaign — Instagram has arrogated unto itself the power to declare these well-established criticisms of Biden and his crime bill to be ‘False’ and having ‘no basis in fact.’”
Greenwald highlighted a post from Biden critic Brad Troemel, which included a photo of Biden and Clinton after the former president signed the controversial legislation into law and a claim that the law increased the African American prison population. Although Instagram said the post was examined by independent fact-checkers who determined it has “no basis in fact,” Greenwald argued otherwise. The writer noted that a USA Today fact check found that Biden’s crime bill increased the prison population in American states, which it claimed would translate into larger numbers of Black inmates.
Greenwald claimed that Instagram’s alleged fake fact-checking exemplifies how many fact-checks are often “extremely tendentious, subjective and highly debatable opinions,” and that Silicon Valley companies do not have the ability to determine the truth of political claims — no matter how pure their motives.
The journalist also noted that Big Tech companies overwhelmingly donated to the Democratic Party and Biden’s campaign and suggested that they should not be assumed to be neutral actors. According to Greenwald, helping Biden via censorship serves their corporate interests.
Twitter is perhaps the most prominent social media platform to have taken on the responsibility of determining the truth of statements on its platform. Notably, the company made a habit of flagging Donald Trump’s claims of election fraud during the 2020 election cycle in the lead-up to Election Day. As The Inquisitr reported, Twitter flagged the president for the first time in May after he attacked mail-in voting in California and said the process is susceptible to widespread fraud.
The platform’s decision to flag Trump’s posts was met with pushback by various prominent Republicans. Brad Parscale, Trump’s then-2020 campaign manager, argued that the company was acting in a biased manner by attempting to obstruct Trump’s message.
