Facebook stops people from posting Breitbart article; PolitiFact changes headline to suit narrative

By: Renee Nal | New Zeal

It appears that the Washington Post, Facebook, the so-called “fact-checkers,” radical left wing groups registering felons to vote and the insane amount of money from the left and the “right” that poured into Alabama has done it’s job.

Consider this disgusting quote from New Jersey Senator Cory Booker:

“My friends on the other side of the aisle have told me, and said publicly, that they’re going to try to oust him as soon as he’s there,” Mr. Booker said of Mr. Moore. “Time is wasting. There are big bills coming through, spending bills and the like. Alabama needs its share.”

Judge Roy Moore is a target. Again.

Alabama should stay as far away as possible from federal dollars, but with Doug Jones in charge, big government, massive taxes and wasteful spending will burden the citizens.

And then there is Evan McMullin, whose “recently founded non-profit organization, Stand Up Republic, jumped into the Alabama Senate race this week with a $500,000 ad buy against Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore.”

Evan McMullin and Bill Kristol and Jay Kaganoff are peas in a pod. Beware.

Now that the Alabama election is over, this author would like to shine a light on a troubling story that has received hardly any attention, and certainly none in the mainstream media:

  1. Facebook is literally prompting people to reconsider posting a Breitbart article in favor of their Facebook-approved article, and
  2. PolitiFact appears to have changed their own title to fit their narrative.

Screenshot of error message when one tries to share Breitbart article on Facebook

In what appears to be an unprecedented act, Facebook is stopping people who are trying to share a specific, and very popular, Breitbart article by John Nolte on Beverly Nelson, who has publicly accused Roy Moore of sexual assault in 1977. As proof of her accusation, Nelson used an inscription on her high school yearbook.

The Yearbook

(Skip to the next section if you don’t need the background on the Yearbook)

From the beginning, Nelson, aided with attorney Gloria Allred, maintained that the entire inscription was from Judge Moore. This is disputed by Snopes (who “fact-checked” as “false” a story earlier this week that originated from a satire site):

“Although some misunderstanding or misrepresentation certainly surrounded Nelson’s claims, the language with which they were commonly characterized in right-wing news reports was itself hyperbolic and inaccurate. Nelson didn’t ‘lie’ about the annotations (she hadn’t claimed that Moore had written them himself, although neither had she previously explained that he hadn’t), she didn’t ‘tamper’ with Moore’s signature (other than possibly appending the abbreviation ‘D.A.’ to it), and she didn’t ‘forge’ (i.e., fraudulently create) any portion of the yearbook or its contents.”

After Moore questioned the validity of the inscription last month, claiming that it appeared to be altered, the Washington Post assured us that a “forensic document examiner” named Mark Songer found that, while he was clear that he needed the actual yearbook, his initial assessment was that  “[T]he writing [meaning the entire inscription] seems consistent with one writer:”

“Looking at the yearbook entry,” he said, “it looks pretty spontaneously prepared” — that is, it doesn’t look like the writer stopped and restarted, as though someone were tentative in writing perhaps because they were trying to imitate another writer. “It looks very fluid. I don’t see any indications of unnatural writing.”

“The writing seems consistent with one writer,” he added, though he pointed out that “Old Hickory House” and the second date appear to be different stylistically — though he’d need to see examples of Moore’s hand-printed writing to be able to determine whether it’s authentic.

From an NBC report last month:

As he had with the other female accusers, Moore denied Nelson’s claim. Later, in an open letter to FOX News’ Sean Hannity, Moore said he believes there was evidence that ‘tampering has occurred’ in the inscription. His lawyer also noted that at the time of the alleged attack Moore was deputy district attorney for Etowah County, not the district attorney.

Nelson’s lawyer, Gloria Allred, said her client ‘is willing to testify under oath before the U.S. Senate that there has been no tampering.’”

When Good Morning America attempted to assist Beverly Nelson bury the fact that indeed, she altered the inscription, Nolte seized on the opportunity to point out the hypocrisy, resulting in a conniption fit from Facebook and their co-collaborators at PolitiFact & Snopes.

From the Good Morning America report:

Roy Moore accuser Beverly Young Nelson told Good Morning America today that she did add “notes” to a message she said he signed in her yearbook in 1977.

“Nelson admits she did make notes to the inscription. But the message was all Roy Moore,” ABC News reporter Tom Llamas said.

“Beverly, he signed your yearbook,” Llamas said to her.

“He did sign it,” Nelson replied.

“And you made some notes underneath,” Llamas said.

“Yes,” she acknowledged.

Nelson acknowledged she added a date and place under the message she said Moore wrote.

Importantly, Good Morning America uses the words “admit” and “acknowledged.”

John Nolte Terrifies the Media

Nolte observed:

“Beverly Young Nelson has finally admitted that she forged a portion of the infamous high school yearbook that she and attorney Gloria Allred used as proof of her accusations against U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore.

And in yet another blow to the credibility of ABC News, the disgraced, left-wing network downplayed the bombshell by presenting this admission of forgery as adding ‘notes’ to the inscription. Worse still, the reporter actually coaches Nelson, puts words in her mouth, downplay the enormous significance of her deceit.”

So PolitiFact, Snopes and Facebook evidently teamed together to do some damage control by attempting to marginalize Nolte’s observations. In an article at PolitiFact titled “No, Roy Moore accuser didn’t admit she forged his signature in her yearbook,” author Manuela Tobias writes:

“A conspiracy-minded website attempted to cast doubt on evidence presented by one of eight women who accused Roy Moore of sexual assault in a misleading headline days ahead of the Alabama Senate race.”

Tobia’s paragraph deserves an entire post. In the desperation to belittle Breitbart News, it comes across as petty and biased.

As noted above, Beverly Nelson and Gloria Allred claimed from the beginning that the entire inscription was from Judge Roy Moore. The fact that Good Morning America attempted to assist Nelson in glossing over this fact was not lost on Nolte, who called it out.

PolitiFact appears to change their headline

Interestingly, the headline of the PolitiFact piece appears to have been altered. The headline is “No, Roy Moore accuser didn’t admit she forged his signature in her yearbook,” but the Permalink still says:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/dec/08/blog-posting/no-roy-moore-accuser-didnt-tamper-or-forge-yearboo/

At one point, the headline of the PolitiFiction piece must have been,

“No, Roy Moore accuser didn’t tamper or forge yearbook….”

Headline of the PolitiFact piece appears to have been altered

This title change takes away Beverly Nelson’s responsibility for tampering with the inscription, which she “admits” to doing. PolitiFact, in their drooling partisanship, could not bring themselves to report that Nelson tampered with the inscription.

Gloria Allred maintained from the beginning that the entire inscription came from Roy Moore. It is significant that in the face of ongoing public pressure to release the yearbook for  independent handwriting analysis, Allred must have known she was losing ground. If Beverly Nelson is telling the truth, Allred has done a deep disservice to her client for allowing this lie to continue for so long. Facebook, Washington Post, PolitiFact and Good Morning America have also done all of us a great disservice by pushing desperately for the lie to become truth.

The permalink is still there. All you need to do is hover over it to see that “tamper” was a part of the original link. Check it out.

Facebook Ramifications

The ramifications of Facebook interfering with the news users choose to post must be addressed. Clearly, Facebook is giving a massive boost to Snopes and PolitiFact by deeming them the arbiters of truth. Imagine if you were a fact-checker. Having Facebook deliberately put your website in people’s line of vision would be a dream come true. Is this an official arrangement?

Conversely, what is the criteria for news – particularly news of a political nature – to be pulled aside and given a prompt? There is fake news all over the place. Why Breitbart? Why now? It is not much of a stretch to consider that Facebook’s heart went aflutter when they saw the pro-Roy Moore Breitbart article gaining ground on their platform.

It is highly unlikely that Facebook is going to be adding prompts to everything highlighted as “Pants on Fire” or “false” by their openly partisan fact-checkers. Consider Manuela Tobias’ claim that Breitbart News is “a conspiracy-minded website.” The bias is so strong that even a fact-checking website cannot bring itself to use neutral language, much less be bothered to prove it’s claim that Breitbart is “conspiracy-minded.”

Importantly, why is Facebook more qualified to vet the news than the person who decides to post it? Why does Facebook think it has that right? Why do we allow it?

Will this loss be the launch pad for conservatives to understand the lengths at which the other side are willing to go? Will conservatives come to realize the incredible damage that RINOs are doing to constitutional conservatives running for office?

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