The social media platform modified its “fact check” of the Pulitzer-winning reporter’s claims
Seymour Hersh gestures during a panel discussion on the Iraq War at an Associated Press conference in San Jose, California, October 28, 2005 © AP / Paul Sakuma
Facebook has changed its position on a report implicating the US in the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, and is now warning readers that the story is “partly false” rather than “false information.” The platform was heavily criticized for labeling the report in the first place.
On Thursday, Facebook users attempting to share Seymour Hersh’s account of the Nord Stream bombings, which finds the US responsible for bombing the pipelines, discovered that their posts were hidden behind a semi-opaque black box with a message informing readers that the article contained “false information.” Facebook directed readers to a different article – in Norwegian – supposedly compiled by trustworthy “fact checkers” via a link below the box.
Hersh argued that US naval divers and their Norwegian counterparts planted explosives on the Russia-Germany gas lines in an operation organized by the CIA on behalf of the White House. He based his conclusion on a US source with “direct knowledge of the operational planning.”
BREAKING: Facebook has changed its censorship of Seymour Hersh’s article, removing the black box and changing the warning from “False information” to “Partly false information.” @briebriejoy@robbysoavepic.twitter.com/cqibwhgVg0
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) April 21, 2023
As of Friday, the black box has been removed, and links to Hersh’s article now receive a smaller tab below informing readers that “this information has some factual inaccuracies” and is “partly false.”
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Choosing to click through to the “fact-check” directs readers to the same Norwegian article, which claims that Norwegian military vessels were not near the blast site when Hersh said they ferried the American demolition team to their target. The article was compiled by ‘Faktisk’, an outlet funded by Facebook, the Norwegian government, and several Norwegian media outlets.
It is unclear why Facebook did not stand by its initial label. One possible explanation is that the company was looking to dispel controversy, as the labeling was fiercely condemned by independent journalists and commentators. “Facebook has decided that a Norwegian journalist is right and Hersh is wrong,” journalist Michael Shellenberger wrote on Thursday. “Maybe the Norwegian journalist is right. Whatever the case, it should not be up to Facebook to decide.”
Facebook has not applied similar labels to the reporting of the New York Times or Washington Post, both of which cited American spies who claimed the bombings were carried out by a “pro-Ukrainian group” in a rented yacht. Subsequent reporting has since cast doubt on that theory, while Moscow has dismissed earlier claims that it blew up its own pipelines as “stupid.”