Topic: Media Research Center
Right-wing radio host Mark Levin was mad that Facebook put a block on the falsehoods he published on his page there. And his buddies at the Media Research Center was eager to give Levin a platform to vent that anger. Alexander Hall did tthe stenography job in a Nov. 2 post:Popular conservative talk radio host Mark Levin was targeted by Facebook on the evening before the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
“Facebook has now placed severe restrictions on my Facebook page on the eve before the election based on an extremely dishonest Politifact review of my link to an accurate story,” Levin tweeted November 2. He added: “I will not be intimidated or threatened by Facebook. You can also find my posts on Twitter and Parler.”
Attached to the tweet was a screenshot of the notification from Facebook explaining: “Your Page has reduced distribution and other restrictions because of repeated sharing of false news. People will also be able to see if a Page has a history of sharing false news.”
Politifact had fact-checked Levin’s post of a tweet from Richard Grenell, where Levin called Biden a “fraud” for not wearing a mask on a plane. Fact-checkers such as Politifact claimed the photo Levin shared was in fact from November 2019.
Notice Hall's framing there. In his telling, the Grenell post that Levin reposted wasn't objectively, indisputably false; it's just that fact-checkers "claimed" it was false. Despite that framing, Hall offers no evidence to contradict anything the fact-checkers found.
Hall let the whining continue:
Levin tweeted about another fact-check he had received earlier on November 2 as well:
“And I listened to the audio myself. Biden said America is dead but FB dinged this as partly false on my site when I linked to it from another site due to leftwing Politifact’s opinion as a third party reviewer. Well, this is all fascistic crap.”
The Hot Air article “Biden Stumbles Through Another Campaign Speech: ‘America Is Dead Because Of COVID-19’” included a link to a clip of Democratic nominee Joe Biden speaking about COVID-19 at a rally, proclaiming: “America is dead because of COVID-19.”
But that Hot Air article now begins with an editor's note correcting the record: "The original version of this article stated that Joe Biden had said 'America’s Dead' during a campaign speech. In reality, Biden said 'Americans dead' in reference to the number of deaths caused by COVID-19. The incorrect references have been removed." And, yes, fact-checkers concur.
In other words, Levin was lying about what Biden said.
Despite the fact that Levin is 0-for-2 here and Facebook was entirely justified to limit the exposure given to his false claims, Hall still had to push the MRC's dubious victimization narrative. So he huffed that "Big Tech has been doing everything it can to protect Biden as the 2020 election approaches" -- while not explaining how shutting down Levin's falsehoods equated to "protecting Biden" -- and spent the rest of his post rehashing how social media limited the spread of the still-unproven New York Post story about Hunter Biden's "alleged scandalous dealings" with Ukraine.
Then again, the narrative is more important than the truth as far as the MRC is concerned -- perhaps even more so when it comes to its buddy Levin.
