Facebook has been chastised for classifying claims by US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh as “false.” Hersh has made assertions regarding American involvement in the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage and the alleged theft of US funding by Kiev, but the social media giant believes that “fact-checking” by publications affiliated with Norway and Ukraine justified its use of the label.
In February, Hersh stated that the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, which were built to transfer gas from Russia to Germany, was ordered by US President Joe Biden and carried out by a joint US-Norwegian team. Both countries have denied any involvement.
According to journalist Michael Shellenberger, Hersh’s essay on pipeline sabotage, which he published on the website Substack, is now flagged as “false information” by Facebook. Facebook relies on third parties it deems to be independent fact-checkers to decide whether to alert people about the content of links uploaded on the platform.
While Hersh’s assertions are debatable, Shellenberger alleges that Facebook “has decided to take a side” and is “censoring” the seasoned journalist.
In this occasion, the fact-checker was the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK. On March 14, the organization reprinted an article by Faktisk.no, a media watchdog that works with NRK. The watchdog claimed that Hersh was misinformed regarding the alleged role of Norwegian Navy ships in the Nord Stream sabotage based on open source data.
“Whether Hersh is wrong or right, his reporting should be debated publicly, not censored,” stressed Shellenberger, who recently assisted in the investigation of social media censorship as part of the Twitter Files.
“Facebook’s actions are antithetical to America’s tradition of free and open debate, as well as its rejection of secretive, authoritarian censorship,” he continued.
