Fast Company: "Facebook is quietly pressuring its independent fact-checkers to change their rulings"
The video was notable because it had been shared by Lila Rose, the founder of antiabortion group Live Action, who has upwards of five million Facebook followers. Rose, leery of restrictions on her page and handy with claims of Big Tech censorship, quickly launched a petition protesting what she alleged was bias by Facebook’s fact-checking partner, a nonprofit called Health Feedback. Soon, four Republican senators, including Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, wrote a letter to Zuckerberg condemning what they called a “pattern of censorship.” They demanded a correction, a removal of all restrictions on Lila Rose and her group, and a “meaningful” audit of Facebook.
Soon, the fact-check labels were gone. A Facebook spokesperson told BuzzFeed News at the time that the labels would be removed pending an investigation “to determine whether the fact checkers who rated this content did so by following procedures designed to ensure impartiality.”
How very independent.