Speaker: Facebook acknowledged factcheckers to be politically biased; NGOs and opposition use Facebook to manipulate public opinion
For years, Facebook’s primary fact-checkers in Georgia were individuals associated with the former National Movement government and later active in the NGO sector, such as Sergi Kapanadze (FactCheck) and Tamar Kintsurashvili (MythDetector). Recently, Facebook acknowledged that factcheckers have been politically biased,” the Georgian Parliament Speaker, Shalva Papuashvili, wrote on social media.
Papuashvili noted that “it is now evident how these groups used Facebook as a tool to manipulate public opinion in Georgia.”
“The millions of dollars provided to these NGOs by foreign governments were essentially funding Soviet-style party censorship. Facebook’s decision to dismantle this harmful system exposes how the radical opposition, their NGOs, and their funders turned Facebook into a platform for manipulating Georgian public opinion,” Papuashvili wrote.