On Wednesday, Facebook Canada picked CBC as a 2021 election fact-checker tasked with monitoring other media outlets for inaccurate claims.
Blacklock’s Reporter writes that CBC’s french-language division Radio Canada will be in charge of the initiative.
The fact-checks will link to CBC articles allegedly “disproving” the false claims.
“When a fact checker rates a piece of content as false we significantly reduce its distribution so that fewer people can see it,” wrote Facebook on its 2021 Canadian election page.
“We notify people who try to share the content or previously shared it that the information is false, and we apply a warning label that links to the fact checkers’ article disproving the claim.”
The decision to pick CBC was made despite the fact that the state broadcaster has been responsible for several instances where Canadians were misinformed due to their reporting.
In March, CBC News was forced to issue a correction to a report they published which included alleged quotes by former US president Donald Trump to the governor of Georgia following last year’s election. The quotes were later found out to be falsified.
More recently, CBC News spread misinformation regarding Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole’s comment around mandatory vaccination without revealing that his position was exactly the same as the Liberals.
Alongside the network’s loose relationship with the truth, concerns remain regarding the fact that the Liberal government has promised CBC further funding if elected.
In 2020, the network received a 9.8% increase to its funding and an additional $33.7 million COVID-19 grant from the Liberals, raising the network’s total taxpayer funding to $1.3 billion annually.
