Covid hysteria introduced many themes that badly crash landed. Among them: “trust the science,” “if you take the Covid vaccine you won’t get covid or transmit it,” “masks protect you and others,” “social distancing protects you” and “I am science.” Among the most spectacular crackups was: “trust the experts.” 

That crash was particularly fiery when people began noticing just how often the experts were disastrously and laughably wrong, how often their expert pronouncements were Democrat/socialist/communist (D/s/c) dogma and that experts earned their expertise almost entirely by saying they were experts. People with credentials also claimed expertise in topics far outside their credentials and knowledge with equally trash compacting results.

Perhaps the worst “experts” were “fact-checkers”:

Graphic: X Screenshot

The New York Times was skewered Tuesday for a headline about Meta fact-checkers fact-checking their own critics.

Meta announced that it would be ending its controversial fact-checking practices and lifting restrictions on speech to "restore free expression" across Facebook, Instagram and Meta platforms, admitting its current content moderation practices have "gone too far." 

But its former third-party fact-check partners objected to the allegations of bias and censorship in their work. PolitiFact's Aaron Sharockman blasted the decision in a social media post, saying, "If Meta is upset it created a tool to censor, it should look in the mirror."

Well, yes. Meta is looking in the mirror, which is why Mark Zuckerberg is at least rhetorically shifting to the “X” model. Which is why “fact checkers” are screaming “Nooooooooooo!”

The New York Times published a piece about the backlash from such fact-checker organizations headlined, "Meta Says Fact-Checkers Were the Problem. Fact-Checkers Rule That False." The article said, "Fact-checking groups that worked with Meta said they had no role in deciding what the company did with the content that was fact-checked."

Of course not. There is absolutely no connection between what fact checkers fact check and the content on Meta or any other social media site. And if you believe that, have I mentioned I’m a Nigerian prince in exile and if you’ll give me your bank account numbers, I’ll deposit millions to hide it from my enemies and you can keep 50%?

As usual, The Babylon Bee is at the cutting edge of parody:

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Just who are these fact checkers? How does one break into that exciting field? Does it require a bachelor’s in fact checking?  A Master’s?  A doctorate? How lucrative is it and are there dental, medical and retirement benefits? Or must one merely be satisfied with the self-appointed power to censor others and perhaps to sic legions of “cancelation experts” on one’s political enemies? And what about the “layers and layers of editors and fact checkers” that were revealed to Americans during the Rathergate days? Aren’t self-appointed fact checkers running those official, network fact checkers out of business? And why do virtually every fact checker’s fact checks seem to support D/s/c positions and not the positions of Normal Americans? Aren’t facts facts for everyone? I await fact checks on these questions, which have stirred up the all-powerful International Fact Checking Network (IFCN):

Graphic: X Screenshot

I wasn’t previously aware of the IFCN, but I’ll bet they’re a UN agency, and as such might have been involved in mischief in Israel on October 7. Maybe someone should fact check that? I await the results of their emergency meeting, which must, of course—you guessed it—be fact checked. No doubt the IFCN will find itself completely factual and blameless. It’s good to be dah fact checkers.

And in a related development, a “disinformation expert” has pronounced on Elon Musk’s outrageous attempts to interfere with the thoroughly fact checked operations of foreign governments by commenting about them on X, which because it is no longer fact checked, is a danger to human existence:

Graphic: X Screenshot

How dare an American, and particularly an American billionaire, express any opinion about anything?! And a political opinion? Why, that’s interfering with foreign governments who tend to fact check their enemies directly into prison.

I’m sure disinformation experts are easily as qualified to tell us what’s what as fact checkers. They probably graduated from the same elite fact checking institutions of higher obfuscation with equally advanced degrees.

Sadly, when government tried to establish the “Disinformation Governance Board,” no amount of fact checking or expert pronouncement could save it, so all the federal fact checkers and experts went into stealth mode at the State Department and other deep state bureaucracies, where they labor tirelessly on behalf of fact checkers and experts everywhere.

Until January 20.

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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.