Poor Axios. They are really, really not doing well after Meta -- the parent company of Facebook and Instagram -- announced it was ended its partnership with third-party fact-checkers. Yesterday, they were in a panic because the change might let people (gasp!) say mean things on social media.
Today, they've ratcheted up the rhetoric:
Fact-checking suddenly looks inadequate and practically irrelevant. Whole realities — the supposed culprits for the LA fires, a new MAGA world map, a child sex-abuse scandal in Britain — now sweep the internet overnight.
— Axios (@axios) January 10, 2025
We no longer need fact-checkers. We need reality-checkers.
Reality checkers?
Okay, challenge accepted, Axios. Define 'woman' for us, please.
Fact-checking suddenly looks quaint, inadequate and practically irrelevant.
- Whole realities — the supposed culprits for the LA inferno, a new MAGA map of the world, a child sex-abuse scandal ("grooming gangs") in Britain — now sweep the internet overnight.
- We no longer need fact-checkers. We need reality-checkers.
Why it matters: When President-elect Trump takes office 10 days from now, he'll be more impervious than ever to metaphysical truth — long the purview of traditional, rigorous news reporting.
Skeptics and opponents will be left shaping, and reacting to, entire worldviews and narratives that have so much momentum — and such powerful constituencies — that they become the reality that lawmakers, regulators, journalists and citizens will have to contend with.
- This is uncharted terrain. What's real? What's spin? What's outright misinformation?
- And who do you trust to make sense of it all? And what if others trust people who are untrustworthy?
There is so much to unpack here, but this writer will try.
For starters, they really don't like not having a stranglehold on every single media outlet. They didn't like it when they lost X, and now they don't like that they won't have undue influence over at Meta.
They also really think only they are the arbiters of truth and that people are too stupid to know what is and isn't reality.
All of this coming from the outlet that pretended Kamala Harris wasn't really the border czar.
Gosh, I wonder why objective truth is in such peril these days.
— Mike Breslin, Ph.D. 🇺🇸🇮🇱 (@mikebreslin815) January 10, 2025
What institutions caused this? 🤔🤔🤔 pic.twitter.com/Gl0tLIuYvV
Look in the mirror, Axios.
I’m sorry free speech did this to you
— The Dank Knight 🦇 (@capeandcowell) January 10, 2025
That pesky First Amendment.
Well, at least one fire in LA was caused by arson, and the child sex abuse scandal is real. What are you going to pick on next, the “conspiracy about the lab leak theory”?
— Trish "the Plate" (@TrishtheSkeptic) January 10, 2025
They're batting a thousand.
What we really need is for journalists to understand that they have lost the trust of news consumers, and are thus no longer in a position to fact check or reality check anything. Much of that lost trust was their own doing.
— David Gaw 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@davidgaw) January 10, 2025
This is all their own doing.
If you want reality, don't read axios.
— jhawk4life 🇺🇸 (@jhawk4life) January 10, 2025
Solid advice.
Maybe true, but we definitely don’t need you.
— Greg Scott (@GScottSays) January 10, 2025
And we’ve been telling you that for a long time. pic.twitter.com/dPQ3SDDq8y
That's quite the graph, isn't it?
Why is free speech is more freedom to the right yet ALWAYS more dangerous to the left?
— The Dank Knight 🦇 (@capeandcowell) January 10, 2025
Explain it like I’m five https://t.co/mAcGVObNBo
Because the Left don't want people to hear things they disagree with, while they have carte blanche to do what they please, including violence. That's why they classify free speech as 'violence' and their violent actions as 'free speech'.
The hall monitors of the internet have written a long tardy slip for all of us... https://t.co/AyQbk3pYna
— Cardinal Curmudgeon (@Gimblin) January 10, 2025
They're adorable, aren't they?
"WAAAAAHHH! We lost control!" https://t.co/UxAnLG4FNH
— Doug TenNapel (blue check implied) (@DougTenNapel) January 10, 2025
Let's send some Kleenex to the Axios offices, shall we?
Bitterly clinging to their relevance, as their ability to define their opinions as reality and shape world views through selective reporting is shattered https://t.co/12PR8qgxis
— BlueNGold (@BlueNGold92) January 10, 2025
We love to see it.
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