Facebook’s ‘Fact Checks’ Suppress Debate

The social-media site seeks to discredit a review of my book on climate science.

This paper published Mark Mills’s review of “Unsettled,” my book on climate science, on April 25. Eight days later, 11 self-appointed “fact checkers” weighed in with a 4,500-word critique on the website ClimateFeedback.org. Facebook is waving that fact check as a giant red flag whenever the review appears in anyone’s feed.

The oddest element of Facebook’s action is that the “fact check” doesn’t challenge anything I wrote in “Unsettled,” but rather provides “context” for Mr. Mills’s statements.

Thoughtful challenge and dialogue are the most powerful ways that science gets closer to truth. But Facebook’s “fact checkers” criticized what they imagined I wrote based on a 900-word review, rather than what I did write in a book of more than 75,000 words. They’re no better than trolls who pan political adversaries’ books

More From The Wall Street Journal (subscription required):