A prominent economist has revealed that Facebook placed a fact-checking label on a post asserting that the US has entered a recession, giving it a “partly false” rating as President Biden continues to reject the grim assessment of the economy.
Dr. Phillip Magness, the research and education director at the American Institute for Economic Research, a libertarian think tank, shared a screenshot from his Facebook account, showing that the social media site had “independent fact-checkers” review his post from July 24, and that they found it was “partly false.”
“We live in an Orwellian hell-scape,” Magness tweeted on Thursday. “Facebook is now ‘fact checking’ anyone who questions the White House’s word-games about the definition of a recession.”
Facebook added a notice to the post warning that “people who repeatedly share false information might have their posts moved lower in News Feed to other people are less likely to see them.”
Twitter / @PhilWMagness
The correction comes after last week Biden denied that the US was in a recession, despite new data showing GDP had contracted for a second consecutive quarter, meeting the long-accepted definition of a recession.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, the president sought to downplay the troubling report, and shift focus to near-record-low unemployment numbers and his administration’s progress on steps to tame soaring inflation.
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