According to the original Free Beacon report, President Joe Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services planned to implement a $30 million grant program that included the distribution of “safe smoking kits” to drug addicts. A spokesman for the administration told the Free Beacon that these “safe smoking kits” would—like many other similar existing kits across the nation—include pipes for the use of “any illicit substance.” Another Facebook fact-checker, AFP Fact Check, also concluded the “U.S. grant program is not funding crack pipes for addicts.”
As a result of this wave of fact-checking activity, Facebook posts linking to the Free Beacon report were tagged as “Partly False,” thereby “significantly” reducing the “content’s distribution so that fewer people see it,” according to Facebook’s own fact-checking policy.
The Free Beacon tried to fight the decision, but complaints fell on deaf ears. Lead Stories editor in chief Alan Duke insisted he had no responsibility to contact the Free Beacon before making a determination, which relied exclusively on the word of Biden administration officials. That’s right: Lead Stories diminished the story’s distribution on Facebook based on the word of Biden administration officials whose policies were suddenly under scrutiny.
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