Who cares what Full Fact thinks?
"Bad information ruins lives", claims the fact-checking organisation
On Friday Full Fact - a self-described “team of independent fact checkers and campaigners who find, expose and counter the harm [bad information] does” - fact-checked Richard Tice, posting on X:
“Reform UK deputy leader @TiceRichard claimed ‘this Labour government has allowed the biggest influx of migrants in British history’.
“He’s not explained what that claim’s based on, but neither we nor the Migration Observatory can find data to support it.”
Whether Tice is right or wrong isn’t really the point of this article.
The point is: who cares what Full Fact thinks?
Full Fact, like BBC Verify, wants us to think they’re the Batman of “Information”, saving citizens lives from baddies trying to fry their brains with Andrew Tate videos.
Quite what qualifies Full Fact to arbitrate on “truth” is anyone’s guess.
Take a look at one of the profiles of its “fact checkers”, Hannah Smith, whose qualifications include writing for UNILAD:
Let’s just take a quick look at UNILAD to see what sort of expertise Hannah Smith might have acquired there…
Then there’s Full Fact’s CEO Chris Morris, who “was the BBC’s first dedicated fact checker on air and online, pioneering fact checking on mainstream outlets through his development and leadership of BBC Reality Check”.
Nowadays, in addition to arbitrating the truth, he sits on the “Commission into Countering Online Conspiracies in Schools”:
Another of the Full Fact team “worked freelance as a feature writer for the Guardian, Prospect, the New Scientist and others, making maps of immigration, explaining citizens’ assemblies and debunking superfoods.”
Can you imagine having to make conversation with these people at, say, a BBQ?
“What do I do for a living? Well, I make maps of immigration, explain citizens’ assemblies and debunk superfoods”.
“Yah, so I think education on conspiracy belief, misinformation and disinformation should begin in primary school”.
GOD HELP US ALL!
The most interesting thing about Full Fact, though, is its funders.
Full Fact explains that “funders have no input into our editorial content or decision making”, but you have to wonder what’s in it for these organisations?
What’s in it for The Tides Foundation, which (incidentally) gets enormous amounts in funding from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations?
And why is Meta (formerly Facebook) paying for for disinformation services, as well as The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (another Quaker foundation)?
To add, Full Fact doesn’t receive taxpayer funding…
… but it sure is an expensive business telling Reform MPs off!
More:
Just in case people don't know, Tides Foundation is a DAF (Donor-Advised Fund). A DAF is a specialist charity that provides donors with savings/investment accounts which can only be used for charitable giving. A DAF serves several purposes:
1) enabling tax-deductible charitable giving to a foreign charity, which is what seems to be happening here with the Google donation. The DAF does due diligence on the foreign charity and approves it for tax-deductible giving.
2) providing for anonymous donations to charity, if desired (Google is not being anonymous here)
3) managing charitable giving tax-efficiently across financial years. If you have a good year, you can give a lump sum tax-efficiently to the DAF in that year, and then make donations from your DAF account to charities at your leisure.
What DOES qualify them to adjudicate the truth ?!! Is it their documented experiential deficit ? Is it their documented math skills deficit ? Is it the fact they attended an economics 101 class at uni ? Is it the ”its all about me” attitude learned throughout their schooling ? No ? What then qualifies them to judge ?