Email shows Facebook execs mulling how to remove a fact check label, determined to be well founded, after it was applied to a viral climate misinfo post
under pressure from @RepMikeJohnson. Climate change is not a matter of opinion. Facebook's @OversightBoard must fix this now. https://heated.world/... Climate Power / @climatepower : When a dangerous article by @ShellenbergerMD caught fire on @Facebook, seven credible climate scientists labeled it as misinformation and “partly false.” But then, the fact-check was removed. What happened? @JuddLegum and @Emorwee break it down: https://popular.info/... @blakehounshell : Boy, you can really see with this one how Facebook has opened up a Pandora's box with this fact-checking stuff https://heated.world/... Emily Atkin / @emorwee : Climate change is killing people, spreading disease, and ravaging economies *right now* And the MAIN REASON we haven't yet done anything about it is because of the rampant, unregulated spread of climate change denial and disinformation https://heated.world/... Hiroko Tabuchi / @hirokotabuchi : The involvement of Rep Mike Johnson on behalf of Shellenberger is notable. Johnson is chairman of the powerful policy arm of House conservatives, and a recipient of money from the oil and gas industry. Must-read from @emorwee https://heated.world/... Emily Atkin / @emorwee : Facebook has said it does not treat climate misinformation w/ the same priority as coronavirus misinformation or hate speech b/c climate misinfo is not an “immediate threat” to health/safety. This is dangerously, undeniably false. https://heated.world/... Dr. Jonathan Foley / @globalecoguy : Facebook knowingly spreads more climate change misinformation, doesn't care. Thanks to @emorwee for the continued great reporting. https://heated.world/... Emily Atkin / @emorwee : I see lots of folks tweeting about the first part of this story by @JuddLegum and me, and that's great! But I want to take a moment to highlight the second part, which is about *why Facebook's handling of climate misinformation matters* https://heated.world/... Andy Stone / @andymstone : @donie Let me offer a helpful quick summary of this story. Science Feedback reversed their fact-check on this piece of content. Judd's own reporting includes confirmation from Science Feedback that Facebook wasn't involved. End. Andy Stone / @andymstone : @JuddLegum @donie We reached out to Science Feedback last year as clear opinion content is generally not eligible to be rated. You can read more about how we view opinion content in the help center. https://www.facebook.com/... Marc Caputo / @marcacaputo : Facebook set up a fact-checking process with scientists. Then overruled them https://twitter.com/... Emily Atkin / @emorwee : Another climate “op-Ed” containing misinformation had its fact-check rating removed from Facebook — and this time, @JuddLegum and I got our hands on internal Facebook memos about it. Read more here: https://heated.world/... Adam Smith / @asmith83 : Pretty wild to me that a simple fact-check of a Daily Wire article involves so many Facebook higher-ups. https://heated.world/... https://twitter.com/... Judd Legum / @juddlegum : 5. The executive director of Science Feedback tells me and @emorwee, my co-author, that it was not pressured by Facebook to remove the fact check But the scientists who produced the fact check also talked to us, and they are not happy https://popular.info/... Roger McNamee / @moonalice : How FB operates: FB execs quietly remove fact check from a piece of climate change denial by Daily Caller after pressure from a Republican member of Congress. https://twitter.com/... Judd Legum / @juddlegum : 4. Facebook's comms team, however, advised against getting involved, citing previous reporting in Popular Information about its fact-checking program and special treatment for The Daily Wire Sign up here for independent accountability journalism -> https://popular.info/... Judd Legum / @juddlegum : 6. Here is the giveaway: The fact check was not removed from nearly identical versions of the article published on other right-wing websites. The change was only made for The Daily Wire https://popular.info/... Yael Eisenstat / @yaeleisenstat : As I wrote in my last OpEd, policies carry no weight if not enforced evenly. Facebook continues to play politics, and @JuddLegum has the receipts on this one. We can't trust a company to self regulate, if it won't even enforce its own stated policies. Another shameful example. https://twitter.com/... Judd Legum / @juddlegum : 2. Prior to the removal of the fact check, Facebook staff prepared a memo for top executives in which they considered the pros and cons of contacting Science Feedback and asking them to remove the rating @emorwee and I obtained the internal Facebook memo https://popular.info/... https://twitter.com/... Judd Legum / @juddlegum : 3. The memo reveals that Congressman Mike Johnson, a member of the GOP leadership, contacted Facebook and asked them to remove the “partly false” rating Facebook's policy team said it's “stakeholders” viewed the fact check as “biased” https://popular.info/... See also Mediagazer
Popular Information
Context & Ripple Effects
This is not an isolated moderation dispute but the sharpest document yet in a pattern Popular Information has been building since late 2019, when it documented how 14 coordinated pages amplified The Daily Wire on Facebook and the company declined to act because they were "run by real people." The new reporting adds the mechanism behind the pattern: an internal email showing executives weighing how to get Science Feedback to reverse a "partly false" rating it had already applied to Shellenberger's viral climate post, after Rep. Mike Johnson intervened.
What makes the email consequential is timing and corroboration: BuzzFeed reported weeks earlier that Facebook sometimes overrules divisive-content decisions from its own fact-checkers with little transparency, and The Information would later report that officials have enjoyed a de facto exemption since 2018 via a 110,000-person whitelist. A documented executive-level effort to unwind one specific label turns those allegations into evidence of process, not just culture.
First-order effects
Science Feedback's independent rating was effectively subordinated to congressional pressure — the fact-checker's verdict no longer binds once a lawmaker escalates, which directly undermines the credibility of every label the partnership applies.
Climate scientists who flagged the Shellenberger post as misinformation lose their enforcement channel: seven credible raters produced a "well founded" label and it still came off, so future flags carry less expected value.
Second-order effects
Republican lawmakers now have a demonstrated playbook — contact Facebook leadership, get the label reconsidered — which raises the volume of such interventions and pushes other parties to organize equivalent pressure channels of their own.
Facebook's remaining fact-checking partners face a trust dilemma: continuing under terms where ratings can be unwound at executive discretion risks their institutional brands, while walking away cedes the misinformation field entirely.
Third-order effects
If political escalation plus internal carve-outs (the whitelist, the algorithm tweaks former employees described) keeps overriding independent review, third-party fact-checking on platforms drifts toward theater — a legitimacy crisis that strengthens arguments for external oversight bodies like the Oversight Board and for regulatory audit requirements.
The episode foreshadows the structural question platforms now face: whether moderation can survive as a private, discretionary function when both sides of Congress treat it as a lobbying target, pushing toward codified, auditable rules rather than executive judgment.
The trend: Platform content moderation is shifting from delegated independent review toward politically negotiated exceptions, with each documented override further eroding the fact-checking partnership model.
1. A viral article w/climate misinformation, published on The Daily Wire, was rated “partly false” by a Facebook fact-checking partners The fact-check was written by 7 PhD scientists Then The Daily Wire and others complained And the rating was removed https://popular.info/...
This investigation into why a Facebook fact-check was removed from a misleading climate op-ed opens a fascinating window into how FB's policy and comms teams weigh the politics and PR dimensions of controversial fact-checks. https://popular.info/... by @emorwee & @JuddLegum
Facebook taking down a factcheck of a Daily Wire climate article is disturbing on a number of fronts But Joel Kaplan referring to climate-change deniers as “our stakeholders” is downright creepy https://popular.info/... https://twitter.com/...
@jbenton Facebook did not remove the fact-check, Science Feedback did. The underlying story itself includes a confirmation from Science Feedback that Facebook was not involved.
This is a wild ride from @emorwee. It turns out that the statement “@Facebook is a cesspit” doesn't just describe certain elements of its user base, but also describes certain elements of its management. (HT @KetanJ0) https://heated.world/...
A fact-check of a viral climate misinformation article was quietly removed from Facebook. FB says it is not treating climate misinfo with the same priority as coronavirus misinfo because it is not an “immediate threat” to health. That is insanely wrong. https://heated.world/...
ICYMI - a fossil-funded, climate-denying Republican politician lobbied Facebook to remove a scientific fact check of a Michael Shellenberger article. Facebook obliged and removed it. https://heated.world/...
If you've missed this story, you need to get on it ASAP. A climate-denying fossil-funded Republican governor intervened in a Facebook fact check of Michael Shellenberger - Facebook then reversed their finding that the article was party false (!!!) https://heated.world/... https:/…
Facebook's factchecking team deemed Shellen Q. Burger's piece “partly false” & labeled it as such. Then conservative Congressional staffers complained and, poof, it was no longer marked. https://heated.world/...
MUST READ: @JuddLegum and @Emorwee detail how @Facebook quietly removed the fact-check of a viral climate misinformation article—under pressure from @RepMikeJohnson. Climate change is not a matter of opinion. Facebook's @OversightBoard must fix this now. https://heated.world/...
When a dangerous article by @ShellenbergerMD caught fire on @Facebook, seven credible climate scientists labeled it as misinformation and “partly false.” But then, the fact-check was removed. What happened? @JuddLegum and @Emorwee break it down: https://popular.info/...
Climate change is killing people, spreading disease, and ravaging economies *right now* And the MAIN REASON we haven't yet done anything about it is because of the rampant, unregulated spread of climate change denial and disinformation https://heated.world/...
The involvement of Rep Mike Johnson on behalf of Shellenberger is notable. Johnson is chairman of the powerful policy arm of House conservatives, and a recipient of money from the oil and gas industry. Must-read from @emorwee https://heated.world/...
Facebook has said it does not treat climate misinformation w/ the same priority as coronavirus misinformation or hate speech b/c climate misinfo is not an “immediate threat” to health/safety. This is dangerously, undeniably false. https://heated.world/...
Facebook knowingly spreads more climate change misinformation, doesn't care. Thanks to @emorwee for the continued great reporting. https://heated.world/...
I see lots of folks tweeting about the first part of this story by @JuddLegum and me, and that's great! But I want to take a moment to highlight the second part, which is about *why Facebook's handling of climate misinformation matters* https://heated.world/...
@donie Let me offer a helpful quick summary of this story. Science Feedback reversed their fact-check on this piece of content. Judd's own reporting includes confirmation from Science Feedback that Facebook wasn't involved. End.
@JuddLegum @donie We reached out to Science Feedback last year as clear opinion content is generally not eligible to be rated. You can read more about how we view opinion content in the help center. https://www.facebook.com/...
Another climate “op-Ed” containing misinformation had its fact-check rating removed from Facebook — and this time, @JuddLegum and I got our hands on internal Facebook memos about it. Read more here: https://heated.world/...
Pretty wild to me that a simple fact-check of a Daily Wire article involves so many Facebook higher-ups. https://heated.world/... https://twitter.com/...
5. The executive director of Science Feedback tells me and @emorwee, my co-author, that it was not pressured by Facebook to remove the fact check But the scientists who produced the fact check also talked to us, and they are not happy https://popular.info/...
How FB operates: FB execs quietly remove fact check from a piece of climate change denial by Daily Caller after pressure from a Republican member of Congress. https://twitter.com/...
4. Facebook's comms team, however, advised against getting involved, citing previous reporting in Popular Information about its fact-checking program and special treatment for The Daily Wire Sign up here for independent accountability journalism -> https://popular.info/...
6. Here is the giveaway: The fact check was not removed from nearly identical versions of the article published on other right-wing websites. The change was only made for The Daily Wire https://popular.info/...
As I wrote in my last OpEd, policies carry no weight if not enforced evenly. Facebook continues to play politics, and @JuddLegum has the receipts on this one. We can't trust a company to self regulate, if it won't even enforce its own stated policies. Another shameful example. ht…
2. Prior to the removal of the fact check, Facebook staff prepared a memo for top executives in which they considered the pros and cons of contacting Science Feedback and asking them to remove the rating @emorwee and I obtained the internal Facebook memo https://popular.info/... …
3. The memo reveals that Congressman Mike Johnson, a member of the GOP leadership, contacted Facebook and asked them to remove the “partly false” rating Facebook's policy team said it's “stakeholders” viewed the fact check as “biased” https://popular.info/...