"Fact" daily writes:
The change of power in the USA promises a drastic change in the global social network domain as well.
The statements made by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in recent interviews reveal important dark points of Joe Biden's administration, which had a revolutionary impact on the whole world, including Armenia, in a bad sense.
In our opinion, they had a painful impact especially on our country. And so, the founder of Facebook announced that the Biden administration demanded from Meta to delete materials related to the COVID-19 pandemic on the platforms owned by the company, using very harsh language, even insults and threats.
For example, about the side effects of vaccines.
Zuckerberg is admitting all this now, which is related to Trump's victory, because the president-elect has repeatedly threatened him during the campaign because of this policy, which Trump was well aware of and personally suffered from.
Zuckerberg states that Meta will stop the fact-checking program and remove speech restrictions on Facebook, Instagram and other Meta platforms in order to restore balance and the possibility of free expression.
Especially the official pages of non-governmental media are subjected to restrictions, censorship, and even closure. For example, years ago, Channel 5's page with 1 million subscribers was deleted and not restored, and the Facebook page of our partner "Hraparak" newspaper also faced restrictions.
The page of Yerevan.Today has been "punished" many times and we were told that it is still under restrictions. There are many examples: almost all non-governmental media are warning about the widespread removal of materials. For example, during the "Holy Struggle" activity, thousands of materials related to Bagrat Saint and actions were removed.
Not only ordinary users, but also the media appear on the blacklist for writing the name of the hero Monte Menlkonyan.
Moreover, the logic is completely unclear as to why materials are blocked and deleted. It is noteworthy that when posting the same thing, a number of media faces the problem, some do not, and those "some" are especially those operating in the government domain and those with a pronounced Western orientation.
Facebook's "Fact Chiting" or fact-checking system was publicly launched in Armenia after the 2021 parliamentary elections. it became a club in the hands of pro-government, pro-government and pro-government media, especially those with a Western position, against non-government media.
It is necessary to note here that this tool, apparently and according to Zuckerberg, has been operating not publicly since the number 2021. Both then and now, it caused just dissatisfaction in the media.
"Fact-checking" takes place very selectively, with gross discrimination. For example, the media may find themselves in restrictions because fact-checkers in Armenia found out that Turkish President Erdogan's speech was not translated correctly, but the same fact-checkers usually "miss" the obvious lies of government officials.
Many times the question was raised why they are so tolerant towards the authorities. And now the founder of Facebook reveals that all that happened for political purposes. Thus, fact-checking specialists find themselves in a rather awkward position.
On the one hand, it seems that they are doing a good job, on the other hand, that job, independently of them, was served for other political purposes.
It is very possible that, for example, there were specialists attached to the American embassies in different countries, who worked in that country to adapt Facebook to the taste of their country's leadership, decided that the materials should be blocked, that the materials should be widely distributed, that the pages of the media should be blacklisted. and do not have visibility for a long time.
And now the question arises: is it possible that this tool was actually used in Armenia not after the 2021 elections, but before it, moreover, during the entire war of 2020 and political issues were resolved with that system, numbing people's vigilance?
Let us remind you that during the war in Armenia, this largest social network was never blocked, and photos were widely distributed on the Internet that an Armenian soldier is already drinking tea on the shore of such and such a lake in Azerbaijan, we are winning, we can enter Baku, etc.
The pages spreading fakes received tens and hundreds of thousands of likes, which spoke of the wide reach of these pages, while the pages of news outlets informing the truth did not reach the reader.
Until now, fake pages are widely spread on the Facebook platform, which publish daily such as: "Erdogan slapped Aliyev", "Shocking news, Aliyev knelt in front of Nikol and asked not to harm him", etc., and the pages of popular media are exposed are strictly censored.
And those who do all this "fact-checking" are, of course, paid, but, as Zuckerberg presented, they become, in fact, a tool in the hands of external forces, and a club for internal media.
According to that, it is not excluded that the same method was used during the entire post-war actions and election campaign. the pages of politicians, participants in the political struggle, and those involved in the electoral process were blocked, access was limited, government propaganda narratives were widely spread. It turns out that those in the electoral struggle were also in very unequal positions.
To put it simply, "Nikol Pashinyan" and his texts and excuses were broadcast from the state air to the 2.5 million population of Armenia every day, and the rebuttals and opponents were restricted on Facebook.
And now one can only assume that if the platforms of social networks were not subjected to special influence, maybe the current political arrangement in Armenia would be different, taking into account its influence on societies.
