The New York Times Hit Piece on the Right Wing News Facebook Page

There is a hit piece on me in the New York Times today, which as a conservative I take as a point of honor.

Just to note some of the inaccuracies in the piece:

“When Christine Blasey Ford testified before Congress last month about Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assault, an online news site called Right Wing News sprang into action on Facebook.

The conservative site, run by the blogger John Hawkins, had created a series of new Facebook pages and accounts over the last year under many different names, according to Facebook.”

I have never created a Facebook page under a fake name and I don’t run the Right Wing News Facebook page any more. In fact, I haven’t run it since the start of the year. If you’ll notice, the Right Wing News website has been a vanity site since then.

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Then there is this.

Right Wing News and Mr. Hawkins did not return calls or emails seeking comment.

I did not receive any calls or emails from the New York Times about this story.

This is a minor point, but…

Right Wing News was founded by Mr. Hawkins, a conservative pundit, in 2009. Facebook said Right Wing News started its Facebook page in July 2012.

Right Wing News was founded in 2001, not 2009.

As to the claims of incorrect news, I don’t run the page; so I am unfamiliar with any of the articles in question although I have long since learned that what a bunch of liberals say is “fake news” often boils down to nothing more than “news liberals don’t like.” Is that the case this time? I have no idea, but it is impossible to take any claims Facebook makes about a story being untrue at face value. The same goes for allegations of “spam” and “ad farms.” Take it from someone who once had a second Facebook page suspended for a month without my Facebook rep being able to explain why, what it did wrong and how it could avoid doing whatever it did wrong in the future, Facebook is winging it on a lot of the claims it makes about bad behavior.

Last but not least, I am not surprised that Facebook pulled the Right Wing News Facebook page or any other conservative pages in this latest purge. Facebook has been looking for any excuse to get rid of conservative Facebook pages and this is the one it’s settled on. As time goes by, Facebook will come up with different excuses to get rid of the others that aren’t well connected. It’s Facebook’s sleazy little way of getting rid of conservative pages without risking heat from Republican politicians in D.C.

At the end of the day for Facebook, I suspect that this is all about making sure you only see the news Facebook wants you to see. Everything else it’s doing is cover for that.