Facebook's only fact-checking partner in the Netherlands, the online newspaper Nu.nl, has quit in the wake of the social media giant's decision not to verify the claims made in adverts ran by politicians on its platform.

According to NPO 3, the dispute specifically comes after a claim made by the leader of the CDA (Christian Democratic Appeal) Esther de Lange, who said that 10 percent of farmland in Romania is in non-European hands. The newspaper said that such a claim cannot be properly verified, but Facebook then reportedly intervened, telling the newspaper that politicians are not to be checked.

After Nu.nl's decision to end its work with Facebook, editor in chief Gert-Jaap Hoekman asked what "is the point of fighting fake news if you are not allowed to tackle politicians?" adding, "let one thing be clear: we remain behind the content of our fact checks. Facts are not a form of activism."

Nu.nl was not the only fact-checker to have worked with Facebook in the Netherlands. Nieuwscheckers, a fact-checking organization run by Leiden University, ended its collaboration with Facebook in 2018.

In a statement, Facebook said: "We value the work that Nu.nl has done and regret to see them go, but respect their decision as an independent business. Fighting misinformation takes a multi-pronged approach from across the industry. We are committed to fighting this through many tactics, and the work that third-party fact-checkers do is a valued and important piece of this effort."

"We have strong relationships with 55 fact-checking partners around the world who fact-check content in 45 languages, and we plan to continue expanding the program in Europe and hopefully in the Netherlands."

Facebook's decision to allow politicians to run adverts with unverifiable or fraudulent claims was spoken about by Mark Zuckerberg on Capitol Hill last month. When asked whether candidates could microtarget voters based on demographic data held by Facebook with misleading information, Zuckerberg said that it was possible.

"In most cases, in a democracy, I believe that people should be able to see for themselves what politicians that they may or may not vote for are saying and judge their character for themselves," Zuckerberg said at the time.

Nick Clegg, Facebook's VP of Global Affairs and Communications, also said that Facebook would not fact-check political adverts because it is not an "appropriate role for us to referee political debates and prevent a politician's speech from reaching its audience and being subject to public debate and scrutiny."

With numerous, imminent elections scheduled to take place across the world, Facebook's decision remains a controversial one, especially when misinformation runs rampant in countries without the same democratic safeguards as the United States.

Nu.ul's fact-check of the CDA leader took place two weeks before the European elections, which have previously been targeted by malicious actors. In the United Kingdom, which will be holding a general election on December 12, Facebook has again said it will not be stopping or fact-checking political adverts despite calls from campaigners and activists to do so.

Facebook's stance also stands in contrast to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's decision to ban all political adverts on its platform. "We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought," Dorsey said, in a series of tweets posted last month. "A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money."

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