The Telegram channel is posting deceptive fact checks with false information about the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.

Source: A Russian Telegram channel is claiming to fact check the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine. It’s actually spreading disinformation to hundreds of thousands of followers.

Note – “fact checking” from most all sources, are forms of propaganda, including those originating from popular western news services.

First, they select what items they wish to fact check. This can bias the public’s perceptions – for example, let’s say there is group A and group B, but the fact checker only “fact checks” items from group A. See the problem?

Second, they choose what topics to fact check. They rarely “fact check” news reports but instead “fact check” social media posts, often selecting rather outlandish items for checking.

Third, they choose which “experts” to fact check, often choosing those experts who themselves have strong biases. If you followed Twitter during the pandemic, you saw every day there were dueling experts with different perspectives. Each perspective may have evidentiary support but the “fact checkers” selected one over the other, without explanation. Many things that were “fact checked” as false turned out, a year or two later, to have been true.

“Fact checking” morphed into a new form of propaganda messaging used to – usually – denigrate other perspectives.