,
6 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
No column this weekend. For the past couple of weeks I've been working intensively with @knausc to investigate what happened with the death tax fake news during the campaign. We've published the results of that deep dive this morning on @GuardianAus
First, the origins of the misinformation: a Daily Telegraph article on 21 July 2018 reporting the ACTU supported an inheritance tax, an uncritical follow-up discussion on the Sunrise program the following day, and a media release by Josh Frydenberg on 24 January 2019.
New facts. On February 6, Facebook offered Labor a briefing about how it intended to safeguard integrity during the coming election. FB acknowledged problems. ALP not convinced by what they heard. We've published that presentation this morning.
During the campaign: Labor asked FB for action on 18 April. Sent them a dossier of fake news over May 11/12. Had another conference with them on May 14, asking the issue be escalated. Noah Carroll spoke to FB's Asia-Pacific president Simon Milner three days before election day.
Milner promised Carroll a detailed report about actions being taken. Election day has come and gone and Labor still doesn't have that report. Labor would like that report theguardian.com/australia-news…
We've pulled together all the sharing we could trace, and boosted advertising, echoing death tax messaging. We've established FB does not fact check statements by politicians and political parties. It says it does not want to play censor. Bottom line? Australia, we need to talk.
