FACT CHECKING THE FACT CHECKERS

The pace of our modern world makes it nearly impossible for working people to research the events and policies that shape their lives. When seeking answers to life's most pressing questions, where do we go first? Google. Enter the subject. Hit go. And there it is. Only what they want us to see. In today's culture of copy and paste journalism, it's common for hundreds of unrelated outlets to feature the exact same report. This is not the result of laziness. This is by design. When we see identical headlines across seemingly unrelated platforms, the logical mind concludes, well then, it must be true. The illusion that numerous news sources have arrived at the same conclusion gives us confidence to share the chosen narrative. And just like that, we become the unwitting pushers of propaganda. Search engines are the holy grail for those seeking to control the narrative. Google is already more powerful in terms of its control over people's lives than almost every government on the planet. As the most influential search engine in the world, through its ubiquitous reach, Google has more power to influence U.S. elections than any foreign nation. You testified before this committee. You said in subsequent elections, Google and Facebook and Twitter and big text manipulation could manipulate as many as 15 million votes in a subsequent election. And the methods that they're using are invisible. They're subliminal. They're more powerful than most any effects I've ever seen in the behavioral sciences. And I've been in the behavioral sciences for almost 40 years. The blacklist is something that Google said didn't exist. And they testified that under oath. And nothing but the truth, so help you God. Now me as an engineer, I just did a search on Google's internal search engine and guess what I found? It had blacklisted search terms like cancer cures. Why is Google deciding what people can and cannot search for? What was once an efficient tool for navigating the world of information is now a network for global surveillance, data collection and social engineering. Now let's take a look at a few of the most commonly used fact checkers, beginning with Snopes. The husband and wife duo of David and Barbara Mickelson founded Snopes.com in 1995. They had no journalism background or training whatsoever. They built their fact-checking empire by using Google as their primary verifying source. The Mickelsons divorced in 2015. Barbara sued David for embezzling money that he allegedly spent on prostitutes, as well as a lavish honeymoon with his new wife, who worked as an escort in Las Vegas before joining the Snopes cast of characters. In 2017, David Mickelson's new business partners filed a lawsuit, accusing Mickelson of multiple counts of fraud and embezzlement. Snopes proclaimed to be the Internet's go-to source for discerning what is true and what is total nonsense. Yet one glance at their history of fact-free checking tells another story. When Dr. Michelvitz claimed she was arrested without a warrant and jailed without a charge, Snopes rated her statement, false. Had they bothered to explore the arrest documents, they would have seen that indeed, there was neither a warrant nor signatures to officiate a charge, a fact that I confirmed with members of Dr. Michelvitz's legal team. Was there a search warrant? No. And was she ever charged? No. She was never charged with a crime? 100% correct. Judy has never been charged with any crime. Facebook's fact-checking arm, PolitiFact, is owned by the Poynter Institute, which has received substantial funding from big pharma allies such as Google and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Like Snopes, PolitiFact has a history of misleading the public. In late January of 2019, PolitiFact, Snopes and FactCheck.org raced to squash the notion that coronavirus and its treatments were patented. They reviewed only three of the 4,452 publicly available patents, which unmistakably show that SARS coronavirus detection and treatment had been widely patented by both the public and private sectors. Facebook's founder pledged to the WHO saying they would remove false claims and block exploitative ads. They're working with the World Health Organization and with the NHS, so they have a hotline, if you like, from those official sources. Wikipedia is the go-to destination for introductions to people, places and things. Even the all-knowing Amazon Alexa calls on this digital encyclopedia. Alexa, who is Dr. Judy Michelvitz? According to Wikipedia, Judy Michelvitz is a former American research scientist who is known for her discredited medical claims. She has been described as an anti-vaccination activist and a promoter of conspiracy theories, and has been accused of scientific misconduct. Wikipedia is supported by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit parent organization with a long history of politically tied funders, many named, many anonymous. What exactly does a Wikipedia donor receive in exchange for their generosity? What began as an unbiased, open-source platform is now weaponized to undermine the work and reputation of anyone deemed a threat to its stakeholders. And once they smear you, they lock you out for making corrections to your own bio. In summary, most independent fact-checkers are neither independent nor factual. Simply put, they are political spin machines.