Fact Checkers Absent During Rittenhouse Media Trial

“I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information."

-Christopher Hitchens

#freespeechmatters 26.11.2021

“Misinformation” has become the justification for censorship. Major social media platforms have resorted to either deleting or tagging posts that they deem to be misleading. While these efforts started as a way to curb “falsehoods” from being spread about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it quickly extended to the election, then to climate change, and, now, they fact-check anything that disagrees with the national narrative.

If these are really intelligent people fact-checking our posts, assuring their accuracies, then where were the fact-checkers before and during the controversial Kyle Rittenhouse trial? It is no secret that the media wasn’t completely honest with their viewers. One lie that continues to spread like wildfire, for example, is that Rittenhouse crossed state lines with his AR-15. We later found out in the trial that Rittenhouse’s dad lives in Wisconsin, and he was already present in the state prior to the protest.

The media led many people to believe that Rittenhouse’s victims were black. Many people learned for the first time that they weren’t during the popular trial. They painted Rittenhouse as a white supremacist, showing pictures of him flashing the “okay” gang sign with the Proud Boys after they posted his $2 million bail. They described Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time of the riots, as “deeply racist.”

Imagine believing somebody is capable of being deeply rooted with racial hate at the age of 17. These ideas stem from the notion that we are all inherently racist, and Rittenhouse was deeper in his hate than your average, white American. Any white person who finds themselves in Rittenhouse's position are better off dead in the eyes of the masses. You are not supposed to defend yourself when you're being physically attacked by anyone who considers themselves "woke," because they stand on the "right side of history."

Video evidence available online proves why the jury acquitted him. He was obviously acting in self defense after attempting to run away from the situation, falling to the ground, and being attacked by a number of adult men. The media and liberal politicians, however, want you to be angry. They are still promoting the lies told by the media that were then cleared up during the trial. They’re trying to create a national division, and arguably are very successful at doing so.

Free speech matters but, as many of you have rightfully pointed out, it is not absolute. The First Amendment does not give you the ability to assassinate somebody’s character with false accusations. President Joe Biden shouldn't have joined the media narrative by calling Rittenhouse a white supremacist before the trial, but he couldn’t resist himself. Vice President Kamala Harris doesn’t believe that the jury drew the right conclusion, but that’s only because they didn’t arrive at the conclusion they were expected to.

If we’re going to combat misinformation, the effort has to be made universally or not at all. Facebook labels posts as misleading, yet they never labeled posts regarding Rittenhouse’s trial as misinformation. This leads liberals on the platform to assume the content must be true. Facebook fact-checks everything else, why wouldn’t they fact-check a controversial homicide trial? I would prefer Facebook and other social media platforms back down from their war on misinformation.

We the people should be intelligent enough to determine what’s true and what’s false without the help from a major corporation. We have the right to freely ask questions and the ability to conduct our own research. We need to stop patronizing the media farm animals who are more concerned with ratings than they are with factually reporting the news. It’s not the job of the media to unify us, but it’s certainly not their job to divide us. If you are upset with the Rittenhouse verdict, I don’t believe the jury is to blame. I honestly believe you should be angry with your media.