evidence: The debate around fact-checking on social media platforms tends to dwell on tricky and sometimes philosophical questions of free speech and internet governance. But the problem with farming out the job is more prosaic: third-party fact-checkers are often just as full of shit as the politicians they’re debunking. Facebook has had a program since 2016 that flags posts deemed misleading by organizations like Politifact and Factcheck.org. (The policy notably exempts speech by politicians, including Trump’s election fraud post, "even if the substance of that claim has been debunked elsewhere.") This can produce absurd outcomes. Earlier this month, the platform slapped a "Partly False Information" label on an anti-Trump ad because Politifact disputed its claim that "Trump bailed out Wall Street, but not Main Street." Considering that each part of that sentence—bailed out, Wall Street, Main Street—is a vague metaphor, it’s not even possible to say whether it’s true or false. Yet Politifact executive director Aaron Sharockman told WIRED’s Steven Levy, "I feel real good about the rating as calling it false."