FEE - Foundation for Economic Education
Case #
5969

Facebook censors meme posted by Foundation for Economic Education: The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) posted a meme on Facebook that ran afoul of Facebook's censors. The meme is a common one, featuring a two-panel Simpsons cartoon. The first panel shows Homer Simpson looking at a fortune from a fortune cookie and saying "Wow, the fortune cookies here really are more accurate." The second panel shows a close-up view of the fortune in Homer's hands, and different meme-makers change the text to read whatever they wish to convey. In this case, FEE's fortune read "'Competition does a much more effective job than government at protecting consumers.' - Thomas Sowell." However, Facebook hid the meme behind an interstitial that read "Altered photo. The same altered photo was checked in another post by independent fact-checkers." Users can click on the "See why" button, and then click on the "See post" button in order to actually see the meme. The fact-check links to an Indonesian article that explains what the fortune said in the original cartoon, but this misses the point of memes. The Facebook message also states "Independent fact-checkers say that the photo or image has been edited in a way that could mislead people, but not because it was shown out of context. You can choose whether to see it." 

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