Fact Checkers, who's behind it? Are we sure they are truly independent?

Image source: https://www.businessworld.in/article/Not-Sure-Of-A-News-5-Fact-Checking-Sites-You-Should-

A new trend is roaming the web world: the trend of the so-called fact checker. Literally the one who has to ascertain the facts by checking for fake news, that is, hoaxes, ascertaining that everything is proceeding according to the orthodoxy of the correct narrative, the one certified by the dominant discourse order.
Obviously, the figure of the fact checker and more generally the rhetoric of the hunt for fake news are presented as politically correct and as integrated with respect to an order of discourse that wants to make informational correctness prevail everywhere by sidelining the dangerous resurgence of hoaxes and theories with no basis in reality.

On closer analysis we can say that the conceptual figure of the fact checker corresponds to that of the new digital sniper who must mercilessly target any source vaguely dissonant with the unique polite logos. More precisely, he must point to anyone who is not aligned to exclude him, to hit him in the privileged way in the infosphere.
In the time of the infosphere, all those who dare to deviate from the tracks a, and the track of political and correctness are silenced, marginalized, deprived of funding.
This is the dominant strategy: marginalize through the violence of the algorithmic truncheon that immediately renders invisible, through the practice known as shadow ban (i.e., making invisible, unobtainable, unreachable), anyone who is not aligned with the dominant single verb and again through defunding.

In the time of economic violence, it is not surprising that the modes of repression also quintessentially present themselves as economic, more properly through the now hegemonic figure of defunding.
If you are not aligned with the dominant discourse, they will kill you, not by putting you at the stake, but by taking away the funds you need to survive, thus condemning you to silence, marginality, irrelevance and then also to utter misery.

This is the new dominant order, and mind you the fact that continually reference is made to facts, to incontrovertible certainties, which can be ascertained and with respect to which it is very easy to identify, thanks to the eyed fact checkers, the dissenters, the deniers of reality or the new deniers according to the smart rhetoric of the prevailing neo-language. Well, this discourse appears to be very easy to take in and is at the same time false in its essence, because it is not the facts that are being hit: the real problem for the dominant discourse order is not denying or accepting the facts but is hitting the sphere of interpretations, with all evidence.

Are we sure that these fact checkers are truly independent?

Unlike journalists, fact-checkers do not in fact aim to publish unpublished news but to verify news and information published by others and already widely circulated and commented on by users of social media and other global digital platforms.

Fact-checkers are, at least on paper, professionals who are experts in verifying sources and correcting false, partially false or manipulated information, and are hired by or collaborate with a specialized organization that has entered into business agreements with Facebook or other technology companies in order to verify their content for a predetermined fee.

To date, no one knows the total value of the commercial agreements made between digital platforms and fact-checking organizations, and no one can say with absolute certainty whether fact-checking activity can be economically viable and profitable in the long run.

Some time ago I posted a story on Facebook, and after a few minutes I saw a banner on it about a fact checking done by PolitiFact. So, I decided to look at who this fact checking company is.

Looking at their site, I am struck by the section: Who Pays For PolitiFact?

Several well-known names of big companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, TikTok, and Google are immediately noticeable, especially from 2020.

So, are we sure that these fact checkers are not following directives from their funders and thus are not really unbiased in verifying the news? It's up to you, it smells a little fishy to me.

Because this is the main point: fact checkers, fake news hunting, shadow bans and other amiable practices of the new panoptic order of the total control society we are living in are fully part of a repressive order in which truth, or the alleged truth, is imposed by force.

But we know that truth, if it is such, never needs force to impose itself; the docile force of reason and Socratic dialogue is enough for it. It is the falsehood of power that, on the other hand, when it claims to be true, must outlaw all other interpretations, perhaps branding them as fake news or as liable to be unrelated to the truth established by fact checkers.