Teachers Union Boss Randi Weingarten Lobbying Facebook to Crack Down on ‘Disinformation’…for the Children – Opinion

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is the largest enemy of American student in recent years. Its leader, Randi Winegarten, is a professional nosy neighbor.

Weingarten used the Pandemic to advocate for keeping children out of school and perpetuating the Zoom school experiment. In recent weeks, she has gone on a “rehabilitation” tour of sorts, attempting to gaslight the public into believing she and her organization had been advocating for keeping schools open the whole time.

Don’t believe your lyin’ eyes.

One of the biggest revelations throughout this pandemic chaos has been the amount of influence American teachers’ unions have over federal policy. In fact, many parents were shocked to discover the AFT President wasn’t just influencing education policy, she was openly lobbying and negotiating with the CDC to rework medical recommendations and messaging to support the desires of the unions and to promote school closures as long as possible.

But it wasn’t even Weingarten’s full-court press to control as much of the lives of American students as possible that is the most shocking revelation…it’s that she feels entitled to do so.

That stunning arrogance is once again on display as Weingarten is now pressuring Meta (the new Facebook parent company) to control “disinformation” under the guise that it is harming the mental health of our children.

AFT holds $6.3 billion in Meta assets. They also have large shareholder voting rights. Randi Weingarten, in a memo dated May 4, sent to AFT trustees, outlined her plan to investigate Facebook over its refusal to listen to disinformation calls that are (allegedly) directly detrimental to the mental health and well-being of youth users. Below is a full version of the memo.

“Proposal Fourteen: Shareholder Proposal Regarding Assessment of Audit & Risk Oversight Committee,” submitted by Harrington Investments, in conjunction with the Park Foundation and Sum of Us, would, if approved, instruct Meta’s board to hire an outside, independent law firm to evaluate the performance of the board’s audit committee’s capacities and performance in overseeing company risks. Your fund should vote for this resolution.

This resolution follows a series of high-profile troubling events casting doubt on Meta’s risk management practices and internal controls. Last fall, Meta whistleblower Frances Haugen testified before the U.S. Congress and shared documents showing that Meta’s Facebook platform “repeatedly misled the public about what its own research reveals about the safety of children, the efficacy of its artificial intelligence systems, and its role in spreading divisive and extreme messages.”

Does she mean “divisive and extreme messages” like accusing concerned parents of domestic terrorism? Oder labeling white supremacists citizens who are concerned by the pro-segregation doctrines of critical racism as white supremacists

Of course, not. She means QAnon and, naturally, COVID and political “disinformation.”

In addition, for years, Facebook has allowed its platform to be used—or, at best, has been unable to prevent it from being used—to fuel and amplify the dissemination of political disinformation, including facilitating Russian attacks in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections and the dissemination of false conspiracy theories like QAnon and catastrophically destructive health disinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Haugen’s testimony made clear that Meta’s management is both aware of the harms caused by its products and unwilling to make substantive changes to address them. This testimony, which has not, to our knowledge, been credibly refuted, raised profound doubts about the effectiveness of Meta’s internal controls and its board’s risk management practices, and called into question the accuracy of numerous statements Meta management has made to investors. Meta shareholders as well as its long-term good interests may be in danger from the underlying conduct.

Ultimately what Weingarten is saying here is that Facebook needs to add another “fact-checker” to their already suspect roster — teachers’ unions. AFT does not want to temper Facebook but to regulate its definition of truth.

Did you ever think that teachers only focused on their classrooms?

Most troubling and alarming about this proposal is its pretension to concern itself with our mental health. Weingarten’s union, under her direction, has perpetuated the largest mental health crisis in American youth that perhaps we’ve ever seen. They want us to believe that they have suddenly become concerned over what our parents are begging for since we locked them out of school.

Among the electorate it’s a “no-sale,” and that is reflected in the tens of thousands of parents running for their school boards across the country right now.

It remains to be determined if this will be sufficient to make Facebook crackdown on free speech. The political establishment has won over Weingarten, despite her failings with parents. Even if Weingarten is successful in her bid to censor, it is not clear what the average American thinks. She can’t control the truth that was streaming right into our homes via virtual classrooms over the last two years.

Susie Moore at Scribd: “Ltr Randi Trustees fb 050422”