A few years back, social media began employing "fact checkers" in an attempt to "reduce false information." Of course, these social media outlets call them "independent fact checkers."
In reality, these "fact checkers" are liars - Mark Zuckerberg admitted in court that the Facebook "fact checkers" were simply opinions. Additionally, the companies employed as "independent" are typically far-left propaganda outlets - Politifact and USA Today being among the most prolific and most biased at the same time. Independent, they are not!
Last, but not least, these liars intentionally contort and conflate the claims, so as to make it seem "false," when the claim is true. Here is a recent one found on Instagram (owned by Facebook / Meta):
Here, the liars claim this meme is "partly false." Why? Because "no, the Democratic Party did not create the Ku Klux Clan." Not surprisingly, this culprit is Politifact, the worst of them all. Let's dissect Politifact's false claim:
Politifact is correct on a technicality that the Democratic Party did not create the Ku Klux Klan. The KKK was created by a group of Democrat Confederate soldiers, led by Nathan Bedford Forrest (a Democrat, who held office as a Democrat). Here is what History.com (not exactly a Right-wing bastion) has to say on the founding of the KKK:
Founded in 1865, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) extended into almost every southern state by 1870 and became a vehicle for white southern resistance to the Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for Black Americans. Its members waged an underground campaign of intimidation and violence directed at white and Black Republican leaders.Not founded by the Democrat Party, but certainly founded by Democrats to wage war against Republicans. So, Politifact is correct by technicality here. But wrong when it comes to the actuality of the statement, and the spirit of the statement, as we shall see.
Politifact's false assumption here is a combination of a "Straw Man" and/or an "Equivocation" logical fallacy. The statement in the meme is that Democrats created the KKK. And, as we have seen, that is most certainly true. Politifact Equivocates that into "the Democratic Party created the KKK" when the reality is that the meme directly states "Democrats created the KKK." (And if you wish to call this a straw man argument instead, then I would not argue that point.)
Oddly enough, a quick Google search shows the second major outlet to claim the same statement is USA Today.
