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Fox's Wallace presses Stephen Miller for example on Trump emergency declaration

White House senior adviser Stephen Miller on Sunday staunchly defended President Trump's decision to declare a national emergency to secure funds for construction of a wall along the southern border, but struggled to provide an example of a simila

thehill.com|Brett Samuels

Wallace noted that of the 59 times the National Emergencies Act was invoked, two were for military construction funds: Once during the Gulf War, and once following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"This is hardly comparable to either of those," Wallace said.

"Can you name one foreign threat in the world today outside this country’s borders that currently kills more Americans than the threats crossing our southern border?" Miller retorted.

"You know, the joy of this is I get to ask you questions," Wallace said. "You don’t get to ask me."

Miller did not provide another instance of a president using emergency powers to secure funding previously denied to him by Congress, but insisted that Trump was justified in his actions.

Snopes joined Facebook’s group of third-party fact checkers in 2016, at first volunteering its services and the next year accepting a lump $100,000 payment for their work. 

At this time we are evaluating the ramifications and costs of providing third-party fact-checking services, and we want to determine with certainty that our efforts to aid any particular platform are a net positive for our online community, publication, and staff.

In comments to Poynter, Snopes VP of operations Danny Green said the process needed to be improved:

With a manual system and a closed system — it’s impossible to keep on top of that stuff… It doesn’t seem like we’re striving to make third-party fact checking more practical for publishers — it seems like we’re striving to make it easier for Facebook. At some point, we need to put our foot down and say, ‘No. You need to build an API.’

The amount that Facebook has paid out has increased, but also become more variable. Fact-checkers get paid per factcheck, but only up to a certain amount per month. The amount of money that’s flowing to all of Facebook’s 34 fact-checkers probably remains in the single-digit millions.

For perspective, Facebook generated $16.9 billion in revenue just last quarter. That same quarter, the company’s average revenue per user reached $7.37, so the money coming in from a million or two users over the course of just three months would be enough to cover the global factchecking costs for the year.

Facebook includes 51 fact-checking organizations (including Snopes) in what must be an outdated list on its website. The contracts are signed on an annual basis, however, and a Facebook spokesperson told me there are now 34 organizations doing this work.