On 10 February the ABC published on its website a Fact Check of a claim made by Barack Obama that ‘marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol’.
Is marijuana less dangerous than alcohol, as Barack Obama claims? [ABC Fact Check]
This Fact Check did not even look at the number of deaths attributed to the two drugs, the main reason people say cannabis is safer than alcohol, before concluding Obama’s claims were ‘unsubstantiated’.
The responses on the ABC website were numerous and highly critical.
When the ABC online community began demanding the Fact Check be withdrawn and revised, the ABC responded by closing online comments on the Obama marijuana Fact Check after only four days!
The Sex Party’s Robbie Swan has condemned this as censorship, saying ‘They’ve censored the comments column because it was running something like 95 per cent against them’.
The last comment on the Obama-marijuana Fact Check by Adventa, the post they closed the comments column down after, asked the ABC to withdraw the article and do some serious fact-checking.
Adventa added: ‘You’ve been given countless links by the gallery and you should start your revision at this point.’
Robbie Swan called for the ABC to respect the calls from their online audience and revise the Obama-marijuana Fact Check in accordance with the online community’s suggestions and criticisms.
He wondered why the ABC were ignoring their audience and why the author of the Fact Check was allowed to remain anonymous.
‘This is where Fact Check has to come out and say who are the people behind this. Who are the people who make these decisions and what are their backgrounds,’ Swan said.
The Obama-marijuana Fact Check has the potential to destroy the credibility of Fact Check, says Swan.
‘It just stands to reason that if they don’t rethink their Fact Check they will lose an incredible amount of good-will,’ he said.
‘I think there are quite a few people who are so incensed about this that they will destroy the credibility of Fact Check over this. It has the potential to do that.’
Dr John Jiggens, Brisbane
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
