These fact checkers are typically folks from the world of journalism. Those are not the people I consider to be experts on all subjects, certainly not deeply technical subjects like medicine.
I'm also not particularly confident that these social media companies have safeguards in place to ensure that their 3rd-party fact checkers are operating in good faith.
I don't think you need to jump to the conclusion that they're always operating in bad faith though - I think much of this is explained by a lack of competence in a field, overworked employees, low standards, and groupthink.
So called experts are not unbiased in terms of political interests. Also, all should believe that power is corrupting yes? But so are institutional power centers (social media monopoly platforms, prestige journalist outfits, elite media, academia, "expert" authorities, etc) targets for political factions to wield said power to their own ends. Just as centralized businesses are targets for hackers and such, so to are they targets for political factions because of all the power they sit on that can be wielded one way or another.
There is no "unbiased", there is no disinterested, above-it-all players that mediate some universal truth for the masses. Even if one attempts to do this they will quickly be subverted by political actors pushing a message.
Of course they're operating in bad faith. Those words don't just jump to the screen when they think. It's not like they were just chatting with friends in messaging apps.
They had to do some "research" and then type those opinions word by word, sentence by sentence, and revise it several times, and do the review and proofing before it get published.
Is there any chance, during the whole process, it didn't come to their mind that it's their own opinion, not "facts"?
I'm also not particularly confident that these social media companies have safeguards in place to ensure that their 3rd-party fact checkers are operating in good faith.
I don't think you need to jump to the conclusion that they're always operating in bad faith though - I think much of this is explained by a lack of competence in a field, overworked employees, low standards, and groupthink.