This is a deeply naive article in Scientific American, entitled "The Psychology of Fact-Checking; I'm not sure why it took two professors from Cornell University to write it.
Who checks the fact-checkers? Nobody. Who even decides who the fact-checkers should be? Their paymasters. Who will the fact-checkers never criticise? Their paymasters. Whose agenda do the fact-checkers push every day? Their paymasters'.
In an age of rampant propaganda, disinformation, misinformation and downright lies, the truth is a fragile creature. The article makes the obvious point that so-called fact-checkers are biassed - not a shock - and one-sided, meaning there is little opportunity to appeal. This is especially problematic when the miscreant fact being challenged is later erased or the author banned from a site.
Truth is thus both deplatformed and defacted.
It then no longer exists except via the biassed fact-checkers. This has happened before in history, where the losing party has had their literature wiped from history so that only vestiges remain within the polemical writings of the winners. Thus the original positions can only be reconstructed through fragments.
The solution that the authors propose is to have such fact-checking take place as a combative sport so that both sides can argue and counter-argue their cases. This sounds like a legal or scientific debate and, yes, it does sound eminently sensible. But it misses the whole point that so-called fact-checkers are just the second wave of propaganda to eradicate any counter-propaganda. The fact-checkers don't want a level playing field or an arena of discourse - they want to hammer home their version of the truth.
Fact-checkers are only looking for the truth so they can murder it.
Keep saying the same things over and over again and most people get weary and start to believe them. A debate might create doubters, and sceptics are the enemies of propaganda. That's why I said the article was naive as it posited a sensible solution to the wrong problem; it isn't that there is no forum for fact-checkers to debate but that debate is absolutely not welcomed.
Why debate with someone you can erase?