[HN Gopher] Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg
___________________________________________________________________
Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg
Author : DrHilarius
Score : 1523 points
Date : 2021-12-17 17:49 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bmj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bmj.com)
| ekianjo wrote:
| Fact checking is basically a short name for "we pretend to be
| objective but we have a narrative to enforce"
| CryptoPunk wrote:
| My own experience with Facebook's fact-checking:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28411734
| ospzfmbbzr wrote:
| Fact checking is the business of publicly labeling as false those
| narratives that people with real power already viewed negatively.
| It becomes necessary when you lie all the time.
|
| The whole notion of fact checkers is laughable -- who pays them?
| Do they still get paid if they 'fact check' their benefactors?
|
| There is no debate. There is no invitation for refutation.
|
| It's propaganda.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| This all sounds good, but if I assert that the earth is flat on
| Facebook why shouldn't that simply be labelled false so others
| can avoid wasting their time trying to refute a ridiculous
| assertion? And if you agree with that, all we're arguing about
| is where to draw the line between "obviously false" and
| "disputed" facts.
|
| > It becomes necessary when you lie all the time.
|
| There are _plenty_ of people lying and /or grifting on the
| other side of this power structure as well. There is some non-
| zero benefit being provided by fact checking, but it's
| certainly not an ideal situation. The real problem is virality.
| No one felt the need to fact-check discussion forums because
| those posts were not likely to spread to millions of people.
| csomar wrote:
| It's been quite a couple years. I guess it's the climate
| change. Now we are policing and holding higher grounds around
| what people can and cannot talk about?
|
| You know, at some point in the history of this earth, people
| thought the earth is flat. Those who thought it was round
| were thrown in fire. Don't be that guy and _let 's not get
| there_ because it's easier than you think.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| >This all sounds good, but if I assert that the earth is flat
| on Facebook why shouldn't that simply be labelled false so
| others can avoid wasting their time trying to refute a
| ridiculous assertion?
|
| The issue is I don't agree with all that. Who cares if
| crazies share flat earth theories on Facebook? You either
| trust your fellow humans to be able to think critically, or
| you don't. And if you don't, then why do you trust them with
| power of life and death over you via the state and voting?
| themitigating wrote:
| Because other lies are dangerous and I don't trust people
| to think critically. We also don't have a direct democracy
| and maybe that's what saves us most of the time.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| >Because other lies are dangerous
|
| And who has power/moral authority/whatever to decide
| that? There's no answer to that that doesn't lead to
| tyranny
| ospzfmbbzr wrote:
| >>Because other lies are dangerous >And who has
| power/moral authority/whatever to decide that? There's no
| answer to that that doesn't lead to tyranny
|
| HideousKojima you just have to understand it from the
| correct perspective though... his.
|
| He would wield the ring of power for 'good' so it's ok.
| Not like those 'others'!
|
| Just trust him!
| adjkant wrote:
| There are solutions here that aren't predicated on that
| decision, such as shutting down the dangerous avenue to
| all data equally (though that would break the Facebook ad
| machine).
|
| The point that a lie in this context can be societally
| dangerous is still very relevant. Next up is the
| frequency / commonality of these dangerous lies.
| valvar wrote:
| Yes, just look at the terrible state of Switzerland.
| Stranger43 wrote:
| How do you know the earth is not flat?, if it's merely
| because some authority figure told you so do you really know
| that the earth is not flat?
|
| If you know the earth is round based on observed reality then
| why would you believe some internet rando who says it's flat?
| ospzfmbbzr wrote:
| > If I assert that the earth is flat on Facebook why
| shouldn't that simply be labelled false
|
| Isn't that implying that the reader is too ignorant to know
| at a glance? In the marketplace of ideas shouldn't that
| nonsense content just get buried anyway?
|
| > There are plenty of people lying and/or grifting on the
| other side of this power structure as well.
|
| Agreed. Lying is how you create something out of nothing
| after all.
|
| I don't like being lied to but some amount of lying does seem
| to be necessary to maintain any control over a group of
| people and impose order.
|
| > No one felt the need to fact-check discussion forums
| because those posts were not likely to spread to millions of
| people.
|
| Exactly. The range and impact presents a challenge to their
| long held ability to unequivocally decide what is 'true' --
| which is the authority's most critical power because this
| effectively creates reality, from which everything else
| flows. It's not surprising they are defending it so
| vigorously... they just don't call it that. They use phrases
| like 'combating misinformation' and 'fact checking'.
| joppy wrote:
| This isn't a free marketplace of ideas though - thanks to
| dubious algorithms and recommendations, not all ideas even
| have a chance of being seen, let alone the bad ones buried.
| The echo-chamber phenomenon is like walking into a shop,
| looking at an item on a shelf from one manufacturer, and
| then once you put it back and look around _you can only see
| items from that manufacturer_. You get trapped in a bubble
| where you're only ever seeing content like the content you
| just engaged with.
|
| I agree that in a free marketplace of ideas bullshit
| content would get buried, but this isn't how modern social
| media platforms work.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| > _This all sounds good, but if I assert that the earth is
| flat on Facebook why shouldn 't that simply be labelled false
| so others can avoid wasting their time trying to refute a
| ridiculous assertion?_
|
| The particulars aren't the issue and never have been. The
| issue is, there's no "authority" you can trust to decide for
| you what is and isn't true. The particulars are of what's
| being discussed is a red herring.
|
| Facebook, youtube, twitter, and reddit, all think they know
| better and you should trust them. It would be far less
| alarming if they didn't _all agree with each other all the
| time_. There 's no significant political dissent between
| them. The present a single face. Aka fascism when they agree
| with the government, which they currently do.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Yeah, this exactly. Wonder why there were no "misinformation"
| bans for the MSM companies that repeatedly reported on
| unconfirmed, and later disproved rumors about Russiagate.
| natch wrote:
| Sounds like Facebook's punitive measures for users exercising
| free speech was created by the same people who invented China's
| social credit system.
| paxys wrote:
| > We also discovered that, despite receiving a direct complaint
| about these problems over a year ago, the FDA did not inspect
| Ventavia's trial sites.
|
| This is where Facebook is going to stop reading and toss out the
| letter. The claims BMJ is making may or may not be accurate - I
| personally don't have the scientific knowledge to judge. But
| ultimately Facebook is going to always defer to the authorities
| of the jurisdiction it operates in over random third parties.
| CryptoPunk wrote:
| It should not. The First Amendment exists for a reason - so we
| don't have to defer to authorities.
|
| The Democrats are responsible for this state of affairs: they
| have repeatedly threatened the social media giants with legal
| action lest they combat whatever it is the Democrats deem to be
| disinformation, which increasingly is indistinguishable from
| anything that contradicts what powerful government institutions
| deem to be true.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Facebook can't moderate shit because they are afraid to become a
| publisher. "Fact checkers" are as horrible as it sounds, power
| hungry censors. Reddit's zero-paid moderators are worse.
| Twitter's employees are constantly high on their own drama
| flagging everything that doesnt suit their favourite flavor of
| wokism. How the hell did we end up with this situation?
|
| I want forums and blogs back.
| Uhhrrr wrote:
| IMAO, they shouldn't try. They should say, "Facebook connects
| you to your friends and family, and you should expect the
| degree of validity of information shared by your friends and
| family to be similar to that of the information they share with
| you in real life. If you want good information in your feed,
| hold your friends and family accountable for what they say."
| annadane wrote:
| To the extent they stay out of "editing" the newsfeed, sure.
| When they algorithmically (and silently) promote or demote
| certain things, all bets are off
| Uhhrrr wrote:
| Yes, doing that is also a terrible idea.
| NoPie wrote:
| HN is also complicit. I learned about the BMJ letter
| (https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2957) from the HN article
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29582147
|
| As you can see, it is gone, practically in a few minutes after I
| had read it. Why? Is it because HN is a tech website and this not
| related to tech? Even though there are many articles related to
| covid?
|
| Or is it because BMJ articles are meant for healthcare
| professionals? I am also a healthcare professional but don't have
| time to read all journals and sometimes I rely on blogs and even
| HN to bring the most interesting articles to my notice.
|
| The third possibility is that some HN voters don't want to admit
| possibility that the current political establishment was wrong
| about vaccine mandates. Or at least that some respectable
| healthcare professionals are against them.
| [deleted]
| barefeg wrote:
| Why should Facebook be the platform where people post facts?
| Facebook has no responsibility of implementing any constitutional
| rights if they don't want to. If people don't agree with
| Facebook's terms of service then they should use a different
| platform. This is what ultimately create better platforms for
| other types of discussions
| deadalus wrote:
| The problem is that BigTech funded 'news' organizations will
| bad-mouth and deplatform these new and different platforms as
| soon as they pose any threat. Their domains will be
| seized(Dreamhost removed Parler), infrastructure will be taken
| out(Cloudflare removed 8chan, Amazon banned Parler) or they
| will be removed from app stores(Gab was removed from both
| Playstore and Fdroid).
| standyro wrote:
| Parker and 8chan were pretty adamant about supporting literal
| hate speech from white power Nazis, (I say this as someone
| who had a Parler account and grew up with 4chan) on top of
| having terrible infrastructure for content moderation. I
| agree that free speech is important, but private businesses
| can decide to pull the plug if the want. It's a consequence
| of speech.
|
| I'm not a fan of app stores though. Google and Apple are
| monopolistic.
| asteroidbelt wrote:
| > Parker and 8chan were pretty adamant about supporting
| literal hate speech
|
| Parler (?) did not support (!) it. They moderated hate
| speech. Maybe not 100% efficiently, but in response to some
| examples in media Parler AFAIR posted similar hate speech
| examples on Twitter, which Twitter failed to moderate out.
|
| Not fighting literal hate speech was not their policy. And
| no moderation is 100% efficient.
|
| What you are saying about Parler is false (and defamation).
| brodouevencode wrote:
| We're only going to see more of these types if incidents, right?
| As platforms[sic] farm editing tasks out to third parties
| (presumably to wash their hands of any sort of liability) there
| will be a problem of lowest-bidder-wins which results in sub par
| work.
| DrHilarius wrote:
| It's not credible to assume that this is a one-off instance of
| incompetence on Facebook's part, it's of a piece with all their
| other fact checking and moderation policies around this issue.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| Fair enough, and if my original response made it seem that I
| was suggesting that this was a one-off I certainly didn't
| intend for it too - but I am willing to bet that the
| frequency of these will continue to increase and from more
| reputable sources.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| Well, as long as we tolerate it. To the extent Americans (and
| others) live in a democracy and can pass laws to address social
| harms this situation is entirely our own fault.
| nradov wrote:
| Since most "fact" checking is legally a matter of opinion
| it's difficult to pass laws about it without running afoul of
| the 1st Amendment. We already have libel laws that allow
| private parties to seek damages in civil court for harmful
| false statements.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| I'm always wary of throwing more laws at a problem. I'd much
| rather market forces solve it.
| Karunamon wrote:
| Agree in principle, but that becomes hard/impossible at the
| scale Facebook and friends operate at. Monopoly isn't the
| right term, but it's close.
|
| I'd welcome laws that requires specific kinds of
| transparency and conduct at Facebook/Reddit/Twitter/YouTube
| user counts. Simply tie this conduct to S230 protections,
| and we evade all first amendment issues. The companies
| would do _anything_ to avoid being responsible for the
| hateful, libelous, harassing, and terroristic content they
| convey every single day.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| This seems like a statement of faith. Facebook, and the
| markets it operates in, have seen very little government
| oversight for most its lifetime. It's mostly market forces
| that got us here. I don't see any reason to think that
| market forces will improve the situation in the future.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| I'd much rather put my faith in markets than any
| government. Markets persuade while governments enforce,
| usually with a gun.
| krapp wrote:
| Trusting corporations to behave requires trusting
| governments, because governments are the only reason
| corporations compete at all, versus simply collaborating
| and shaking people down like the mafia. You really don't
| want the monopoly on force to become a free market of
| force, that doesn't end well for the average consumer.
| debacle wrote:
| Are you not familiar with how closely Zuckerberg worked with
| Fauci to sway public opinion?
| dang wrote:
| Would you please stop posting unsubstantive and flamebait
| comments? We already had to ask you this recently.
|
| p.s. I'm not defending Z or F, I'm saying that we don't want
| shallow dismissals or cheap putdowns. Thoughtful critique is
| welcome, of course.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| pfortuny wrote:
| As a matter of fact, the real question here is... "What IS a
| fact?"
|
| Nobody is asking this. And that is the first problem here.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| It depends on what the definition of the word "is" is.
| themitigating wrote:
| I'm 20ft tall
| etchalon wrote:
| Nobody is asking that because most people aren't in a 101
| philosophy class.
| nickelpro wrote:
| The BMJ's article has a patently wrong headline and is clearly
| crafted to cast doubt on the efficacy and safety of the Pfizer
| vaccine where no such doubt exists. The Lead Stories article is
| gaudy and equally clickbaity, but they get the facts right.
|
| It looks like this has been a trend with the BMJ, now that Peter
| Doshi has managed to become an associate editor. Just because the
| journal is historically important doesn't mean it should be
| looked at with an uncritical eye. Spreading misinformation,
| especially from a pulpit of legitimacy, needs to be challenged.
|
| I'm sympathetic to arguments that FB has too much power in these
| things, but in this instance they got it right. The BMJ editorial
| staff need to be shamed into getting these cranks out of their
| midst.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Facebook does fact checking because people decided to blame them
| for misinformation rather than the people actually doing it.
| Their customers demanded that they take action, so whether or not
| the action is useful, they were required to do so.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| > Their customers
|
| Which should be pointed out isn't the same as Facebook's users.
| Facebook's customers are powerful entities that already have
| nearly unlimited access to promote their messages. What upset
| them was the ability of others to also push messages, some of
| which were inconvenient to the powerful. What Facebook's
| customers are demanding is that only messages they approve be
| heard.
| caddemon wrote:
| The algorithmic news feed incentivizes misinformation in a way
| that the old chronological feed did not. Facebook absolutely
| helped to create this situation in the first place.
| Hamuko wrote:
| This is basically them trying to fix the money printer in a
| way that doesn't involve turning off the money printer.
| ncr100 wrote:
| Facebook's relationship to accuracy is deeply poor.
|
| At the fundamental "entity" level, Facebook continues to
| glaringly miscategorize the recording of social relationships
| between people as "friendships". Clicking a "Friend" button for a
| family member is an insult, and doing the same for a casual
| acquaintance can incorrectly suggest mutual admiration.
| Kiro wrote:
| People forced this impossible task on Facebook and are now
| outraged about the results. Mark can't win.
| praash wrote:
| Perfect success isn't realistic in this task, but FB's current
| attempt is very flawed. If their actions make matters _worse_
| than inaction, I 'd call it total failure.
| rajacombinator wrote:
| I suspect they would cheer for anti-vax censoring.
| zhrvoj wrote:
| I'm happy that Nikola Tesla didn't lived in such world. Fact-
| checkers are dangerous option, especially when backed-up by
| capital and/or politics.
| LaputanMachine wrote:
| I'd rather live in a world with fact-checking than in a world
| with gene-checking:
|
| >>The only method compatible with our notions of civilization
| and the race is to prevent the breeding of the unfit by
| sterilization and the deliberate guidance of the mating
| instinct ... The trend of opinion among eugenists is that we
| must make marriage more difficult. Certainly no one who is not
| a desirable parent should be permitted to produce progeny.<<
|
| - Nikola Tesla, 1937
| zhrvoj wrote:
| This is another subject, about old NT mind before he passed
| away, different from theme here, and it's not to discuss
| further. I'm reffering to his productive days. You can take
| any free minded, stubborn man instead, whose ideas changed
| the world.
| tlogan wrote:
| I wonder what is BMJ's agenda? Why do they want that their
| articles explaining how one contractor botched trial shared on
| Facebook? Are they saying that it is not true that their article
| "could mislead people"?
|
| And article is like Fox News: " Revelations of poor practices at
| a contract research company helping to carry out Pfizer's pivotal
| covid-19 vaccine trial raise questions about data integrity and
| regulatory oversight."
|
| Come on guys... this is definitely "click bite" article where
| headline really does not match the content l.
| NoPie wrote:
| BMJ correspondents understand the industry and see some
| failures in one of the most important clinical trials for this
| pandemic. They consider this unacceptable and seeing that
| regulators haven't really done their job at overseeing this
| properly, have done some investigation and want to make other
| healthcare professional aware of this issue so that ultimately
| it can be properly resolved.
|
| The title is very precise and corresponds with the contents
| very closely. You could say it is a little bit alarmistic
| though.
|
| If it reads like Fox News to you, then you probably don't
| understand this industry. That's fine but don't call it wrong.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| >And article is like Fox News: " Revelations of poor practices
| at a contract research company helping to carry out Pfizer's
| pivotal covid-19 vaccine trial raise questions about data
| integrity and regulatory oversight."
|
| I mean, shouldn't it? The fact that this was reported to the
| FDA and they took no further action to investigate makes all of
| their other efforts suspect.
| NoPie wrote:
| Or it means that FDA is not doing its job properly. It could
| be do to lack of manpower or whatever but the fact that the
| FDA did not inspect the sites in question doesn't mean that
| the complaint wasn't justified. It just means it wasn't
| investigated, so no clear conclusions can be made.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| >Or it means that FDA is not doing its job properly.
|
| So you're saying it "raise[s] questions about... regulatory
| oversight"?
| NoPie wrote:
| It definitely does.
|
| There have been many scandals with pharma and regulators.
| Opioid crisis is one example, even though all involved
| parties currently blame each other and it has not been
| established who shares the most guilt yet. In either
| case, we definitely needed alarming articles about risks
| from newly marketed opioids 10 years ago.
|
| The other worry is the recent approval of aducanumab by
| the FDA.
| csee wrote:
| Maybe it's not about whether the article can or can't be
| shared, it's just that they don't want lies to be explicitly
| told about their article, because that negatively impacts their
| reputation? For example, the claim of the fact-checkers that
| the article contains "flaws".
| endisneigh wrote:
| Is fact checking that difficult?
|
| Imagine a forum that works in the following way:
|
| 1. You post similar to here.
|
| 2. Any post that has a _claim_ is flagged. The poster, or another
| commenter has 24 hours (or some time period) to link to both a
| page and specific text (similar to how Google highlights search
| text when visiting a link) that supports the claim.
|
| 3. Once a claim is attached, posters can vote and downvote how
| well the source(s) support the claims (claims themselves are not
| voted/downvoted).
|
| 4. Sites are whitelisted and blacklisted by looking at the total
| percentage in which claims are sited with sources that are
| downvoted vs. up + downvotes.
|
| 5. Posts that do not receive sources for claims are deleted.
|
| I feel like the only reason this isn't already done is because it
| was dramatically decrease the amount of posts and increase
| friction around posting. Posters would have to be careful to
| assert nothing in their post.
| yosito wrote:
| First of all, even genuine, sincere upvotes and downvotes are
| not a reliable way to evaluate truth. Second, even if they
| were, such a system could easily be gamed by parties with
| political interests.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Well, yes it could easily be gamed by parties with political
| interests, but FB's system of fact checking _is_ parties with
| political interests.
| endisneigh wrote:
| The up and downvotes are not there to evaluate the truth, the
| cited source of the claim is. No system can be a substitute
| for the reader to investigate themselves. The things I'm
| proposing basically just help triage your effort.
| OldManAndTheCpp wrote:
| How do you present novel ideas in this framework?
| simonklitj wrote:
| I guess you present it off-site (your own blog or what have
| you), and use that presentation as source for the claim on-
| site.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| Gather evidence for it if the novel idea is a claim
| endisneigh wrote:
| Great question -
|
| I'd say there are two main ways:
|
| You have an assert that would comprise of many claims that
| are all supported independently by sources, and so you would
| then have a hypothesis and present it as so (as opposed to a
| fact, which would be a claim and require evidence, but
| inherently your idea is jus that).
|
| You present your idea on another forum that's eventually made
| into a fact by empirical evidence and then later link to
| that, citing your novel idea. This as you imagine is somewhat
| self-referential and probably wouldn't work at scale.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > How do you present novel ideas in this framework?
|
| In that _framework_ you present novel ideas, and they are
| vetted, somewhere other than the particular _forum_.
|
| While it is somewhat different in detail, it's conceptually a
| lot like the Wikipedia model.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Yes, it is very similar to what Wikipedia does. In fact I'd
| say the only real distinction is that what I'm describing
| in theory should enforce evidence far more strictly and on
| a more granular basis than Wikipedia does with articles.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| > posters can vote and downvote how well the source(s) support
| the claims (claims themselves are not voted/downvoted).
|
| Great idea, however I'm not sure how to make so that the first
| doesn't degenerate into the second, especially about sensitive
| issues... Hmm, maybe this is one of the cases where prediction
| markets can work ?
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| The wealthy wouldn't mind losing money in that market to prop
| up the rating of their favorite propaganda outlet.
| [deleted]
| nradov wrote:
| What a silly proposal. You can find plenty of web pages with
| specific text that supports obvious falsehoods like flat earth
| theory.
| dang wrote:
| " _When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of
| calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be
| shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3._"
|
| Your comment would be fine with just the second sentence.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| endisneigh wrote:
| Not really. The whole point of down and upvoting the sources
| is because the sources themselves might be erroneous. Without
| an infinite cascade of the process I described, relying on
| down and upvoting of specific claims is more tractable.
|
| In other words, you might have a claim that's supported by an
| otherwise bad website, but the bad website actually has a
| morsel of legitimately factual evidence there. It would be up
| to the readers of the claim and sources to actually verify
| whether or not the underlying supporting evidence is true.
|
| The other reason to do this is to build a corpus of "truth."
| Meta and Google are clearly capable of this, but choose not
| to do it for reasons.
|
| ---
|
| This is why it's important that the claim itself is not voted
| on, but rather the source. Otherwise brigading will happen
| (it can obviously still happen, but is less of a problem in
| face of some hypothetical pure truth).
|
| I'd also add that inherently the problem of "determining the
| truth" requires consensus. What I'm proposing is simply a way
| to make said consensus be gathered transparently. Obviously
| there's no oracle of truth out there for us to consult and
| some variant of what I'm describing is inherently necessary.
| nradov wrote:
| No that would never work. The flat earthers will all upvote
| each other's bullshit.
|
| And you are missing a fundamental concept in that for most
| fields of science there are very few objective facts or
| proven truths. If I write a post on Newtonian physics
| should I be "fact checked" for misinformation if I fail to
| state that it's only an approximation and doesn't always
| give correct answers?
|
| It used to be an accepted "fact" in medicine that peptic
| ulcers were caused by stress and spicy food. Except that
| fact turned out to be wrong. How would Drs. Warren and
| Marshall have rated under your scheme?
|
| https://www.news-medical.net/health/Peptic-Ulcer-
| History.asp...
| endisneigh wrote:
| your example makes no sense - flat earthers are a
| minority, the cited claims would ultimately receive more
| down than upvotes. also, the point of the votes is to
| help readers understand things themselves.
| nradov wrote:
| No that makes no sense. Other people just ignore the flat
| earth bullshit, they don't even vote. There's no point to
| what you're proposing.
| endisneigh wrote:
| OK, nice discussion.
| [deleted]
| robomartin wrote:
| > Is fact checking that difficult?
|
| Yes, it is. Years ago I went through a period of personally
| fact-checking stories across the board as they were being
| discussed by my FB contacts. It is hard to quantify just how
| time consuming this was.
|
| Some stories were super easy to debunk. Others took days to
| weeks of research and sometimes mathematical modeling. Other
| stories took 10+ months to wait of legal evidence to surface. I
| remember one particular case where someone tried to burn down
| an black church and spray painted "Vote Trump" on the side of
| the building. The outrage and blame was immediate, massive and
| pretty much across the board. I looked at it from a game theory
| perspective. It just didn't make sense. It took some months for
| law enforcement to finally track down the culprit: It was one
| of the members of the church, black, of course, who had a
| problem with the pastor (or something like that) and thought he
| could burn down the church and deflect blame through his
| graffiti.
|
| There were cases like this on both sides of the US political
| spectrum, of course. This is one I remember. A lot of the cases
| on the other side have to do with things like climate change
| and vaccine denial.
|
| The point is, it takes a lot of time and effort. It's almost
| impossible. And, when you finally get down to facts, convincing
| people what they were told was wrong is pretty much impossible.
| They can't un-see the lie when it was carpet-bombed into their
| brains.
|
| Not sure what the solution might be. Taking sides doesn't seem
| to be a good idea.
| kbelder wrote:
| Of course, none of the current fact-checkers on the major
| platforms are doing anything like that.
|
| I might be wrong, but I imagine each has a binder with a
| bunch of bullet points under each topic, listing common
| claims determined to be false by management. Probably some
| post-it notes holding new claims that their manager saw the
| previous day and didn't like.
|
| Maybe the 'lab-leak' claim is scratched out.. it's permitted
| to be spoken of, now.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| > It is hard to quantify just how time consuming this was.
|
| You can just watch Fox, Sky Australia or NTD Media, who are
| still doing journalistic reporting.
|
| RAND studied the MSM and released a report in May, 2019
| saying the MSM (cnn, abc, msnbc, nbc, nyt, etc) was opinion,
| not fact. One of the owners of cnn just said this week he was
| considering "dropping opinion and returning to reporting."
|
| "U.S. Journalism Has Become More Subjective"
|
| https://www.rand.org/news/press/2019/05/14.html
|
| More disturbing than even the MSM in 2021 is the White House
| Press Secretary, Jen Psaki. She lies just to stay in
| practise, with no accountability to the US public.
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| It's extremely difficult because the human psyche seems
| incapable of distinguishing "fact" from "that which supports my
| view", at least when the emotions are activated, and the only
| topics where people seek "fact checking" in the first place are
| the ones where emotions are activated. There may be exceptions
| --i.e. people whose minds don't work this way--but if they
| exist, they're so rare as to be no basis for social policy.
| (And I doubt that there are really exceptions.)
|
| That's why there doesn't seem to be any fact checker whose
| calls aren't predictable from one of the major ideological
| partitions.
|
| Another way of putting this is that the question, "what are the
| facts?" is complex enough to already recreate the entire
| political and ideological contest. It's understandable that
| people would like to reduce that contest to a simpler subset of
| factual questions--but you can't. Just the opposite: that
| apparently simpler subset reduces to _it_.
| walterbell wrote:
| _> Another way of putting this is that the question, "what
| are the facts?" is complex enough to already recreate the
| entire political and ideological contest. It's understandable
| that people would like to reduce that contest to a simpler
| subset of factual questions--but you can't. Just the
| opposite: that apparently simpler subset reduces to it._
|
| Great point, which reminds me of 1960s _" English Prime
| (E-Prime)"_, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime
|
| _> a version of the English language that excludes all forms
| of the verb to be, including all conjugations, contractions
| and archaic forms ... D. David Bourland Jr., who had studied
| under Alfred Korzybski, devised E-Prime as an addition to
| Korzybski 's general semantics in the late 1940s. Bourland
| published the concept in a 1965 essay ... Albert Ellis
| advocated the use of E-Prime when discussing psychological
| distress to encourage framing these experiences as temporary
| ... and to encourage a sense of agency by specifying the
| subject of statements._
| fallingknife wrote:
| Very well said. And the only difference between community
| moderation and 3rd party "fact-checkers" is if the "fact-
| checkers" have a different average political profile than
| that of the users of the site.
| AlexTWithBeard wrote:
| > posters can vote and downvote
|
| Somewhere at this point it will get into "yes, he's a
| sonofabitch, but he's our sonofabitch!"
| Mezzie wrote:
| This wouldn't work, at least not outside of places like HN with
| a strong technical bent and a strong assumed knowledge base of
| the people.
|
| I've done fact-checking work professionally; it's not that
| fact-checking itself is difficult, it's that fact-checking can
| only work as intended in certain information environments, and
| mass media is NOT one. I've also studied filter bubbles,
| algorithmic influences on political POVs, etc.
|
| Your proposed system might work in a vacuum, but unfortunately,
| our modern landscape is NOT such a vacuum.
|
| Issues with your proposed system:
|
| 2.) What counts as a claim? Is 'the sky is blue' a claim, or is
| that common knowledge? We clearly wouldn't flag common
| knowledge because using the flag when it's not necessary
| deprecates the usefulness of the flag, but then who decides
| what counts as common knowledge, particularly across different
| cultures and countries?
|
| 3.) A common metadata way of judging someone online is through
| their sources. Think of many subreddits which don't allow
| certain 'left-wing' or 'right-wing' sources. The supporting
| text will be upvoted and downvoted based on the readers' idea
| of the source: In the politics subreddit, a NYT 'claim support'
| would be upvoted while a WSJ one would be downvoted. Instead of
| using headlines as proxys, the URL would be: "Oh, it's X. They
| just always lie. Don't even need to check; downvote, nobody
| listening to THEM could be correct."
|
| 4.) Once the whitelisting and blacklisting go into effect and
| people are aware of it, the voting becomes even more distorted
| as certain people with grudges can both climb community
| hierarchy (and therefore put themselves in positions of
| influence and say things like 'we don't read X here, they're
| all liars') and encourage voting en masse to blacklist certain
| sites they disagree with.
|
| 5.) This is terrible for search and archiving as well as for
| tracking bad actors.
|
| And that's just off the top of my head.
| endisneigh wrote:
| > 2.) What counts as a claim? Is 'the sky is blue' a claim,
| or is that common knowledge? We clearly wouldn't flag common
| knowledge because using the flag when it's not necessary
| deprecates the usefulness of the flag, but then who decides
| what counts as common knowledge, particularly across
| different cultures and countries?
|
| Everything, including your example. The entire point is to
| discourage people from making claims.
|
| > 3.) A common metadata way of judging someone online is
| through their sources. Think of many subreddits which don't
| allow certain 'left-wing' or 'right-wing' sources. The
| supporting text will be upvoted and downvoted based on the
| readers' idea of the source: In the politics subreddit, a NYT
| 'claim support' would be upvoted while a WSJ one would be
| downvoted. Instead of using headlines as proxys, the URL
| would be: "Oh, it's X. They just always lie. Don't even need
| to check; downvote, nobody listening to THEM could be
| correct."
|
| This is a good critique, but if one were actually
| implementing this, you'd also need to implement some way to
| verify that people are actually reading the sources (which in
| itself is already a big annoying problem).
|
| Your other points are also good, but ultimately this thing
| I'm claiming would be niche due to the friction involved. If
| it were to not be niche you'd want to put in effort to
| "validate", or in other words have "trusted" (another
| problem) members randomly select controversial claims and
| verify them manually.
|
| I don't believe a fully algorithmic approach, even with "the
| crowd" can work.
| Mezzie wrote:
| > Everything, including your example. The entire point is
| to discourage people from making claims.
|
| Then you wouldn't have discussion, at least not of this
| type. It would resemble more a slightly faster version of
| academic papers as everybody has to read everything and
| becomes more invested in preventing themselves from being
| blasted for making an unsupported claim on accident than in
| contributing.
|
| > This is a good critique, but if one were actually
| implementing this, you'd also need to implement some way to
| verify that people are actually reading the sources (which
| in itself is already a big annoying problem).
|
| Right, but when you say 'we should do thing X' and when
| somebody says 'we can't do thing X without solving Y' you
| can't just reply with 'also solve thing Y'. For example, we
| should go to Alpha Centauri, but I think figuring out FTL
| travel is sort of necessary first.
|
| > Your other points are also good, but ultimately this
| thing I'm claiming would be niche due to the friction
| involved. If it were to not be niche you'd want to put in
| effort to "validate", or in other words have "trusted"
| (another problem) members randomly select controversial
| claims and verify them manually.
|
| I don't believe a fully algorithmic approach, even with
| "the crowd" can work.
|
| Yeah, it might work in that particular usecase. Perhaps as
| an adjunct to academic listservs.
| Closi wrote:
| > 2.) What counts as a claim? Is 'the sky is blue' a claim,
| or is that common knowledge? We clearly wouldn't flag common
| knowledge because using the flag when it's not necessary
| deprecates the usefulness of the flag, but then who decides
| what counts as common knowledge, particularly across
| different cultures and countries?
|
| As a further point, what if a blog says "not a single cloud
| was in the sky" and subsequent facts show there was in fact
| one cloud in the sky - does that count as fake news?
| endisneigh wrote:
| > As a further point, what if a blog says "not a single
| cloud was in the sky" and subsequent facts show there was
| in fact one cloud in the sky - does that count as fake
| news?
|
| I wouldn't say it's "fake news", but it would be a claim
| that would be deleted, yes.
| Mezzie wrote:
| That's also a common fictional phrase. What if it's part
| of a blog post that's a combination of fiction and non-
| fiction. Or it's quoting somebody, and that person in the
| blog post is wrong, but since it's a direct quote, it
| would also be untrue to change it? Or if it was true that
| there were no clouds in the sky when it was written at 9
| AM but there were clouds at 2 PM and you don't know when
| the blog post was written?
|
| And how do you account for metaphors, common fictional
| phrases and uses, in-jokes, and claims that cannot be
| verified but a person still has the right to make? For
| example, I have a lot of Web memories that pre-date the
| Internet Archive and Wayback. I'm not pulling my claims
| from nowhere, but it's not my fault they're hard to back
| up either.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Wouldn't work here either. Just look at how the lab leak
| theory was handled on Hacker News. The community and dang
| both failed spectacularly in that instance. How many other
| instances have we gotten it wrong but just don't know because
| views here are as subject to ideological mania as anywhere
| else?
| johncena33 wrote:
| I've noticed the quality of conversations on HN have
| deteriorated drastically after dang took over. There're
| simply too many threads where the whole conversation is
| complaining, whining, dunking, outrage etc.
|
| Anytime there's a thread on Netflix, there'd be a group of
| users who would start complaining about Netflix
| recommendations. Even when the article has nothing to do
| with recommendations. I am using Netflix as an example,
| this pattern you'll notice in many other HN threads.
| j_m_b wrote:
| > We are aware that The BMJ is not the only high quality
| information provider to have been affected by the incompetence of
| Meta's fact checking regime.
|
| It is not an acceptable tradeoff that some high quality
| information is censored in order that bad information is policed.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| This is a one off mistake isn't it? I'd rather 1 good article
| get cancelled by accident if it mean 100-1000 disinformation
| memes or troll accounts get cancelled.
| teachrdan wrote:
| I'd normally agree with you. But in the case of Covid, some
| political actors are launching coordinated efforts to
| deliberately misinform millions of Americans in regards to a
| virus that has, so far, killed over 800,000 people here.
|
| How do we deal with this challenge without censoring some
| information that ought not be censored?
| analogdreams wrote:
| Seeing as the #1 political bad actor is Dr. Anthony Fauchi.
| So we could start by removing him.
| zekica wrote:
| Why don't the mainstream actually inform people of all
| important facts? Them being trustworthy, will make people
| less inclined to believe misinformation. If you skip over
| important questions, these gaps will be filled with
| bull**ters.
| DrHilarius wrote:
| If misinformation cannot reliably be distinguished from
| truth, how can you so confidently assert that there are
| "coordinated efforts to deliberately misinform"?
| dionian wrote:
| How do we know the misinformation from the authorities is not
| similarly a problem? CDC and FDA flip flopped so many times
| over the last few years. WHO and CDC were telling us not to
| worry about pandemics, and instead worry about "stigma"
| instead as late as March 2020.
|
| https://twitter.com/DrTedros/status/1229137314074505216?s=20
| https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1224734993966096387?s=20
|
| Censorship is not the answer. It actually gives more credence
| to the persecuted/wrong and lets them gain more supporters.
| Just like we dont ban KKK or Nazi stuff, we openly destroy
| their arguments with facts, not fascism.
| escaper wrote:
| So what's the answer then. I see a lot of "this doesn't
| work because x or y" but no one has any answers. The fact
| is, it's a lot better to police thousands of pieces of
| dangerous misinformation than to hide a few legitimate
| pieces. Like everything else, it's a trade-off.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| CDC didn't flip flop. They used the information they had on
| hand. If you don't like it then don't listen to it but they
| weren't "wrong" given the information they had at the time.
| We haven't actually ever been through this sort of thing in
| over 100 years. I trust them more than Fox, Trump, and
| Breitbart news. The secret is they are willing to change
| their interpretation rather than stick to their guns when
| the evidence says otherwise; unlike right wing media who
| continue to say it's just a bad flu and that we should just
| get over 800,000 dead people and quit being "wimps".
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Did they, though?
|
| Information of some kind of flu/pneunomia-like sickness
| in central China was available on December 31st, 2019,
| the day I learned about it from our local news media.
| Chances are the CDC had that information before I, a non-
| medical civilian, had it.
|
| On January 15th, with me noticing a significant
| difference between what the Chinese said and what they
| did in Wuhan, I realised shit's going to hit the fan. I
| bought a few extra conserves when I was going for
| groceries, some extra toilet paper, started to invest in
| my home office situation, "just in case". Nothing too
| prepper-style crazy, but enough to be prepared. And -
| figuring that any flu/pneunomia-style sickness would also
| be commuted by coughing, I got me some 100 cheap masks,
| some nitrile gloves, for good measure (arguably didn't
| use them much), and some isopropyl alcohol for
| disinfection. You know, things that I see doctors using
| when they get into a potentially infectious zone.
|
| No-one at the CDC, packed with medical professionals,
| watched Chinese news reports and did some "what could
| possibly go wrong" reasoning?
|
| Around mid-march, people in the west finally started
| panicking. By now, what I got over two months, slow and
| steadily, they needed to get all at the same time.
| Suddenly, they realised that this is not just a Chinese
| thing. "Don't panic buy'", the powers to be claimed,
| "There's no need! Supply chains will hold". Well, today
| we know they didn't, and back then, people sometimes
| found themselves lacking basic necessities.
|
| "No need to buy masks, they don't work", the CDC (and
| health officials around the world, with the exception of
| countries who use masks every time it's flu season) said
| - yet every single doctor and every single nurse I've
| ever seen dealing with Covid Patients go in like medieval
| knights in armor.
|
| I've been vaccinated trice by now, having made the
| appointment for the booster shot two months in advance.
| "No need to do that", we (non-us) were being told.
| "there's enough vaccinations around for everyone". Well,
| right now over here (non-us), we have people standing in
| line in the cold for up to four hours, and vaccinations
| are actually running out quickly, because the former
| government decided to not order enough, let the next guy
| deal with it.
|
| You are right not to trust Fox, Trump, or Breitbart News.
| But there's also no reason to believe news media or
| official offices on "your" side of the turf war. They
| will all lie to you. Watch like they are doing, closely,
| and make your own decisions.
| tzs wrote:
| > Censorship is not the answer. It actually gives more
| credence to the persecuted/wrong and lets them gain more
| supporters. Just like we dont ban KKK or Nazi stuff, we
| openly destroy their arguments with facts, not fascism.
|
| Destroying their arguments with facts doesn't work, because
| they just replace them with new arguments. Since it takes
| much less effort to generate new but plausible sounding
| incorrect arguments than it does to refute such arguments,
| the misinformation wins.
|
| It used to work back when distribution of ideas was slow or
| expensive or both. Those times are long gone.
| r-w wrote:
| They also don't listen anymore, thanks to echo chambers.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I don't agree with the premise that censorship helps in the
| first place. If Facebook established a new policy that
| nobody's allowed to say bad things about fast food, and you
| saw an article explaining how fast food is healthy and good
| for you, would you trust it?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Ah, that's the tricky part.
|
| It's not about what you or I would do, it's about what the
| median user does when the topic is public health and
| safety. And half of everyone is below average.
| throw10920 wrote:
| Erm, no, it's not. "It" is about taking principled
| actions, regardless of the outcome. "Outcomes over
| principles" is one of the most destructive and evil
| ideologies known to man, and the source for all kinds of
| tyranny disguised under the banner of "We know what's
| best for you". Censorship, in the sense of suppressing
| one's opinions and freedom of expression, is morally
| wrong, full stop - and even if it weren't, it's not even
| _effective_ in the case of Facebook, because censorship
| just feeds (crazy) conspiracy theories and breeds
| distrust.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > censorship just feeds (crazy) conspiracy theories and
| breeds distrust.
|
| I think we saw enough of crazy conspiracy theories
| occurring before the latest trend of service info-shaping
| to conclude that it's an independent variable.
|
| Silicon Valley companies held the line on being agnostic
| media for decades. The result was a world that appears to
| have necessitated another approach, because bad actors
| figured out how to exploit the laissez-faire approach of
| the digital media to signal-boost crazy conspiracy
| theories, misinformation, and propaganda. It was the
| laissez-faire Facebook of the mid-2010s that allowed
| foreign companies to signal-shape a US election via paid-
| for advertising and micro-targeting
| [https://www.vox.com/2018/5/10/17339864/congress-russia-
| adver...].
| r-w wrote:
| No, half of everyone is below median :)
| DocTomoe wrote:
| I feel this is the new "will someone please think of the
| children?" argument which showed up every now and then, with
| every other law officially meant to "stop child pornography",
| a goal no sensible person would dare to speak out against,
| but were later used for far less noble purposes.
|
| If you cut out a man's tounge, you do that because you are
| afraid of what he might say - or that's what people will
| think. It's better to make better arguments than they do. If
| you resort to obvious censorship, you are just creating
| martyrs.
| mitigating wrote:
| How would it be possible for a system like that to be accurate
| all the time?
| baskethead wrote:
| Facebook is a trillion dollar company. Spend more money on
| content control and content verification. Use intelligent
| humans and more of them. It may not be profitable but it will
| increase trust in the platform immensely if the fact checkers
| are fair and consistent. Not nameless bots or people that
| don't give a fuck.
| spoonjim wrote:
| "Fact checking" makes sense when "whitelisting" content, i.e. the
| New Yorker deciding that only verifiable facts are publishable.
| It makes no sense for "blacklisting" content where everything is
| presumed OK. It inherently assumes that Facebook can ascertain
| the factual truth of something which is just not true.
| tmule wrote:
| Fact-checking is a means to "neutrally" validating a specific
| narrative, typically the modal elite narrative. Most of what is
| being fact-checked isn't trivially binary, nor do the midwits
| that do this understand anything quantitative. Quite a joke, much
| like modern American discourse.
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| The idea that Meta does any meaningful fact-checking would be a
| hilarious joke if it weren't such a shameless insult to real
| fact-checkers
| thepasswordis wrote:
| How do we keep getting this so wrong?
|
| No central authority on truth. Not twitter, not Facebook, not the
| King, not the church.
|
| The fact is that many of the "facts" that twitter, Facebook, and
| google "checked", they were wrong about, and they are doing j
| told damage to our society.
|
| Facebook is a company which, remember, performed psychological
| experiments on their users without their consent. Twitter has an
| opaque algorithm which appears to intentionally foment rage and
| misunderstanding.
|
| Why in gods earth would we trust these people, whose entire
| business model relies on either subtly misrepresenting reality to
| make you more "engaged", or just blatantly tailoring their entire
| service to make you angry, with being the arbiter of what is
| true?
|
| Do people realize how insane that is? Twitter and Facebook, who
| appear to be using adversarial psychology techniques to make us
| angry, _theyre_ going to tell us what is _real_? They're going to
| be in charge of building the foundation of our being?
|
| No.
| dado3212 wrote:
| There were like 10k articles written about how FB is spreading
| COVID misinformation and causing people to not get vaccinated.
| You can't have both of these, which is the greater evil?
| asteroidbelt wrote:
| > which is the greater evil?
|
| In the short term the greater evil is people not getting
| vaccinated.
|
| In the long term the greater evil is erasure of free speech.
| jensensbutton wrote:
| If only we hadn't demanded it.
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| if by "we" you mean "entrenched political interests" then
| yes. I'd be willing to bet my next paycheck that "we",
| meaning everyday people who just want to occasionally look at
| pictures of cats or their family on Facebook, weren't
| interested in "fact checks". Just like most of us weren't
| interested in the algorithmic click bait they've forced on
| their users.
| schleck8 wrote:
| In fact the BMJ is so credible that they call a vaccine
| engineered and manufactured by Biontech the 'Pfizer vaccine'
| verisimi wrote:
| Who has the truth?
|
| "Fact checking" is just a narrative device, to present something
| as authoritative.
|
| The reality is that even for obvious, physical phenomena,
| whenever there is any complexity, you cannot know the truth.
| There are all sorts of buried assumptions and theoretical
| knowledge.
| rob_c wrote:
| To all on social media. Enjoy your filtered, prescriptive, fact
| checked approved me feed with just the right amount of anti
| establishment to keep you from getting up or of your seat.
|
| Frankly why any platform can be allowed to decide the worthiness
| of an article themselves is beyond me.
|
| If FB were citing some insane group who score publications/data
| publicly and openly based on their content is say they're guilty
| of nothing more than trusting a trusted information outlet. (I'll
| even accept that the JDL is probably more open than this and they
| get triggered by small green reptiles)
|
| Now that Facebook is deciding what is worthy to be deemed "truth"
| it has entered firmly into the arena of editorialism. Of course
| FB want this, it is practically the last brick of the wall around
| the garden of it's user-base. But it should be something that is
| illegal as it's clearly broaching on anti-competition territory.
|
| (This unfortunately exposes a problem in tech from the monopoly
| argument. There is always an alternative people can move to, that
| is not, and should never be, an excuse for crap behaviour by crap
| companies)
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Thanks to user sceutre for finding this link/commentary, which
| really deserves to be at the top of this entire comment page:
|
| https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-heck-happened-to-t...
|
| It's not definitive (nothing in a case like this will be), but is
| provides way more context for both the particular BMJ article and
| also recent history at the BMJ in general.
| natded wrote:
| Guess we are about to find out that BMJ belongs to racist disinfo
| right and was always disreputable source.
| qwertyuiop_ wrote:
| Did the ancient Greeks have factcheckers ? I always wondered how
| they debated without "fact-checking" and muzzling the crap out of
| other side, yet produce wisdom that stood test of time
|
| > Boyer 1991, p. 119 notes, "The Elements of Euclid not only was
| the earliest major Greek mathematical work to come down to us,
| but also the most influential textbook of all times. [...]The
| first printed versions of the Elements appeared at Venice in
| 1482, one of the very earliest of mathematical books to be set in
| type; it has been estimated that since then at least a thousand
| editions have been published. Perhaps no book other than the
| Bible can boast so many editions, and certainly no mathematical
| work has had an influence comparable with that of Euclid's
| Elements".
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclid's_Elements#cite_note-...
| [deleted]
| scotty79 wrote:
| > yet produce wisdom that stood test of time
|
| Most of it is survivor bias. I'm sure they claimed plenty of
| stupid things too, those just didn't pass though over two
| thousand year filter.
| [deleted]
| romwell wrote:
| BMJ sounds like people who've never actually _been on Facebook_.
|
| They complain of nonsensical title:
|
| >"Fact Check: The British Medical Journal Did NOT Reveal
| Disqualifying And Ignored Reports Of Flaws In Pfizer COVID-19
| Vaccine Trials"
|
| The title is nonsensical _because that 's the nonsensical claim
| the fact-checkers are debunking_! That's the title the BMJ
| article (or its screencap) is being shared with.
|
| BMJ's article is being used as "proof" that vaccines are a
| _hoax_. That 's why there's a _hoax alert_.
|
| BMJ's article is "misleading info" _in the context of how it 's
| shared on Facebook_, where the fact checkers are working.
|
| I mean, there are a lot of thing that Facebook does wrong, but
| this is not one of them. Good job, Mark.
| mmaunder wrote:
| Fascinating that everyone is debating the efficacy of Meta's fact
| checking and not even questioning that a single major corporation
| has supplanted the judiciary as arbiter of free speech and is
| being appealed to directly by the aggrieved. As RATM said: Wake
| Up.
| BbzzbB wrote:
| The last controversial era where they allowed free reign of
| misinformation, they were criticized for being a spreader of
| misinformation. Turns out if you have a platform where billions
| or hundreds of millions interact, you'll be damned either way.
|
| I'm unclear what the solution is but I'm quite sure no one will
| be please with either direction.
| Trias11 wrote:
| If FB/Meta is in conflict of interest with big pharma and
| politicians trying to peddle drugs - this justifies deeper
| investigation.
|
| FB being so insistent to censor posts regarding side effects and
| vax concerns - justifies deeper investigation.
| tomohawk wrote:
| Everyone wants/needs to be the hero of their narrative. Facebook
| is no different. At some point, they will get over themselves or
| go out of business, hopefully before they do even more damage.
|
| They've already admitted that their "fact checks" are opinion.
| Why the false advertising, then? I guess the word 'fact' can mean
| what they want since they have the megaphone and the cancel
| button.
| aezell wrote:
| Stop using Facebook, already.
| ninkendo wrote:
| It seems to me that if you have a whistleblower account of some
| poor research practices for a vaccine trial, spreading it around
| Facebook to be commented on by random people who have no idea how
| to interpret it, probably isn't the best place for it.
|
| I know that means publications like these which may have
| something important to add to the vaccine conversation, won't be
| able to have millions of "likes and shares"... but, who cares? Is
| that really such an important thing? Why is it so important for
| billions of random uninformed people throughout the internet to
| directly vomit out the first thought that comes into their head
| on topics like these?
|
| I know I know, censorship, blah blah blah. I don't give a shit.
| To me, it's akin to somebody opting to turn off the comment
| section on a YouTube video that's bound to get a lot of heated
| debate. Just... publish your article, let actual news sites
| disseminate it, and do things the old fashioned way. That is,
| without the internet mob weighing in at every opportunity.
|
| I know that the endgame of my argument is that Facebook would
| just be a site with cat pictures and status updates on what
| people are having for dinner. I don't care. That would be a world
| that is 100000 times better than the one we live in.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Yes, let's do it the old fashioned way where a bunch of
| journalists at "actual news sites" who think they're smarter
| than me but aren't, and have no subject matter knowledge
| whatsoever, decide for me what information I should get to see.
| xondono wrote:
| > Just... publish your article, let actual news sites
| disseminate it, and do things the old fashioned way
|
| Have you been to a newsroom lately? If it isn't on twitter,
| it's not getting published.
| mejutoco wrote:
| I would consider giving money to news that do things better,
| instead of succumbing to cynism. This way things can improve.
| I have never been to a newsroom, but I have run into outlets
| with better, if mot perfect, standards than these.
| clusterfish wrote:
| You don't give a shit because you're happy to see Facebook
| silence opinions you don't want to hear.
|
| What, you think a tech monopoly will always be on your side? Or
| that someone will care when news that YOU care about will be
| censored / defeated / fake fact checked?
|
| You're just a propaganda cog with such an attitude, no better
| than dumb antivaxers who don't care about facts either.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I'm fine with facebook doing what they want on their platform
| including hiring "fact checkers" if it cuts down on the
| garbage like covid and global warming deniers. If they don't
| like my posts and "cancel" me well then I'll just quit using
| the platform. Social media is not really important in my
| life, I would rather individuals and companies be able to do
| what they want with their "lives" without the government
| regulating everything or picking winners.
| ninkendo wrote:
| I think you may have stopped reading my comment after the
| beginning. In my last paragraph I explained that the end game
| is that basically nothing controversial (of one side or
| another, whether I agree with it or not) is allowed past the
| censors, and we just get cat videos and updates about
| people's dinner. And that would be a 100000x better user
| experience than what is on Facebook today.
| bleuchase wrote:
| Yeah yeah we get it you're a fascist little shithead who would
| gladly take away everyone else's rights to make yourself feel
| safe. Just like a bunch of other commenters here. Good to know.
| subpixel wrote:
| Agree. The notion that moderation of any kind can make
| individual Facebook comments and opinions _at scale_ a
| trustable source of information is false. I'm not sure anyone
| believes it, and the outsourcing of the whole operation
| suggests it's acknowledged to be a cost of doing business but
| not a strategy.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| My concern is that I don't think that is the endgame. I think
| the endgame is a world where Facebook still _seems_ to have a
| variety of news information, but it 's heavily censored under
| the hood, and your parents/grandparents think you're talking
| nonsense if you bring up one of the topics Facebook fact checks
| don't allow.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I would like to hear about facebook cancelling out a major
| news source or even medical journal for forever for anything
| short of lying through their teeth. Do you have any? I will
| be happy to research it, but I have not seen anything of the
| sort. Banning Trump was a godsend in my opinion.
| ninkendo wrote:
| Maybe my preferred endgame is just a world without global
| social media, then.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| I'd MUCH prefer that to the alternative mentioned above.
| hairofadog wrote:
| Is that not the situation we're in now? Facebook does act as
| if it's giving people a variety of news information, they do
| censor the things my relatives see, and my relatives do think
| I'm talking nonsense if I bring up one of the topics the
| algorithm doesn't allow them to see. We are there already.
| cloverich wrote:
| My relatives today think I am a misguided, manipulated
| communist because I believe in climate change and universal
| healthcare. Such is the experience of many of my friends so
| while I also find your end game concerning, that's how the
| internet as our parents (etc) experience it already works.
| theduder99 wrote:
| if the shoe fits..
| kbelder wrote:
| Backwards. It'll be your kids thinking you're talking
| nonsense, when you try to tell them about incidents that have
| been purged.
| jMyles wrote:
| BMJ has shown a lot of integrity throughout the SARS-CoV-2
| pandemic.
|
| They have repeatedly questioned the claims of vaccine makers,
| especially Pfizer, in a way that no other serious publication,
| scientific or corporate, has.
|
| They platformed the many experts who called into question the
| evidence basis for masking children in schools, for closing
| schools, for lockdowns, and several other now obviously failed
| mitigation strategies at a time when Nature and Lancet had
| already moved their gaze elsewhere, almost completely failing to
| catalog the collateral damage.
|
| This is incredibly strongly worded for a medical journal, but no
| more strongly than is warranted:
|
| "These materials revealed a host of poor clinical trial research
| practices occurring at Ventavia that could impact data integrity
| and patient safety. We also discovered that, despite receiving a
| direct complaint about these problems over a year ago, the FDA
| did not inspect Ventavia's trial sites."
|
| ...
|
| "We are aware that The BMJ is not the only high quality
| information provider to have been affected by the incompetence of
| Meta's fact checking regime."
|
| BMJ platformed this particular whistleblower at a time when the
| facts revealed (most obviously the unblinding) were already the
| subject of widespread speculation in expert circles, but were
| magnetically drawn to the memory holes of mainstream social media
| by 'fact checkers'.
|
| And now, with Facebook having demonstrably used its editorial
| discretion and censorship to protect Pfizer's reputation and
| profits, BMJ has carefully taken them to task in a way that we
| might expect traditional journalists to do, but haven't.
|
| When we look in our rearview mirror at this pandemic and ask
| ourselves how we can ensure that the next one doesn't provide for
| states and corporations to go on vulgar grabs for money and power
| at the expense of the most marginalized in society, BMJ's
| relatively progressive position on these matters in the past two
| years will offer a substantial portion of that playbook.
| nradov wrote:
| In 2018 Facebook "fact checked" a Babylon Bee article with this
| headline: "CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine to Spin
| News Before Publication". (Babylon Bee is a humor site and
| clearly labeled as such.)
|
| https://twitter.com/Adam4d/status/969405110324523008
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Well... that seems to be working? The story isn't a fact. Got
| marked as not a fact. What's the problem?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| When they are wasting time fact checking satire and also
| censoring facts from renowned medical journals, it points to
| some failure in the system occurring.
| GSimon wrote:
| "Repeat offenders will see their distribution reduced and
| their ability to monetize and advertised removed." Is the
| problem, a satire post by a satirical publication has been
| notified their distribution and monetization could be
| penalized as a result of their satire, because a 'fact
| checker' decided to identify the content and treat it like a
| news piece.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Maybe they should mark the content more clearly as satire
| to avoid causing confusion?
| GSimon wrote:
| Just to be clear what you're saying, you personally, or
| for the sake of others, need satire labels to identify
| that "CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine to
| Spin News Before Publication" is satire? That is the
| statement you just made?
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| Even knowing it's satire, the headline makes an
| implication that CNN is misleading people by "spinning"
| the news they report.
| Natsu wrote:
| Anyone who thinks they (and all the rest) don't has Gell-
| Mann amnesia.
| [deleted]
| colinmhayes wrote:
| 70 million people voted for Trump. Yes, many people will
| read that headline and tell all their friends about how
| CNN is spinning the news. Have you not met many people?
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Well evidently someone somewhere was confused in
| practice... as they fact-checked it. People mistake
| satire _all_ the time on the internet. It must be the
| single least effective way to communicate humanity has
| ever invented.
|
| Maybe these posts should have metadata? Mark things like
| sarcasm, hyperbole, etc. People already do that here -
| with the /s tag.
| mmastrac wrote:
| Exactly - the Onion was the original satire site on the
| internet of which _everyone_ should be aware and Reddit
| has an entire sub dedicated to people who ate the onion
| without realizing it.
| jerrbear99 wrote:
| I mean, he's right. You're saying people always pick up
| when headlines are satire?
| nradov wrote:
| Babylon Bee is already clearly labeled. How much more
| clear do you want them to be? Only a true moron could
| possibly be confused by such a headline.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Only a true moron
|
| At Facebook's scale there are very many 'morons' out
| there who might see it.
|
| And this article demonstrably confused at least one
| person... as it got fact checked didn't it?
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| Does that not say more about the fact checker than it
| does the Babylon Bee? It's clearly a satirical site. It
| takes all of seconds to recognize it if you look at the
| site.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Maybe? Not sure it matters either way? I think the
| conclusion in both ways is: satire confuses people and
| it'd be good to mark it.
| Natsu wrote:
| The Babylon Bee is like the Onion and is at least as well
| known.
|
| While I agree that there are people who take ridiculous
| stuff seriously, they're beyond what a fact checker--or
| anyone else--can help.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > they're beyond what a fact checker--or anyone else--can
| help
|
| I'd disagree. I think a literal huge 'satire' flag on the
| post would help.
| Natsu wrote:
| It'd help on your post, too, but ultimately we live in a
| world that contains vagueness. I feel more comfortable
| not marking a post about a giant washing machine being
| used to spin news with a blinking SATIRE sign than your
| post, though, because I can't take it seriously.
|
| That said, they clearly label the site as satire on the
| 'about' page if there was somehow any doubt that articles
| about spinning news in a washing machine were not
| serious.
| dshpala wrote:
| Have you seen the tweet? Facebook threatens consequences for
| "repeated offenders". So the point of fact-checking them is
| to accumulate enough checks to be able to kick in these
| consequences.
| bjt2n3904 wrote:
| This comment has been marked as not fact, but opinion.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| I hate Facebook probably more than anyone in this thread, but
| to be fair didn't they change their policy for satire sites? I
| believe they started adding a "satire" label (distinct from
| fact checking) explicitly to posts from satire sources.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| That made me laugh. I don't know anyone who would think that is
| a serious article.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I know plenty
| frenchyatwork wrote:
| Well, I used to think /pol/ was satire, but they managed to
| start a whole religion (QAnon).
| FalcorTheDog wrote:
| A quick glance at: https://www.reddit.com/r/AteTheOnion may
| be enlightening/horrifying.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Laughing over these examples I had an epiphany: we need
| more of this, all the time.
|
| If half the articles someone looked at were clear satire,
| people would have to think about what they are reading and
| who the source is. (Analogous to how we are being trained
| to recognize phishing)
|
| For those that can't figure out what satire is, A/B test
| content until we discover empirically how stupid something
| has to be before even they realize it is satire.
| adventured wrote:
| The people working in mainstream media - including the clowns
| at CNN - in the US are extraordinarily stupid on average.
|
| A lot of media outlets ran with the (non-)story that Elon
| Musk was planning to quit his roles at SpaceX and Tesla to
| become an influencer. Musk was joking and very obviously so;
| and yet so many of them ran stories with tags like "it's not
| certain yet if he's serious." (CNBC for example promptly ran
| a story with that elaboration)
|
| They're really, really, really, stupid.
|
| In the US if you can't cut it doing anything else, you become
| a faux journalist. You write hack regurgitated tweet-based
| articles for Business Insider or MSNBC or CNN. Which also
| partially explains the condition of journalism in the US.
| nafey wrote:
| Counter argument: they knew what Musk meant but also knew
| the (admittedly dumb) angle that would generate the most
| clicks and chose to run with it.
| moolcool wrote:
| It'd be easier to identify Babylon Bee content as satire if
| they were actually funny
| jmeister wrote:
| To be fair to them, their targets make their job so easy that
| they've stopped trying.
| a9h74j wrote:
| This title seemed clever enough after the San Francisco
| mayor's announcement yesterday: Study shows that defunding
| the police increases police funding.
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| It was never at the level of The Onion, but I think it was
| actually somewhat funny back when it was primarily about
| satirizing American culture from a Christian perspective
| (e.g. [1]). At some point it seemingly pivoted to just going
| viral among a conservative/Republican audience, humor and
| commentary be damned.
|
| [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20160325165926/http://babylon
| bee...
| [deleted]
| Negitivefrags wrote:
| "Something is wrong when the king needs to censor the jester"
| gzer0 wrote:
| > _Rather than investing a proportion of Meta's substantial
| profits to help ensure the accuracy of medical information shared
| through social media, you have apparently delegated
| responsibility to people incompetent in carrying out this crucial
| task_
|
| Couldn't help but laugh when I read this. Good on BMJ for
| standing up.
| periheli0n wrote:
| Turns out fact checking is hard and costs money. What's
| surprising is that Meta, which has capable staff and lots of
| money, can't seem to be bothered to do it properly.
| dang wrote:
| " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other
| people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| p.s. I'm not defending what you're criticizing--I'm saying that
| on HN, criticism needs to be more substantive than this.
| periheli0n wrote:
| Thanks, got the message.
|
| I think what I wanted to say is that it seems to me that a)
| the resources Meta throws at this are not sufficient to check
| facts properly, and b) that proper fact checking is a really
| difficult business.
|
| a) because if they had used staff with minimal domain
| knowledge they would probably have been aware what BMJ is,
| that it is a trusted scientific journal that has peer-review
| in place. I don't know whether the article in question was
| peer reviewed, but I assume so. Either way, this didn't seem
| to play a role. Whoever fact-checked the article labeled BMJ
| a newsblog, so they have near-zero domain knowledge.
|
| b) BMJ and all scientific journals which are worth their
| money employ experts to do the fact checking in peer review.
| Funny enough, these experts mainly do that work for free.
| Turns out that the experts place high value in fact-checked
| and verified information. Clearly, peer review takes a long
| time and wouldn't be suitable for facebook's quick
| turnaround. Or perhaps it would... if Meta designed a peer
| review process that takes Facebook's specific requirements
| into account. But that's a whole new approach to things,
| perhaps better developed in a startup and then bought out by
| Meta ;)
|
| Not that peer-review is perfect, or that all experts are
| always right. But Meta needs to acknowledge that fact
| checkers are sometimes wrong, too. When that happens, there
| must be a way to correct the error. The BMJ having to write
| an open letter to Zuckerberg clearly indicates that this
| error correction doesn't work.
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! This is miles better.
| Mezzie wrote:
| My bet would be they're not willing to pay for the actual
| expertise they need. I bet the fact-checkers FB employs don't
| have the qualifications those of us who fact-check academic
| publications have; the sheer amount of information FB has to
| wade through tells me that they need a lot of people, and I
| have an inkling that they would really resist paying for non-
| tech expertise that doesn't immediately lead to $$$$.
|
| I also wouldn't be surprised if there were perverse incentives
| for the fact-checkers: Some claims take longer than others to
| evaluate, but I bet they're on some sort of metric based
| system. Or that 'I don't know' or 'it's unverifiable' aren't
| good enough answers even though that happens.
|
| I also don't know if FB could GET that expertise at this point:
| I view big tech more kindly than most information specialists I
| know and I wouldn't work for FB even for six-figures.
| pwned1 wrote:
| How do you know this wasn't their intention? You're assuming
| good faith.
| periheli0n wrote:
| I couldn't find the tongue-in-cheek emoji!
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| Facebook would not be profitable if they did fact checking
| properly
| dqpb wrote:
| How do you fact check someone who has more expertise than you?
|
| How do you fact check a brand new fact?
| OldManAndTheCpp wrote:
| Expertise isn't a cure all. An example is the famous
| Minux/Linux fight. Tanenbaum was a distinguished professor,
| arguing with some guy on the internet who built a kernel. "Is
| a monokernel a viable way to build a first rate operating
| system?" Fact Check: operating system researchers widely
| believe that monolithic kernels are a fundamentally flawed
| way to build a system...
|
| The premise that there are some specially endowed people who,
| by virtue of their credentials, are the only ones able to
| mark things as true sounds like the core tenants of a
| religion, not a secular society!
| DarylZero wrote:
| You spelled Minix wrong and told the story wrong.
|
| Not the best way to make an argument against fact-checking.
| OldManAndTheCpp wrote:
| > While I could go into a long story here about the
| relative merits of the two designs, suffice it to say
| that among the people who actually design operating
| systems, the debate is essentially over. Microkernels
| have won.
|
| https://groups.google.com/g/comp.os.minix/c/wlhw16QWltI
|
| I will concede that I spelled 'minix' wrong.
| pcwalton wrote:
| Tanenbaum was in fact right. Monolithic kernel design has
| caused no end of problems, which is why modern OS's
| (including Linux!) are moving a lot into userspace. See
| Windows moving font parsing out of the kernel, macOS
| DriverKit, Linux uio, etc.
| dqpb wrote:
| Well, I wasn't saying that there should be specially
| endowed people, I was asking about the reverse: how can
| someone who is not informed fact-check someone who is?
|
| Or to make it less personal, how can someone fact-check
| information they aren't knowledgeable about?
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Brand new facts generally go through a public disclosure
| process where some established institution (a news outlet,
| academic journal, whatever) is willing to vouch for it as
| true, or at least vouch for it as being worthy of
| consideration and discussion-- and in any case, will strive
| to present it with the appropriate context and framing as far
| as level of certainty, who the players are and what their
| motivations are, etc etc.
|
| I think it's reasonably fair for the policy for nobodies
| posting on social media to be that "new facts" (or "original
| research" in Wikipedia parlance), particularly those which
| may be harmful to public safety or marginalized groups should
| be either unpostable, or considerably reduced in how far
| they're able to spread organically (shadow-banning).
|
| If you don't like it, go to some other social media network.
| For my part, I'd be content with a Facebook feed where none
| of the posts I'm seeing are "new" facts. OTOH, I'd also be
| content with a FB feed that was exclusively pics of my
| friends and their kids and very little news or politics at
| all.
| [deleted]
| periheli0n wrote:
| In this case I assume the BMJ article was peer reviewed, so
| it was already fact-checked by knowledgeable individuals. BMJ
| is a reputable journal that can be relied to fact-check their
| articles. The fact that it was labeled a newsblog means that
| the fact-checkers really had no domain knowledge about the
| facts they were supposed to check.
| periheli0n wrote:
| Science has come up with peer review for that purpose. It is
| far from perfect but works more often than it does not.
|
| Outside science I would recommend to delegate fact checking
| to knowledgeable persons. For brand new facts ask an expert.
| nojito wrote:
| The fact check was correct in this instance though?
|
| https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/11/fact-check-britis...
|
| The conclusions in the original BMJ article make zero sense
| when actually scrutinized.
|
| https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2635
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| The original BMJ article doesn't draw any conclusions that I
| can see. It certainly doesn't suggest the Pfizer vaccine is
| unsafe or ineffective, as the "fact check" heavily implies.
| sceutre wrote:
| This one is a more in-depth rebuttal to the article and
| indeed BMJ itself; I found it compelling.
| https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-heck-happened-
| to-t... It argues that the article was disingenuous to the
| point of being propaganda.
| nojito wrote:
| It almost certainly does. They even block out a box of
| their conclusions in grey to draw the reader eyes.
|
| Additionally, the fact they never reached out to the
| companies at all is telling enough of their agenda.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| People on Facebook aren't actually reading the journal.
| They're looking at the title and saying "see, the vaccine
| was unsafe all along." The fact checkers said "Missing
| context ... Independent fact-checkers say this information
| could mislead people" which is absolutely true.
| [deleted]
| nradov wrote:
| How would you do fact checking "properly"?
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Create a bureaucracy that will still largely be corrupt (from
| one side or there other) and get things massively wrong?
|
| I'm actually more for community tools to do moderation
| correctly and for content to be moderated by "people I trust"
| within the community. So for example if someone who I've
| marked as trustworthy on science reporting marks a science
| story as fake news it's flagged for those of us who have
| marked the flagger as an authority.
|
| People will say you are just encouraging echo chambers like
| this but I actually think it's inevitable and we all live in
| echo chambers. Having your views challenged is extremely hard
| work that we don't always have time or the inclination to
| work through day to day. Everyone is watching a different
| movie.
| periheli0n wrote:
| I would start with having knowledgeable people doing the fact
| checking. Next, since it will not always be possible to get
| every fact check right the first time, allow for fact
| checking results to be revised. Exactly what BMJ asks for.
| temp8964 wrote:
| I don't think those fake checkers don't know many times they are
| simply presenting their own opinions against others. They do
| those things not because they are confused. It's because they are
| bad people. There's no other explanation.
| switchbak wrote:
| 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.
| PKop wrote:
| >experts
|
| 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.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29596948
| temp8964 wrote:
| 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"?
|
| There is not a single chance. NO.
| dang wrote:
| " _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of
| what someone says, not a weaker one that 's easier to
| criticize. Assume good faith._"
|
| " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other
| people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something._"
|
| " _When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of
| calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be
| shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29596102.
|
| p.s. Not defending fact-checkers, just trying to defend HN
| against tedious deterioration.
| webdoodle wrote:
| > There's no other explanation.
|
| The other explanation is that they are being paid to control
| the narrative that the 'elites' order them to, by censoring
| anything outside their agenda.
| andrewclunn wrote:
| So they wouldn't be bad people if they knowingly engaged in
| misleading the public for money?
| rdtsc wrote:
| > It's because they are bad people.
|
| Maybe a bit too simplistic of a description but essentially I
| agree. They know exactly what they are doing. Companies like
| FB, which hire them, also know exactly what they are doing. The
| reason to have these "fact checkers" is to add a layer of
| indirection and absolve FB of any bias. "It's not us, it's the
| independent fact checkers who are telling you what's right and
| wrong".
|
| If they don't perform as expected, they get fired and replaced
| with another fact checker group and so on.
| laluser wrote:
| I get the amount of pressure Meta and probably youtube were going
| through when discussions around vaccines were rampant, but the
| narrative only started to change once pressure was built up into
| top news sites. For example, the lab leak theory. Yes, it's
| inconclusive and so complicated that even if Wuhan's lab would be
| fully transparent, I doubt you would be able to fully connect the
| dots. Anyways, even those discussions were getting banned until
| major news articles decided it was okay to talk about and only
| because independent journalists had built so much pressure that
| they finally caved. I don't know about the right trade-offs in
| this space, but all of this is so transparently anti free speech
| and obviously rigged that it just doesn't feel right.
| atlgator wrote:
| The biggest problem with fact checking sites is that they equate
| having insufficient evidence with being false. It's like a claim
| in the '00s that the Government was spying on Americans. A fact
| checker would say false but we just had insufficient evidence to
| prove it... until Snowden came along.
| musicale wrote:
| > until Snowden came along
|
| What about Mark Klein?
| Capira wrote:
| "Fact checkers" are nothing but propaganda.
| YossarianFrPrez wrote:
| Two things worth noting. First, this is dated from the November
| 2nd. Second, as has been pointed out by other commenters, this
| article is worth reading: https://leadstories.com/hoax-
| alert/2021/11/fact-check-britis...
|
| Unfortunately, the research misconduct that the BMJ letter points
| to plays right into the hands of anti-vaxxers and anti-science
| types.
|
| Science hard, science communication is even harder, but how is
| the hardest part caring enough to do the research right?
|
| Edit: As has been pointed out, I got the date wrong! This is
| dated as of 12/17.
| DrHilarius wrote:
| You're looking at the date on the original whistleblower
| article in the BMJ. The open letter is dated today.
| 323 wrote:
| No, the original article is dated Nov 2.
|
| This open letter is dated today (Dec 17) - see sidebar.
| YossarianFrPrez wrote:
| Ah, thanks for pointing that out.
| webdoodle wrote:
| The 'elites' control the narrative through propaganda censors
| like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit. Anything that doesn't conform
| to their predetermined agenda gets discredited, the author
| smeared, then eventually banned from posting. These are
| legitimate 1st amendment issues that need to be defended or what
| little freedom we have left will be boiled away like baby frogs.
| DarknessFalls wrote:
| Facebook and Twitter have very specific policies against hate
| speech and inciting violence. This caused a lot of extremists
| on the American political right to be banned.
|
| That isn't elitism or censorship. It's enforcing their ToS,
| which as a private business, they have every right to do. I
| also think you're confused about what an 'elite' actually is.
| Spoonfed, entitled, whining, bitching opportunists like Trump
| fit that bill. And don't even pretend this isn't the side
| you're on.
| webdoodle wrote:
| > That isn't elitism or censorship. It's enforcing their ToS,
| which as a private business, they have every right to do. I
| also think you're confused about what an 'elite' actually is.
| Spoonfed, entitled, whining, bitching opportunists like Trump
| fit that bill. And don't even pretend this isn't the side
| you're on.
|
| Emotionally charged drivel. I didn't vote for either Biden or
| Trump, and definitely didn't support either. They are both
| agents of the 'elites'. Trump wouldn't have won the
| Republican primary if he wasn't part of the problem. Further,
| I tried to warn Trumps supporters he was planning a Night of
| the Long Knives, to rid his party of there extremist brown
| shirts (aka the January 6th insurrection).
| Flankk wrote:
| The private business argument is weak as you're really
| pointing to the freedom that businesses employ. Quite
| obviously censorship runs contrary to the idea of freedom and
| the spirit of the law. Private industry does not have an
| inherent right to censorship, it is only legal currently
| because social media is a relatively new form of
| communication. This censorship has clearly been disruptive
| and since social media is essentially serving the role of a
| telecommunications provider those laws surrounding their
| freedoms are likely to change. You have to be careful because
| just because something is legal doesn't make it right. Social
| media companies can also read your private messages and share
| your private photos but that wouldn't make it right.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _Private industry does not have an inherent right to
| censorship_
|
| Facebook and Twitter both enjoy the rights bestowed upon
| them by the First Amendment to remove content as they see
| fit. Requiring Facebook and Twitter to host content that
| they don't want would violate their First Amendment rights.
| Flankk wrote:
| The first amendment has nothing to do with that. The
| first amendment protects the individual and the press
| from government censorship. As I said, the spirit of the
| law is to protect from censorship. Unfortunately social
| media companies are abusing their power.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Go read up on Citizens United v FEC.
| Flankk wrote:
| That is a red herring and has nothing to do with what I
| said. It is also a highly controversial decision.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| Pot meet kettle. You're spreading propaganda about propaganda.
| I need concrete evidence of who these 'elites' are. Names,
| dates, actionable steps taken by individuals, and proof of the
| agenda. If you can't provide these basic data points, from this
| vantage point you're no different then the folks you're
| complaining about.
|
| This has nothing to do with 1A. Businesses have the right to
| refuse service if you're being too loud in their establishment.
| Sorry, not sorry.
| philwelch wrote:
| "We are flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread
| disinformation." -- Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary
| Thetawaves wrote:
| As if Facebook doesn't have an entire division doing this
| exact thing. We can't name specific names, because there are
| no specific names. These are institutions, and their orders
| flow down from the top.
|
| Your comment is 100% disingenuous.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| The irony is, your argument is the Appeal to Ignorance
| fallacy.
| Svettie wrote:
| No, this isn't a trial. It's OK to raise ideas up for others'
| consideration. The absence of obvious evidence doesn't mean
| the thing itself isn't happening.
|
| There is also a big difference between one person's voice on
| a platform, and a decision-maker of the platform who is
| creating policy/process for filtering those voices.
| _jal wrote:
| Bitching about 'the elites' is garbage. It is a contentless
| description unless you identify who you're bitching about,
| primarily used as a way to get others to agree with you by
| substituting their own conception of 'elitists'.
|
| If you blame 'elites' with no further clarification for
| something, I'm going to assume you're pushing a dishonest
| agenda. If you were being honest, you'd identify your scary
| shadowy actors.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| It's not my job to disprove other's statement. It's their
| job to prove their statements when they make assertions.
| This is common argument religious zealots make. You can't
| disprove god, therefore god exists. It's silly at best.
|
| I have yet to see any proof or evidence that 'elites' are
| engaged in such activities.
| berberous wrote:
| https://youtu.be/Y2EPgix5_5w
|
| The elites, like any other group, have a culture and a
| worldview shaped by it. They believe similar things, read
| similar news sources, have similar incentives and goals, etc.
| mariavillosa wrote:
| >This has nothing to do with 1A. Businesses have the right to
| refuse service if you're being too loud in their
| establishment. Sorry, not sorry.
|
| If the purpose of 1a is to foster a society where speech is
| democratic, then it does, because corporations have largely
| replaced governments as the primary arbiters of information.
| So philosophically, the idea behind it is very relevant.
|
| The kind of power that governments abused, leading to 1a, is
| in some ways analogous to corporate power today. Whether that
| analogy is valid is the debate, right?
|
| I'm not from the US, but I wonder - just like how liberalism
| radically reimagined governance and the role of the commons
| in their relationship to the state, I wonder how a revolution
| this century could radically reimagine the digital commons.
|
| What will seem like obvious, basic digital rights, 100 years
| from now, that are completely unimaginable to my digitally
| medieval brain, like a preliberal medieval peasant?
| bastardoperator wrote:
| That's not the purpose of the 1A. If you read 1A it's
| fairly basic. Congress shall make no law...
|
| 1A protects you from the government. If we dive deeper into
| the civil rights act no business serving
| the public can discriminate because of a customer's
| national origin, sex, religion, color, or race
|
| Unless someone can prove people are being removed from
| platforms for reasons above companies are well within their
| rights to refuse service.
| mariavillosa wrote:
| > That's not the purpose of the 1A. If you read 1A it's
| fairly basic. >Congress...
|
| Right, at the time of writing, that would have been
| perceived as the gravest threat to free expression. But I
| don't think that's still the case.
|
| > Unless someone can prove people are being removed from
| platforms for reasons above companies are well within
| their rights to refuse service.
|
| Agreed completely, I'm not making a legal claim. My claim
| attempts to stand on the moral philosophy _behind_ these
| laws.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| It's pretty easy to opt out of corporate dystopia without
| being jailed or murdered. People love to brag about how
| they quit social media.
|
| This sounds like people want to have the benefits of these
| platforms without accepting the trade offs.
| mariavillosa wrote:
| >It's pretty easy to opt out of corporate dystopia
| >People love to brag about how they quit social media.
|
| Social media is the tip of the dystopic iceberg
| edmundsauto wrote:
| Sure, but it's a different dystopia than Gibson or Dick
| our Paul Verhoucen (sp?) predicted.
|
| They reflect common, primal human fears and are not
| indicative of insight. Just as my fear of heights does
| not provide wisdom against constructing/operating tall
| things - whether it be buildings, pyramids, or airplane
| flights.
| eacafdcbac wrote:
| The Internet is not, and has never been, a "public forum." At
| the end of the day the only piece of hardware you own is
| (probably) the one on your desk. You may put whatever data you
| want into it, but it's no one's responsibility to share that
| data.
|
| Beyond that the suggestion that all user's data should be
| shared equally is inherently flawed.
| tester756 wrote:
| >The Internet is not, and has never been, a "public forum."
|
| Internet is public utility just like roads.
|
| There's probably no other way around it instead of treating
| stuff like Facebook as a partly private business and partly
| public utility.
| Thorncorona wrote:
| I don't think these types of arguments that proclaim the
| internet is owned by private entities make any sense.
|
| The point of the parent comment was to discuss advocacy for a
| alternative and your comment essentially is replying well
| this is how it is currently so nothing can be done.
| CursedUrn wrote:
| Why isn't it a public forum? The Internet has largely
| replaced all traditional public fora.
| cracell wrote:
| I would strongly argue that coordinated censorship of media
| should be illegal.
|
| It's not today. But is it in society's interest that a small
| group of elites gets to decide what we can discuss on our
| primary discussion platforms?
| Hamuko wrote:
| What kind of 1st Amendment issues are there with Facebook and
| Twitter of all places?
| z3ncyberpunk wrote:
| How about every single one of them. If they didn't want to be
| treated as public forums they shouldn't have sought and
| fought so hard to monopolize themselves and position
| themselves where they are.
| Hamuko wrote:
| That's not at all what the First Amendment says.
| torgoguys wrote:
| Ummm...BMJ is close to the very definition of 'elites' with
| regard to medicine. This circumstance goes against the typical
| complaints of things being as simple as "elites controlling the
| narrative."
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into generic ideological
| flamewar. It's much too predictable and tedious.
|
| I realize this is begging for an "aha! the elites are proving
| the point!" response--but really no, we just don't want threads
| to clog up with low-information, high-indignation rhetoric. If
| you want to be all non-elitey within those params, have at it.
|
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29596102.
| webdoodle wrote:
| Detaching a thread, that's new (to me). I guess it's better
| than all out censorship, but not much better than Reddit
| collapsing threads that get downvoted by bots.
|
| I'm sorry if my meager comment became work for you, however
| you do realize you are modding a 'hacker' forum, where social
| engineering is the purest and earliest form of 'hacking'?
| Consider that most of the original 'hackers' are/were looking
| for social equality, now while social media has been
| infiltrated by big money 'elites' to squash the lamentations
| of the poor and impoverished. Lastly, John D Rockefeller only
| bought into newspapers after Ida Tarbell exposed the ills he
| was incurring on American society.
|
| If one can't wail at the wall of propaganda on a hacker news
| forum, where can impoverished ideologists still have a voice?
| All the main social media sites have been bought by 'elites',
| or hacked by their cohorts into oblivion when they don't play
| ball.
| baby wrote:
| No. Pretty much that's their answer to the backlash that they
| are platforms helping spread misinformation.
| SquibblesRedux wrote:
| The only fact checker I would respect is a court of law, whose
| purpose, in fact, is to discern and examine facts. IMHO, Meta
| (Facebook) should not be immune from liability with respect to
| its editorializing and censorship other people's communications.
| praash wrote:
| Law is heavily driven by money. In many cases, certainty and
| facts are not reached at all. With enough resources, a large
| company can usually prolong lawsuits for years, if not reaching
| a favorable result outright.
|
| Even if an individual had proven facts and legislations on
| their side, the court can still screw them up.
| peter_retief wrote:
| This has been a concern of mine since fact checking became the
| tool of political ideologues.
|
| Many of my professional friends have either left mainstream
| social media or have become much less active.
|
| Not only has this destroyed the credibility of science but has
| created vicious polarisation of people and destroyed friendships
| and family relationships.
| christmm wrote:
| This is serious. The damage and lives lost by medical information
| access being hindered on facebook. Is there an agreement between
| Facebook and the deep state?
| mschenk wrote:
| Here is our official reply. When an article by a reputable
| medical journal suddenly goes viral in anti-vaccine circles on
| Facebook there usually is more to the story. There was.
|
| https://leadstories.com/analysis/2021/12/lead-stories-respon...
| throwaway_2009 wrote:
| "Fact checking" is newspeak for censorship.
|
| If the Telegraph controlled the "fact checker" the Guardian
| wouldn't exist. If the Guardian controlled the "fact checker",
| the Telegraph wouldn't exist.
|
| If you support "fact checkers", you are not welcome in my life
| and I will route around you.
|
| You could, perhaps, consider yourself to have been "fact
| checked".
| Capira wrote:
| fact.
| throwaway_2009 wrote:
| [citation needed]
| andrewclunn wrote:
| The emergent truth inherently obvious to those with
| reliably observation, pattern recognition, cognitive
| ability is far more reliable than the knowledge preached by
| academic priests from within ivory towers. The rejection of
| "fact checking" is a rejection of the academic model of
| institutional knowledge in general. Science (not empiricism
| mind you, but "science" as a class of researchers and Phds)
| has been found wanting and the masses no longer trust it.
|
| TLDR, citations are for those who are incapable of making
| the arguments themselves and must outsource their very
| thought to other men they unquestioningly revere.
| threatofrain wrote:
| I consider my doctor a fact checker, and I certainly wouldn't
| route around them just because they had the extraordinary moral
| audacity to check facts and not report garbage to me. The BMJ
| also makes decisions about what is worthy for their name, and
| yes, that means they "censor" people from appearing on their
| platform.
|
| You could say that one man's garbage is another man's treasure,
| but I'm not sure I would ever say that to my doctor.
| throwaway_2009 wrote:
| Your doctor is, indeed, simply a fact checker. A real one.
| Much as I and you, I assume, are fact checkers; we attempt to
| determine the veracity of information we encounter.
|
| Your doctor is not a "fact checker" in the newspeak meaning
| of the term, because your doctor is not preventing other
| people from speaking to you.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Facebook is also not preventing anyone from speaking to me;
| they are refraining from giving some sources a megaphone.
|
| If I want to know what the BMJ is writing, https://bmj.com
| is right there. Facebook is under no obligation to center
| it on my wall.
| standyro wrote:
| That's not true. Facebook actively censors certain URLs
| from being shared in a DM on Messenger and WhatsApp. How
| is that any better than the "Great Firewall of China"?
| threatofrain wrote:
| China bans content through government policy, and
| government policy carries the force of government which
| applies to all public and private parties. The force of
| government means laws, courts, police, and prison, which
| is typically the sole prerogative of government.
|
| HN, BMJ and Facebook pay for their expenses as private
| parties and may not wish use their money to help you
| broadcast your speech. The main difference between HN and
| Facebook is that Facebook is Very Big.
|
| If your idea of free speech means that either HN or
| Facebook must pay for a metaphorical Dang and other fancy
| engineers to maintain your free speech...
| throw10920 wrote:
| "A government that censors the press is also not
| preventing anyone from speaking to me; they are
| refraining from giving some sources a megaphone."
|
| "refraining from giving some sources a megaphone" is
| exactly equivalent to "censorship". There's no
| difference.
|
| Your argument confuses the prescriptive and the
| descriptive.
|
| Descriptively, yes, Facebook is under no legal obligation
| to treat speech on its platform equally.
|
| _Prescriptively_ , Facebook is morally obligated to
| either assume full responsibility for user content (both
| editorialization and moderation), or no responsibility
| (passing through legal challenges directly to the user).
|
| Additionally, as a _de-facto public square_ , the
| principles of free speech still apply - a platform with
| more users than almost any single nation on Earth has
| citizens is morally bound to allow free speech.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| There's a significant difference between the behavior of
| a private institution and the behavior of government.
| Indeed, a government that censors the press is the exact
| opposite of a private medium exercising their editorial
| discretion. One is violation of freedom of the press, the
| other _is_ freedom of the press. Facebook is under no
| more obligation to uncritically pass through bmj.com
| stories to their customers than my local newspaper is to
| run a classified ad saying the paper 's owner belongs in
| jail, no matter how much I try to pay them to run it.
|
| Under the political theory underpinning the origins of
| the US, private institutions have different moral
| obligations from governments because governments have the
| monopoly on violence, not simply because governments are
| big and have lots of "users." Facebook can't force anyone
| to use Facebook, and their competition is always one
| click away.
|
| Facebook isn't a "public square" because it has no local
| geographic monopoly on space; it's the Internet, we have
| our choice of internet fora. This differs from the
| physical world, where one can't easily just go to the
| next public square over if the use of the nearby one is
| curtailed (hence the need for legal theory enacting the
| concept of "de-facto public square"). There's a problem
| if Facebook is _the only_ online forum. But the solution
| to that is anti-trust law, not the government dictating
| what Facebook may not refrain from rebroadcasting via its
| network. Trying to solve the legitimate concerns of
| discourse manipulation via modification to First
| Amendment protections opens a Pandora 's Box that is
| almost certainly best left closed (for starters: given
| the customer behavior we currently see, one could infer
| that people use Facebook because they like the signal-
| tuning. Stepping on the neck of Facebook's ability to
| signal-tune in a heavy-handed way risks driving users to
| alternative services that don't operate out of the US and
| therefore aren't beholden to _any_ concept of First
| Amendment protections, for good or ill).
| threatofrain wrote:
| A government which bans someone from speaking _is_
| preventing someone from talking to you. The government
| need not even consider the mode by which information is
| transmitted, or who is paying for these transmissions. If
| I am banned from sharing information such as classified
| intel, there is no means by which I am permitted to
| communicate this to you. A government which bans things
| also carries the force of government, which means laws,
| courts, police, and prison, which is typically the sole
| prerogative of government.
|
| A public square is one which is funded and governed by
| public means, and the source of funding is one of the
| core mechanisms for ensuring that the public institution
| answers to public money.
|
| Facebook is a private property, much like HN and the BMJ.
| That means people like dang, who also engage in banning,
| are not paid for by the government. Surely one's concept
| of public square does not entail private parties footing
| the bill for fancy engineers and metaphorical dang.
|
| As a matter of prescription, _why_ would we ever want
| Facebook to be the financially responsible party for
| public town squares? Why do we not have the government
| fund an actually _public_ town square? Or ought we be
| using tax money to fund Facebook itself?
| throw10920 wrote:
| > A government which bans someone from speaking is
| preventing someone from talking to you.
|
| I didn't say "prevents someone from speaking" - I
| specifically said "censors the press" because those are
| two _very_ different cases (and because that 's the exact
| language that GP used). A government could censor the
| press but not prevent private individuals from speaking
| to each other, so it wouldn't technically be preventing
| people from _speaking_ - but it 's pretty clear that it's
| still engaging in censorship (which was the point I was
| making to GP).
|
| > If I am banned from sharing information such as
| classified intel
|
| Classified material isn't covered under free speech. Free
| speech protects _sentiment and expression_. Classified
| information isn 't sentiment, it's factual data, and it's
| protected for national security reasons, so as long as
| the material _is_ classified for that reason, and not,
| say, to hide the embarrassment of a government official
| (which is illegal in the US at least), it 's pretty clear
| that it's not free speech.
|
| > A public square is one which is funded and governed by
| public means
|
| I disagree. A "public square" is a forum for expression
| that appears to be open to all, styles itself as a public
| square, and has a substantial population in it. The CEO
| of Twitter, for instance, implied that Twitter is a
| public square[1].
|
| > As a matter of prescription, why would we ever want
| Facebook to be the financially responsible party for
| public town squares?
|
| Aha, that's a good question - we don't! Or, _I_ don 't -
| the problem is that it _is_ a de-facto town square
| already, not that I _want_ it to be (a regulated) one.
| Top of my wish-list is for it to not be that - for the
| DoJ to take it apart and /or force them to make it
| trivially easy to move your Facebook data somewhere else.
| (I suspect you share this sentiment) Unfortunately,
| because the DoJ appears to have lost its fangs over the
| past few decades, we're stuck with the Facebook behemoth
| - so, if we're stuck with it anyway, it's morally right
| for them to adhere to free-speech principles.
|
| [1] https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/09/05/jack-dorsey-
| twitter-us...
| threatofrain wrote:
| You are free to define the "public" part of public town
| square as essentially popular, open and social, but that
| is not the flashpoint of disagreement. When people
| disagree on the boundaries between private and public
| institutions, they are not disagreeing over whether
| something is popular, open, and social. A public
| elementary school is not public because it is popular,
| open, and social, and neither is a mall.
|
| And public funding is a critical component to public
| governance. Facebook is accountable to private money.
| There is a reason why people don't like the idea of
| politics being funded by private money.
|
| To change that, we might talk about using taxpayer money
| to fund Facebook, and rather than mere rules for
| companies, we might talk about public ownership and
| governance of Facebook and not merely breaking businesses
| apart. Breaking Facebook apart is about dealing with free
| market concerns. Nationalizing Facebook is about
| recognizing that Facebook ought be a public institution.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| Yes they are.
|
| There are people who you cannot write personal messages
| to on facebook/messenger. They have to write you first,
| otherwise all your messages to them are marked as sent,
| not delivered and eventually seen, just sent.
|
| I assume that political idelogy of aforementioned persons
| is obvious. And these people are not some no-names.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| If you're describing me, those people are free to reach
| me via an alternate method. Facebook is not obligated to
| facilitate it.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| It should not be legal to advertise the possibility of
| messaging someone, if that someone will not be able to
| receive the message.
|
| edited to add:
|
| Those poeple have facebook profiles, post stuff publicly,
| you can comment, tag and all that. Except private
| messages. All private messages are silently undelivered.
| No error, only sent.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > It should not be legal to advertise the possibility of
| messaging someone, if that someone will not be able to
| receive the message.
|
| Unless I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, you seem
| to be saying that shadowbans should be illegal. Or at
| least, I don't see how any law that would prevent shadow
| delivery wouldn't prevent shadowbans. So I think we'll
| have to agree to disagree.
| threatofrain wrote:
| My doctor chooses not to be a facilitator of speech for
| everyone, just like the BMJ or Facebook. The difference is
| that Facebook is free to the users and ad-supported. That
| difference meant world-changing virality.
|
| ---
|
| You had a deleted post talking about how I'm masturbating.
| It may surprise you that HN also "censors" you.
| throwaway_2009 wrote:
| You are masturbating because you're debating a non
| sequitur with yourself; your doctor and Facebook are
| completely different entities with different purposes and
| goals, I explained that and you've continued the bizarre
| train of thought.
|
| I have little patience for such nonsense, good day.
| [deleted]
| EdSharkey wrote:
| I can still read it.
| tomohawk wrote:
| Does your doctor have a monopoly on speech? Does your doctor
| go around and tell people what to say and not say? Does your
| doctor have the authority to disallow other doctors from
| practicing? Is your doctor the only doctor you're allowed to
| go to, or can you just go to another one if you're not
| satisfied about their competence?
|
| This reasoning by analogy doesn't really go anywhere.
| freddybobs wrote:
| No not in general.
|
| There are facts. There are ways to make rational arguments
| based on those facts.
|
| Those arguments don't have to be the same, or even produce the
| same results to be useful - because they state their basis and
| how, based on that they produce their conclusions.
|
| That is a really useful and powerful thing.
|
| > If the Telegraph controlled the "fact checker" the Guardian
| wouldn't exist. If the Guardian controlled the "fact checker",
| the Telegraph wouldn't exist.
|
| Why? Having a fact checker that explains (even arguably
| incorrectly) why something is wrong isn't censorship.
|
| A newspaper could be a factchecker (and sometime are) - if they
| explain their reasoning, or have some transparent way to see
| their reasoning.
|
| This feels like a 'let perfect be the enemy of the good' type
| situation. Fact checking doesn't mean everything will be
| correct. It doesn't need to. Much like science doesn't claim to
| have the correct answer for everything - it's to the best of
| our knowledge based on the scientific method.
| abnry wrote:
| It's one of those language things. Newspeak necessarily
| requires co-opting the good meaning of a work in order for it
| to work. I am doubtful OP dislikes the true meaning of fact-
| checking but what "fact checking" has become in this modern
| age.
| chipotle_coyote wrote:
| The problem is that there are two interpretations of "fact-
| checking is bad" which are not mutually exclusive:
|
| (1) "Fact-checking" is a term used by people who are not
| interested in facts, but just want to control a narrative.
|
| (2) Convincing the public that "fact-checking" is always
| done in bad faith is in the interest of people who do not
| want to actually be fact-checked, but rather want to
| control a narrative.
|
| Well, that's one problem. The _other_ problem is that (2)
| has the potential to be far more pernicious: it dismisses
| the possibility of material difference between real fact
| checks and propaganda disguised as such. "Fact checkers
| may have their own agendas" can be true without leading us
| to "therefore no facts should be checked." If we choose the
| latter, then we have largely given up on the possibility of
| facts at all, and we are, not to put too fine a point on
| it, well and truly fucked.
|
| In the case of this BMJ article, it looks like there are
| reasonable questions as to whether the authors truly make a
| case that supports their conclusions. There's a comment
| from PaulDavisthe1st somewhere around here that links to
| both the actual article and the fact check, and it at least
| seems a bit more complicated than "THE BMJ IS BEING
| SUPPRESSED BY THE ELITES WHO DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW THE
| TRUTH, MAN," which is a distinct vibe I get from the
| comments.
| throwaway_2009 wrote:
| The entire idea that there should be a narrative is the
| issue here.
|
| "Fact checkers" attempt to produce a coherent narrative
| and force one side to win out.
|
| But not all issues can be decided in that way.
| loudmax wrote:
| I get the feeling that much of the problem is the Facebook (also
| Reddit, etc) were originally set up as social networks, but
| they've sort of become news sites for a lot of people. This
| didn't matter so much when the news being shared are baby
| pictures and new music, but it does matter when the news is about
| vaccines or who actually won the election. Social networking
| sites aren't set up to verify facts, and it shouldn't be their
| role to verify facts.
|
| I absolutely do want my news sites to verify facts rather than
| serving up stories to confirm my existing beliefs so they can
| sell advertising space.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| Television was also supposed to solve corruption and injustice.
| Sunlight is the best disinfectant. It all went downhill when
| that box started broadcasting fart jokes.
| zanethomas wrote:
| I prefer to do my own fact checking.
| wesleywt wrote:
| This is an impossible task. You are reliant on the opinion of
| experts who you should pay to take the time to evaluate the
| topic. We use to do this with proper journalism. But the
| internet has largely destroyed the industry.
| zanethomas wrote:
| If there is a topic I feel it is really crucial for me to
| evaluate then I will learn what's necessary to do so.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| You cannot do fact checking on articles that you do not see
| because Facebook decided not to present them to you.
| zanethomas wrote:
| good thing i don't rely on facebook for news
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Most people just believe what they read on Facebook without
| even clicking the link. Sucks, but we can't allow idiots to be
| propagandized by misleading titles. Unfortunately nuance is
| dead.
| tbihl wrote:
| Who are "we", and why not?
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Zuck and I.
|
| Because we live in a democracy where being uninformed
| doesn't mean you have less say in the government.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| That is how voting works. Should dumb people have the
| right to vote?
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Yes, but society needs to do everything it can to get
| them to make good decisions.
| SomewhatLikely wrote:
| If Facebook is demoting these stories you may never see them in
| the first place. Then you'll have nothing to fact check
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Can you not find them elsewhere, via Google?
| erklik wrote:
| and Facebook is under no obligation to show anyone any
| content that they do not desire to show them. There used to
| be a internet before Facebook. The content showed by Facebook
| was interesting, fun and something people wanted so people
| visited Facebook for that reason. If that has changed for
| you, simply stop visiting. The rest of the internet is still
| here and that content is still out there. It is not Facebook
| or anyone's responsibility to put your eyeballs on that
| content.
| giantrobot wrote:
| There's not enough time in the day for you to "fact check"
| every piece of purported information you come across. You're
| also not an expert in all areas despite your Gell-Mann amnesia.
| At some point you're going to have to rely on some sort of
| external "fact check".
| zanethomas wrote:
| I don't see the need to pay attention to every bit of so-
| called information streaming by. When there are topics I care
| about I will do what's necessary to form my own opinion, as I
| did with covid and the mRna injections.
| mraudiobook_com wrote:
| I am seeing this A LOT the last few years wherein the left
| (politically) will do something they think is clever, like start
| "fack checking" Republicans. Then slowly the Republicans catch on
| and start doing the same thing.
|
| They are doing it now with the supreme court, they did it with
| the filibuster, how we should have the right to not be offended,
| etc etc
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| There is way too much cheer pressure[1] in favor of [Biden,
| Democrats, vaccines, Wuhan lab] from the moderators of Facebook
| and Twitter.
|
| 1.
| https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Cheer%20Pres...
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| This is why "fact checker" is a useless job for power tripping
| jannies.
| [deleted]
| wyager wrote:
| Anyone who thinks it make sense to outsource their epistemics is
| probably correct, but not in the way they think.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| This one is much trickier than it looks. Reposting user nojito's
| post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29596111), but here in
| a top level comment:
|
| > The fact check was correct in this instance though?
|
| > https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/11/fact-check-britis...
|
| > The conclusions in the original BMJ article make zero sense
| when actually scrutinized.
|
| > https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2635
|
| Please read both URLs before commenting in depth.
| simonh wrote:
| Both these things can be true:
|
| That this BMJ article is correct and this particular part of
| the trial was botched by the contractor who covered it up, and
| the BMJ is unsatisfied with the level of follow-up by the FDA.
|
| That the other trial sites were well managed and valid, that
| the results at this trial site do not overturn the overall
| results, and that the FDI found it unnecessary to investigate
| further.
| [deleted]
| scythe wrote:
| It appears that the source of the confusion is the lack of
| articles. The 'true' headline is "revealed flaws in _A_ Pfizer
| vaccine trial ", the misleading interpretation is "revealed
| flaws in _THE_ Pfizer vaccine trial ". _Lead Stories_
| emphasizes the significance of the other trials, _The BMJ_
| emphasizes the significance of the findings, and neither is
| really lying.
|
| Where _Lead Stories_ goes overboard is in the way they present
| their title. It would be far more appropriate to title the
| story like this:
|
| >Fact Check: The British Medical Journal Revealed Flaws In Only
| One Of Many Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Trials
|
| In fact the use of the plural "Trials" in the fact-check title
| from _Lead Stories_ is a malapropism, since the _BMJ_ article
| clearly focuses on a single trial. The _BMJ_ article also does
| not use the word "disqualifying" _at all_ , nor does it supply
| such an implication.
|
| The problem is not with fact-checking or even with attaching a
| fact-check to this particular story; the problem is that the
| content of the fact-check is structured like clickbait, with a
| classic motte-and-bailey title.
| yesenadam wrote:
| Pedantic, sorry, but I don't think "malapropism" means what
| you think it means:
|
| _Here are some examples of malapropisms: Mrs. Malaprop said,
| "Illiterate him quite from your memory" (obliterate) and
| "She's as headstrong as an allegory" (alligator). Officer
| Dogberry said, "Our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two
| auspicious persons" (...suspicious persons). Rainy weather
| can be hard on the sciences. (sinuses)_
|
| https://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-
| malapropism....
| nickelpro wrote:
| Except that's not the headline The BMJ ran, they ran:
| "Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity
| issues in Pfizer's vaccine trial" This lacks significant
| context, which is exactly what FB said of it. Taken alone, I
| would call that headline false. There is no evidence of
| notable data integrity issues in Pfizer's vaccine trial
| beyond the typical levels of minor documentation issues
| expected in large human trials.
|
| The entire article from the opening headline to the grey box
| take-aways to the closing paragraphs is framed to cast doubt
| on the entirety of Pfizer's vaccine operation. That they
| don't outright lie inside the article is beside the point,
| they don't need to. The goal is to sow fear, uncertainty, and
| doubt and give ammo to anti-vax advocates who know the
| general public only read the headlines.
| NoPie wrote:
| The issues with Ventavia, if true, are not something
| typical or expected at all. And it is even less expected
| that any reported issues will not be followed up by the
| regulator. While it is true that many trials suffer from
| similar issues, it is not the standard that we should
| accept.
|
| And I don't understand why so many think that BJM article
| tries to cast doubt on the entirety of Pfizer's vaccine
| operation? It is nothing like that at all. It clearly says
| the issue is with one research organization contracted by
| Pfizer. Maybe it is because you lack the context and jump
| to quick conclusions?
| pinneycolton wrote:
| The issue is with how many will interpret that headline.
| People who already want to believe that 100% of the
| vaccine research is a sham will run with this. The burden
| is on BJM to be extremely clear if they don't want to add
| to the misinformation.
| NoPie wrote:
| It is an issue but that issue has to be solved by
| different means than having fact-checkers saying that BMJ
| is wrong. BMJ clearly states at the top of every page
| that it is meant for healthcare professionals.
| concinds wrote:
| There are multiple problems:
|
| 1. The Lead Stories article aims to debunks social media
| narratives linked to the BMJ article, but the result is the BMJ
| article itself being censored on social media (preventing it
| from being sent in DMs among other things)
|
| 2. The gist of the Lead Stories article is that Pfizer, the
| FDA, and Ventavia have found the whistleblower report
| "unsubstantiated". These organizations have not to my knowledge
| offered any facts that would lead us to doubt the
| whistleblower's report; _and further,_ have made claims that
| were directly contradicted by the whistleblower (with proof),
| such as which team she worked on.
|
| 3. The last part of the LS article seems like it would be a
| violation of fact-checking ethics (if such a thing existed),
| since it brings the debate out of a dispassionate argument
| about facts, into an ugly ad-hominem attack (stating that she
| "does not express unreserved support for COVID vaccines" on her
| personal Twitter). Similar errors are made in another fact-
| check below the HN comment you link to (by Dr. David Gorsky,
| oncologist).
|
| Given these points, I don't see how you can call the fact-check
| "correct".
| dado3212 wrote:
| This thread is inundated with people who did not read any of
| these articles and are going off the title alone.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Article makes claim X. Readers of article say it makes claims
| X, Y, and Z. Independent fact check puts a stamp on article
| saying "This doesn't say Y and Z", but to most people, who will
| for the same reason share an article after only reading a title
| or a little blurb their friend wrote, will write off the
| article as flawed or fake news because of the fact check stamp.
|
| Not really sure what a good solution to this is, other than to
| "fact check" people's posts on facebook, as well as the links
| they share. So maybe this link can be shared without the fact
| checked stamp among epidemiologists on facebook, but Bob's
| anti-vaxx group may get fact check labels when they try to
| summarize what is in the article.
| smarx007 wrote:
| > "Readers of article say it makes claims X, Y, and Z."
|
| says who?
|
| "Intended for healthcare professionals" - it literally says
| so above the page header.
|
| Edit: maybe fact checking systems need to label certain
| things as "This is a publication from a narrow domain venue
| intended for professionals. Specialized domain knowledge may
| be required to derive correct conclusions." instead of fact
| checking only the first few paragraphs using common
| journalistic standards because "users on social media only
| saw this title, description and thumbnail[...]".
| joshuaheard wrote:
| The Lead Stories article sets up a straw man for claims not
| made in the BMJ article, then calls the story fake after
| debunking the straw man claims not made. The Lead Stories
| article is the "misinformation".
| invisible wrote:
| I've read over both sides of this, and there is some
| editorializing going on in this medical journal that makes it
| less about facts. The title makes no mention of Ventavia, but
| instead mentions Pfizer. The headline doesn't specify that
| Ventavia managed 1/44th of the trial, nor anything factual
| (mostly speculation that the data integrity is questionable).
|
| > Revelations of poor practices at a contract research company
| helping to carry out Pfizer's pivotal covid-19 vaccine trial
| raise questions about data integrity and regulatory oversight.
|
| The questions are all whether this one company had poor
| practices. It mixes comments regarding the larger trial of
| Pfizer with this isolated company trial. At times it's hard to
| tell if they're referencing Pfizer or Ventavia (as "company").
| An investigation found nothing remarkable at other sites
| managed by other contractors, but then even that is questioned
| because this small company wasn't investigated.
|
| I'm not actually sure what part of this medical journal _is_
| factual.
| NoPie wrote:
| It was ultimately Pfizer's trial and Pfizer bears all
| responsibility for their contractors.
| angry_octet wrote:
| What you're saying is true, and completely tangential to
| the problem. When you are concerned that validation done by
| a subcontractor might be weak, it is entirely sensible that
| you subdivide the work. What we need is a statistical
| reanalysis that considers that, e.g., 10% of each step is
| done wrongly. And a regulatory regime that doesn't hand
| wave away complaints, has rigorous protection for
| whistleblowers, and serious financial penalties for
| misconduct.
|
| The BMJ might be right, but also have constructed an
| article that will be wildly misunderstood... and not
| sensible content for facebook.
| id02009 wrote:
| Not necessarily. If there's an instance of someone
| blowing the whistle, and there's no investigation it's
| completely reasonable to suspect that the whole integrity
| of the process might be iffy.
|
| Blocking the article (instead of opening relevant books
| to show that in fact it was just exception to otherwise
| solid prices makes) makes even stronger case that the
| prices is not honest.
| NoPie wrote:
| It will not be misunderstood by intended readers of BMJ.
| As for facebook it has all kinds of readers and groups
| including those that are meant for professionals.
| invisible wrote:
| I think I completely understand the article but still
| think that it's editorializing facts. Why exactly would
| professionals feel differently? If they had done some
| investigations themselves and found a series of poor
| contractors that all reported similar issues, I think we
| could take this as much more concerning. This looks like
| a director from a single company and a few anonymous
| researchers at the same company came forward with bad
| practices for 1000 trials.
|
| Also, as the article points out, investigations were
| performed at other contractors. Wild speculation, but
| that could be that Pfizer didn't even need a full 44k and
| they just ignored 1k? (For example, they concluded the
| trial with 41k getting a second dose.)
| NoPie wrote:
| The issue is that proper investigation was not done. We
| need more transparency and this is not what is happening.
| What happened with the data from these researchers? There
| are no indications that they were removed from the study
| analysis. If the problems with this one researcher is
| swept under carpet, how do we know that there are not
| number of other researchers with different problems?
|
| Without this vigilance how do you distinguish between
| ivermectin studies that showed a positive effect and
| vaccine studies? Some of ivermectin studies but not all
| were discovered to be total frauds. At some point when
| you see too many problems you just have to distrust them
| by default until proved otherwise.
|
| In fact, I think that there is possibility that the
| Pfizer vaccine trial results turned out quite different
| from effectiveness in real life in part due to issues
| like this.
| srcreigh wrote:
| The BMJ article, near the end, reports that the FDA
| actually did investigate and did find issues with the
| trial.
|
| > An FDA review memorandum released in August this year
| states that across the full trial swabs were not taken
| from 477 people with suspected cases of symptomatic
| covid-19.
|
| Of course, this comes after insinuating earlier that
| there is a complete lack of oversight.
|
| > "There's just a complete lack of oversight of contract
| research organisations and independent clinical research
| facilities," says Jill Fisher, professor of social
| medicine at the University of North Carolina School of
| Medicine and author of Medical Research for Hire: The
| Political Economy of Pharmaceutical Clinical Trials.
|
| I guess since you yourself were misled according to their
| own inconsistencies, maybe that is enough to convince you
| that the article is misleading.
| NoPie wrote:
| I don't know what FDA review memorandum involves but it
| doesn't sound that the FDA did investigation. It could be
| simply that the FDA checked submitted documentation from
| that site and concluded this because the CRO hadn't
| provided any test results.
|
| Sorry, I don't see any inconsistencies. The box clearly
| explains what they mean by complete lack of oversight -
| doing inspections many months after the trial and even
| then just checking the paperwork.
| srcreigh wrote:
| I guess it's not so hard to believe you're getting downvoted
| by shedding light on a situation about censorship.
|
| The first question in everybody's head when reading this
| article is, "Were the vaccine trials legitimate or not?"
|
| BMJ does not even come close to truthfully answering this
| question. With their authority as a medical journal and a
| very limited amount of evidence, they give a clear and
| incorrect impression that the vaccine trials were not
| legitimate.
|
| Do they report on the limitations of their evidence? No. Do
| they report on the perspective of employees at other trial
| sites? No. Do they get quotes from Pfizer, other health orgs,
| Ventavia executives? No. Do they report about other
| speculative factors at play from Ventavia ex-employees? No.
|
| Are they purposefully hiding new relevant information? Yes.
| They leaked in their own article that the FDA _is_ aware and
| reviewed the Ventavia trial.
|
| > An FDA review memorandum released in August this year
| states that across the full trial swabs were not taken from
| 477 people with suspected cases of symptomatic covid-19.
|
| After insinuating earlier that there is a complete lack of
| oversight.
|
| > "There's just a complete lack of oversight of contract
| research organisations and independent clinical research
| facilities," says Jill Fisher, professor of social medicine
| at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and
| author of Medical Research for Hire: The Political Economy of
| Pharmaceutical Clinical Trials.
|
| Honestly, BMJ seems to be working very hard to lie using true
| facts. I have no objections to their articles being marked as
| false.
| NoPie wrote:
| >> The first question in everybody's head when reading this
| article is, "Were the vaccine trials legitimate or not?"
|
| You are writing complete rubbish. BMJ does not question the
| legitimacy of the vaccine trials. With this sentence you
| are making very serious accusations to healthcare
| professionals. Most likely you don't even understand how
| clinical trials work or terminology used in the original
| article. If BMJ were not a serious journal, nothing in
| medicine would be serious including those trials.
|
| BMJ is questioning some irregularities brought to the light
| by a whistle-blower. It shows some evidence confirming
| issues about one particular clinical research organization
| and lack of reaction from the FDA. These issues should be
| addressed and resolved to remove doubts that the data from
| vaccine trials can be sufficiently trusted.
|
| Also FDA memorandum does not confirm that the FDA has
| investigated the sites. You probably don't even understand
| what the quoted professor meant by "oversight". It
| definitely is not just checking and fully trusting the
| submitted paperwork.
| srcreigh wrote:
| The title BMJ chose is "Covid-19: Researcher blows the
| whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer's vaccine
| trial"
| NoPie wrote:
| And? It's very precise and describes exactly what
| happened.
| quadrangle wrote:
| Wouldn't it be a lot clearer if it were something like
| "issues at three sites doing Pfizer vaccine trials"
| instead of "issues in Pfizer's vaccine trial"?
|
| The singular "trial" in the headline implies that the
| flaws are in the trial as a whole rather than in a
| particular distinct subset of the trials.
| hcrean wrote:
| Well, there are: The provable lack of regulatory
| oversight and demonstration of the existence of poor
| practices at the company.
|
| The argument that just because one of a company's trials
| are unsound doesn't mean that the rest aren't is not a
| good one, when the whole objective is to provide
| assurance in proving the safety of a product.
| quadrangle wrote:
| I get that it's hard to find the best balance in a
| headline let alone in a summary article. Yes, evidence of
| a problem in a portion of a trial is indeed evidence of
| problems in the trial.
|
| I can see room for misunderstanding no matter what.
| Emphasize the portion of sites where the problem was
| observed and it wrongly can be inferred that the other
| sites are fine even if they have no evidence either way.
| Emphasize the problem as a generic feature of the trials
| overall and it can be wrongly inferred that the whistle
| is being blown on some aspect of the trial that doesn't
| have any site-specific aspect.
|
| The story that I'm hearing in all this is that the
| whistleblower brought out issues that were specific to
| certain sites in a way that has no direct bearing on
| other sites besides being a reason to scrutinize the rest
| of the sites as well.
|
| Maybe an analogy would be helpful. If a whistleblower
| observed a disregard for safety protocols at a food
| processing facility, that's not a randomized sampling
| that indicates a high likelihood of the problem being
| throughout all similar facilities, but it doesn't
| indicate otherwise either. It opens the _question_
| whether this is a typical problem in such facilities or
| if that facility is an exception. If the facility was
| supplying brand X, there 's at least some sense to
| criticizing a headline like "whisteblower reveals brand X
| unsafe food handling" instead of "whistleblower reveals
| unsafe food handling at facility run by brand X". The
| former implies wider issues, the latter errs toward not
| making that presumption.
| NoPie wrote:
| Yes, the problems in one site, especially if not dealt
| with properly, might indicate larger problems.
|
| We all know that the trials were rushed and for a very
| good reason, there was a pandemic. Still, if issues are
| discovered they should be resolved. Pfizer is a private
| company, they are not obliged to be very transparent with
| everything they do. FDA is the main organisation that
| oversees such trial in the US, so this is their
| responsibility to investigate.
| srcreigh wrote:
| Your argument is basically that this article may be
| largely speculation, assuming that no information was
| withheld (even though the article contradicts itself in
| its own communication about FDA review of the trial)...
| and that this speculation is the same as minimal
| conclusions based on available evidence.
|
| I disagree. One bad study doesn't mean all scientific
| conclusions are bad. One bad study doesn't mean Pfizer's
| trials are bad. Ignorance doesn't prove anything...
| NoPie wrote:
| You apparently use the word trial differently than it is
| used in pharma.
|
| Pfizer had one large trial that involved many sites.
| Three of those sites run by Ventavia had problems. That's
| why the headline says "in trial". But even if you didn't
| know that it is explained in BMJ article "... Ventavia
| had enrolled more than 1000 participants at three sites.
| The full trial (registered under NCT04368728) enrolled
| around 44 000 participants across 153 sites that included
| numerous commercial companies and academic centres."
| DrHilarius wrote:
| > _The questions are all whether this one company had poor
| practices._
|
| If the FDA did not follow up on the whistleblower report it
| raises far broader questions about oversight of the trials as
| a whole.
| sjtindell wrote:
| There are so many foaming at the mouth morons desperate to
| "prove" that the whole thing was a sham that it will take
| extraordinary evidence to convince me anything improper was
| done.
| mitigating wrote:
| I want to second this. Because of how badly the right
| wants the vaccine to be dangerous/fake/whatever I'm so
| sensitive to anything negative that I basically brush off
| articles like this. In my mind I just lump it in with
| people saying the vaccine will make you impotent.
|
| Probably the wrong way to think about things but that's
| how my mind works.
| NoPie wrote:
| The solution is not to discredit BMJ but to explain how
| BMJ article doesn't mean what antivax is insinuating.
|
| I totally understand that when BMJ writes that this
| clinical research organization did a mess is this trial,
| someone misreads it as all Pfizer vaccine results are
| false. But if you say that BMJ is hoax, then we have much
| stronger reason to distrust healthcare professionals. Do
| you see the paradox here?
|
| BMJ is expressing concern about Pfizer and regulator's
| failures with the ultimate aim to fix them and increase
| the trust by showing that every fault is taken seriously.
| We cannot sweep unwanted things under the carpet and hope
| that nothing will happen. Bad actors should be
| appropriately punished.
| hammock wrote:
| The BMJ article is light on conclusions and is mostly just a
| report of facts. In the way of true conclusions I can find
| these:
|
| > Revelations of poor practices at a contract research company
| helping to carry out Pfizer's pivotal covid-19 vaccine trial
| raise questions about data integrity and regulatory oversight.
|
| > for researchers who were testing Pfizer's vaccine at several
| sites in Texas during that autumn, speed may have come at the
| cost of data integrity and patient safety
|
| Which of these conclusions do you think make zero sense? The
| entire rest of the article looks like a recitation of facts to
| me.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Facebook users aren't reading the article. They're reading
| the title, and saying "aha, I knew it. The vaccine was unsafe
| all along." That's literally all the fact checkers said,
| "potential to mislead".
| henriquez wrote:
| Therefore we must algorithmically censor the internet,
| checkmate Drumpftards.
| isoskeles wrote:
| > Facebook users aren't reading the article. They're
| reading the title, and saying "aha, I knew it. The vaccine
| was unsafe all along."
|
| You literally just made this up.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| It's true. Spend a few minutes reading comments on major
| news sites' articles and they're always full of people
| making up theories that the article directly contradicts.
| [deleted]
| concinds wrote:
| > "potential to mislead"
|
| I can't find that expression anywhere in the Lead Stories
| article. Facebook outright labelled the BMJ article "false"
| and containing "false information".
|
| Beyond that, should fact-checkers really become an "optics
| police"? For every single news story, you will have (wild)
| misinterpretations on social media. It becomes too
| convenient if a fact-checker can point to those, and then
| have Facebook limit the spread of the original story. This
| is a question of poor FDA oversight. There have been
| several instances throughout this pandemic: see the recent
| FDA resignations, and the GAO report[0]. Oversight is not
| about pro vs anti vaccine, this is about people's
| health[1]. Oversight should always be robust, even in
| emergency situations.
|
| [0]: https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-
| articles/2021/11...
|
| [1]: story from Japan
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/07/third-
| person-d...
| colinmhayes wrote:
| My bad, the actual quote is "Missing context ...
| Independent fact-checkers say this information could
| mislead people"
|
| As far as whether Facebook should become "optics police"
| I think it's obviously a difficult decision, but with
| life and death questions such as "is the vaccine safe" I
| have to go with yes, facebook shouldn't let itself
| propagandize people who decide to read headlines instead
| of articles.
| hammock wrote:
| >life and death questions such as "is the vaccine safe"
|
| Is that not a misleading thing to say yourself? Plenty of
| vaccinated have died. And for those unjabbed but with
| permanent acquired immunity, the jab may be safe yet at
| the same time have no material effect to save their life.
| mitigating wrote:
| What's plenty? The number matters because it may be
| insignificant.
| hammock wrote:
| The CDC makes it hard to find the data but it's at least
| hundreds per day in the US.
|
| For example in Texas, from Jan-Oct of this year 8 percent
| of covid deaths were fully vaccinated:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/11/09/texas-
| unvac...
|
| Most of that time period was before Delta or Omicron were
| dominant, not to mention the effectiveness of the vaccine
| wanes greatly over a ~6 month period, so the situation
| today is likely higher than 8 percent.
| pinneycolton wrote:
| As best we can tell, no one has "permanent acquired
| immunity". 36% of those infected never develop
| antibodies. Of the remaining 64% that do, most lose their
| antibodies in less than a year.
| [deleted]
| petilon wrote:
| The first link is 404. Here's another link on the same topic:
| https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/11/fact-check-britis...
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Fixed the first link, thanks.
| scotty79 wrote:
| > "Missing context ... Independent fact-checkers say this
| information could mislead people."
|
| I can agree with that. After learning about this BMJ article some
| people with certain bias might take it as an evidence that Covid
| vaccine trials were seriously flawed and resulted in wrong
| conclusions and that the vaccine is unsafe or ineffective.
|
| So plenty of context is sometimes necessary to avoid misleading
| people despite the fact that everything you say is true.
| goopthink wrote:
| In addition to the points raised by BMJ and in the comments
| below, there is a limit to what independent fact checking can
| accomplish. For example, are their fact checkers conducting their
| own scientific experiments validating claims and outcomes of a
| scientific paper? Are fact checkers reaching out to sources from
| a news article and verifying quoted information? When "breaking
| news" or "scoops" are reported presenting totally new information
| about the world, how can that be verified against other
| information that - by virtue of something being new - cannot be
| verified by other preexisting sources?
|
| If the fact checking process is limited to verification based on
| other information that is currently available, and if the fact
| checking process cannot distinguish between factual information
| and the opinions people hold as a result of that information, the
| outcome will be an inevitable echo chamber that reinforces
| currently dominant views or whatever preexisting biases are
| present.
|
| In short, fact checking is hard and there is a reason why
| reputable publishing outlets have their own internal fact
| verification processes before something gets published (including
| safeguards and retractions, because they make mistakes too), and
| why news is separated out from opinion-editorial pages... even if
| it is in style to add opinions (read: "perspective") to every
| article.
| wellbehaved wrote:
| "Fact checking" by social media giants is an inherent farce,
| which would be laughable if it weren't leading to people
| getting oppressed and killed and governments being perverted.
| tehnub wrote:
| Indeed, as we saw in the recent-ish fact checking failure by
| the New Yorker about the "rent-a-family" business in Japan:
| https://newrepublic.com/article/160595/new-yorker-japan-rent...
|
| From the article:
|
| >An emerging theme in both controversies is that there is a
| fatal chink in the armor of even the most rigorous fact-
| checking process--that it is especially vulnerable to a naked
| betrayal of trust by an author or source. There is only so much
| a fact-checker can do if someone is intent on telling lies,
| particularly when the stakes are so low [...]
| TeeMassive wrote:
| > there is a limit to what independent fact checking can
| accomplish
|
| I am fine with that. But they shouldn't call it a "fact-check"
| when the only thing they can connect the dots with are
| _opinions_ , not facts.
|
| > and why news is separated out from opinion-editorial pages...
| even if it is in style to add opinions
|
| The problem I have with so-called "fact checkers" is that when
| it comes down to put the money where their mouth is, that is in
| court, they argue that they are not factual but rather opinion
| pieces, as Facebook recently argued in court:
| https://nypost.com/2021/12/14/facebook-admits-the-truth-fact...
| (I couldn't find a more politically neutral source, sorry)
| beefman wrote:
| This isn't about the inherent limits of fact-checking
| (substantial though they are). It's about the inherent bias of
| Facebook's fact-checking.
| Stranger43 wrote:
| All arbiters of truth will eventually end up deferring to
| whatever the current holders of power wants the narrative to
| be as that is the nature of power and authoritative fact-
| checking is merely one more aspect of how power is exercises.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| Dont cross Musk or Zuck. They seem like harmless tools but
| they are the face of the megatechnocrats.
| AlexTWithBeard wrote:
| I wonder how much more expensive would it be to have
| "explainers" instead of "fact-checkers".
|
| We all have heard about "the same lies being repeat over and
| over". Well, if these lies are indeed all kinda the same, then
| it should be relatively easy to (1) gather a proper, extensive
| set of facts that disprove the lies and then (2) hire an army
| of war hamsters to introduce these facts into discussion -
| following the guidelines from (1).
|
| Right now this approach doesn't work very well, because as soon
| as you start attacking anyone with facts and logic, you simply
| get banned from the community. But I'm sure changing this is
| within the power of the social media.
| YossarianFrPrez wrote:
| I think the easiest (?) thing to do would be to create
| automated tools to help individuals raise the level of debate
| when they encounter disinformation. Something where you could
| paste in a comment and get some analysis which included a) a
| classification about the specific kind of disinformation, b)
| an analysis of different kinds of sentiment, c) suggestions
| for how to reach the person spreading the disinformation, and
| d) other recommended strategies.
|
| Anti-disinformation campaigns are probably more effective
| with a decentralized component.
|
| I think it's important to realize that it's not a question of
| facts vs. "facts." In my experience there are grievances
| which can, until they are heard, make a person relatively
| impervious to facts and traditional debate.
| henrikschroder wrote:
| Funnily enough, Facebook tried that shit as well with
| covid. I saw them pop up an extra icon in the comment
| field. "Insert a GIF", "Insert a Smiley", "Insert a Covid
| fact"
|
| Also extremely off-putting and counter-productive. Who is
| writing the comment? Me or Facebook? Why am I writing this
| comment, when the glorious Algorithm could just auto-
| generate a response for me?
|
| And of course the insertable "facts" were irrelevant to the
| discussion, and were just re-iterations of the mainstream
| position.
| rightisleft wrote:
| you just reinvented the news journalist...
| AlexTWithBeard wrote:
| Well, with the decline of newspapers there should be plenty
| of unemployed journalists who'll be happy to spread some
| knowledge around FB for a moderate fee?
|
| Or - this thought scares me the most - FB actually doesn't
| care about facts?
| nradov wrote:
| Facebook cares about advertising revenue. They only care
| about "facts" when content posted by users causes
| advertiser boycotts, or attracts unwanted attention from
| powerful politicians.
| namelessoracle wrote:
| Journalists dont exist to spread knowledge. They exist to
| spread ideologies.
|
| I challenge you to find a point in human history where
| "journalists" weren't putting their fingers on the scale.
| Look at the journalistic antics of someone like Benjamin
| Franklin for instance.
| User23 wrote:
| Facebook "fact checks" are, according to Facebook's
| attorneys, just opinions[1].
|
| [1] https://thefederalist.com/2021/12/13/facebook-
| quietly-admits...
| smsm42 wrote:
| Well, they surely are. The stupid part it's that they are
| opinions of people that have no business having an
| opinion on such matters, them having no related
| qualifications, no education, no access to facts, not
| doing any research or having any idea how the research is
| done at all - and their opinion is taken as one trumping
| the opinion of the actual experts in the field. Out of
| all possible opinions Facebook chooses the worst to
| listen to.
| 3maj wrote:
| Worse, FB doesn't care about the facts and neither do
| journalists anymore. All that matters is clicks and
| political leanings.
| cycomanic wrote:
| But that has been done again and again.
|
| Let's not talk about Covid, but climate change (which
| interestingly never attracted the Facebook et al fact
| checkers even though it is a much more existential crisis for
| humanity). There are many sites that debunk the arguments
| like "it was warmer in the middle ages", "warming can be
| attributed to sun activities", realclimate.org is a great
| resource for instance. Still the same arguments get brought
| up every time, and the facts simply get ignored.
| deltree7 wrote:
| 'existential crisis' : citation needed backed by actual
| model of the universe and human behavior.
| cycomanic wrote:
| Thanks for proving my argument
| deltree7 wrote:
| Extraordinary claims need extra-ordinary proof.
|
| Humans have survived for hundreds of thousands of years,
| You are making the claim of their extinct in the next 50
| years. The burden of proof is on you to prove that.
|
| If you make the claim that Earth will stop spinning
| tomorrow, you have to produce the proof, not me
| henrikschroder wrote:
| Actually, I saw some "Climate Facts" blob from Facebook on
| a post that was _extremely_ tangentially related, but the
| glorious Algorithm had apparently decided it was a
| discussion on climate change, and therefore needed to
| insert itself into it, making sure there was no wrongthink,
| or something.
|
| Completely tone-deaf, and therefore extremely off-putting.
| I would not be surprised if an effort like that completely
| backfires.
| AlexTWithBeard wrote:
| A mandatory prayer at school is the best way to breed an
| atheist.
| AlexTWithBeard wrote:
| Correct. The last step needed: the debunkers need to debunk
| the myths not in their cozy groups and websites, but in the
| enemy's lair. This achieves two purposes:
|
| First, those reading the myths will immediately see the
| refusal. They don't need to search through multiple
| websites. They don't have to go through the layers of
| meaningless arguments. Here's bullshit in the post - here's
| refusal in the reply. Easy-peasy.
|
| Second, with this everyone knows that once he posts some
| burp - someone will call him out. And nobody - not even a
| group moderator - will be able to come to the rescue.
| rajin444 wrote:
| This is great in theory if each individual has the
| ability to arrive at the same conclusion as the
| "debunkers". They don't, so they fallback to trust, and
| that's when it all breaks down.
|
| The most important thing to combat misinformation is to
| build trust. Anyone trying to combat misinformation while
| disparaging their tribal outgroup is playing politics,
| not combating misinformation.
|
| In your post you call people you need to convince that
| you're trustworthy "enemies". There's no way that will
| ever work.
| [deleted]
| AlexTWithBeard wrote:
| Most people are quite reasonable and can be convinced.
|
| On the other hand most people are lazy and often it's
| about "some <yet another evil theory> explained right
| here" vs. "an alternative (and probably much better)
| explanation of the same thing on some smarty-pants
| website". Well, people just don't go to that somewhere
| else and ignore it. Out of site - out of mind.
|
| If you see an inconvenient reply under every message of
| your local prophet, you may not get convinced right away,
| but the seeds of doubt will be sown.
| sjtindell wrote:
| Such a fantasy. This is exactly how it happens. And they
| literally just respond to the "debunking" post with
| garbage and move on. It's not about information, it's
| about emotion and tribe.
| AlexTWithBeard wrote:
| Not always.
|
| I remember scrolling through the flat-earhers forum once
| and I was amazed how short all the arguments have been.
| The conversation was usually like:
|
| - Look, the Earth is really flat, I've measured the
| visible height of such-and-such mountain from such-and-
| such place and it's way higher than should've been.
|
| - Man, you got the distance wrong. Look at google map,
| you're off by X hundred miles. Try doing your
| calculations with the correct numbers
|
| - Fuck off, I've got better things to do in my life than
| replying your stupid messages
|
| QED
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| I don't know in your country, but in Spain most fact-checkers
| have very evident ties with two political parties, and they
| handle info in an agenda-setting style. They even have very
| personal links to politicians.
|
| Of course they really polish their communication and websites,
| and they know how to sound scientific-y throwing in some graphs
| and stuff.
|
| The problem is not only that, but that the same people who
| works in the media churning BS articles is the people who works
| in the fact checkers, and most of them are journalists, AKA
| experts in nothing that pretend to become experts with a few
| calls and some google-fu.
|
| The reality, at least in Spain, is that fact checkers are just
| a side-effect of the kulturwars and don't bring any truth to
| the table.
|
| This specially evident when they talk about something you
| really know about.
|
| Of course, because fact-checkers happen to be lefty because of
| the, let's call, overton-window cycle, then the left choses to
| ignore this problems and just says it's the right-wingers that
| chose to ignore facts and yadda yadda.
|
| While this is going on, right-wing, and many times right-wing
| extremist views, become the new punk and many yougsters are
| flocking to provide new blood to said ideologies.
|
| It's all just so tiresome.
| najqh wrote:
| https://media.giphy.com/media/lMgKrkuwr1xB1OaEqA/giphy.gif
| CSSer wrote:
| > most of them are journalists, AKA experts in nothing that
| pretend to become experts with a few calls and some google-
| fu.
|
| Isn't this a bit much? This seems very baited and/or flame-
| war inducing. It's denigrating towards an entire
| profession/discipline. I'd almost go so far as to say that
| this misunderstanding about journalism is at the root of a
| lot of problems in modern media for both practicing
| journalists (which I understand may in some ways be your
| larger point) and consumers of journalism today. Journalism
| should be about creating an objective conduit for civic
| impetus. I don't believe it is fair to say this doesn't
| require expertise.
| PixyMisa wrote:
| > Isn't this a bit much?
|
| Given the state of American journalism, it is if anything
| overly kind.
| xondono wrote:
| > Isn't this a bit much? This seems very baited and/or
| flame-war inducing.
|
| And yet I think it's pretty obvious journalism is not about
| truth anymore. Gawker might be dead, but the Gawker style
| of "journalism" is well alive.
|
| You don't even need to dig that deep to see something is
| rotten, the two biggest news channels in the US spend the
| day saying the opposite of one another.
| CSSer wrote:
| I don't disagree with this. I even like the way you put
| journalism in quotation marks. I (and apparently their
| legal representatives in many cases) consider those news
| stations you mentioned to be more entertainment than
| journalism. Put another way, the point of my original
| comment was that good journalists make mistakes too, but
| that shouldn't mean anyone can be a journalist or there
| is no expertise required to do so. It should mean the
| opposite. What I'm beginning to take away from this and
| some of my other replies is that it's become practically
| impossible to tell the good, bad, and poser journalists
| apart. I just don't want that to mean that we devalue
| journalism as a whole.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| > _This seems very baited and /or flame-war inducing. It's
| denigrating towards an entire profession/discipline. I'd
| almost go so far as to say that this misunderstanding about
| journalism_
|
| It's right in line with the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect[1].
|
| > _Journalism should be about creating an objective conduit
| for civic impetus._
|
| This is a jump from objecting to "is" statements to making
| an "ought" statement. It also seems to most likely be
| promoting what I've heard called "advocacy journalism",
| which I have the impression is a good chunk of why trust in
| the news is down.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMa
| nnAmn...
| CSSer wrote:
| > It also seems to most likely be promoting what I've
| heard called "advocacy journalism"
|
| I'm sorry this is the impression you were given because
| my intention was the exact opposite.
| xwolfi wrote:
| I'm French, live in China, so familiar from both countries
| with what you say.
|
| But I think I disagree a bit with your annoyance with agenda
| setting and journalist incestuous relationship with ideology
| or politics.
|
| Look I dont know how you're taught in Spain but in France we
| gave up neutral journalism centuries ago. Each newspaper is
| clearly categorized and we learn as children, around 7 IIRC
| all the links (le monde socialist, le figaro gaulist trending
| christian, l'humanite communist, and so on and there are many
| more subtle variations too French to list here) and learn to
| read them all, sometimes with clenched fist, but no truth has
| ever been reveled by a single perspective: embrace the chaos
| and join perspective to build a multi facet view.
|
| It's something I despair to see in China where politicians,
| journalist and the mass try to identify a pure source of
| truth. But no communist think like another, so even their way
| will never work.
|
| Let them all fight, balance out the arguments, take a
| decision in the voting booth and stop dreaming of a universal
| truth given to you from greater mind: even a genius in his
| lab building a life saving cure will forget to listen to the
| victims of the sacrifices he requires for the greater good,
| and that voice must be heard too.
|
| Fight for MORE ideology and agenda in media in exchange for
| editorial transparency about it, so you're clear who they
| propose you to vote for when they present an argument, and
| you'll be free. Any other way, and it goes with fact checking
| semi anonymous facebook crap, is doomed to muddy this
| clarity. That s what facebook must do: what is the political
| party or alignment behind each piece, and you're done (or
| almost: also need to learn to read and understand all
| perspectives, the hardest part in the US it seems).
| boppo1 wrote:
| I actually like this idea of a status quo; but it depends
| on teaching children this from birth. In the US, I was
| taught that NYT and CNN are reputable and reliable sources
| of the truth. As an adult, I find them "pretty good" at
| best.
| killjoywashere wrote:
| > even a genius in his lab building a life saving cure will
| forget to listen to the victims of the sacrifices he
| requires for the greater good
|
| As a nerd in a building trying to build things to save
| lives from disease ("cure" is too strong a word), there are
| explicit ethics reviews my work has to go through, with an
| almost bizarre frequency, so I disagree with this statement
| specifically. Otherwise, I enjoyed your comment.
| quinnjh wrote:
| For us to grow beyond entrenched binaries takes self
| awareness. Could you perhaps see how another doctor who
| hs caused harm before may have believed they were truly
| only doing good - and this could have been enabled by
| them being barraged with ethics reviews? "What do you
| mean i caused harm i have to do all these things to prove
| that i dont do harm" Meanwhile history shows clearly the
| sacrifices that were taken.
| tcbawo wrote:
| Being aware of biases is difficult in an attention-starved
| society, where specific opinions and confirmation biased
| news reports are pumped to social media with a Denial-of-
| Service-like frequency. Tribes have formed. We've gotten to
| a highly polarized society where every answer begins with
| "But they...". The most hardcore partisans I know follow
| and share news to essentially keep up with and mock what
| "They" are up to. I particularly avoid discussing politics
| with family and friends. I've started to tell my family and
| friends that there is no "They". There are only
| individuals. I'm also fairly convinced that roughly 5% of
| the population is insane, although the more political you
| become, you start to believe that number is closer to 50%.
| esyir wrote:
| I share that opinion (and hope) that a minority of the
| population is insane. However why does it feel like said
| insane are running the asylum.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| Because insane (or angry, or radicalised) people are far
| more likely to vote or express political statements.
| bsansouci wrote:
| I love what you wrote here, a well written and fascinating
| take!
|
| One thing though, do french people actually read several
| different newspapers on different sides? My preconceived
| notion is that they still just pick one to get their main
| source of news, even though they might be aware of the
| others.
|
| And a second thought. If we can agree that there is
| sometimes truth to be found in what happened, what
| convinces you that summing up falsehoods from the left and
| falsehoods from the right will equate to the truth? (I've
| heard from some people that they "read all sides" but I
| haven't noticed their perspective being better in any
| obvious ways)
|
| For example: vaccines don't have side effects, don't worry
| about it, and we need to get everyone vaccinated so we
| should force them (left) VS vaccines are alright but seems
| like they're dangerous and fuck the government so they
| shouldn't force people to do that (right). The sum of the
| two doesn't really teach you the truth, but highlights the
| direct contradictions while giving you the impression that
| you have to pick one side of another (the US is super
| bipartisan, not like France which at least has several
| different parties with different opinions).
|
| The truth here is: vaccines reduce likelihood of bad
| symptoms, gestation time and viral load, which in turn
| reduces chances of spreading and therefore chance of
| mutation which is a feared unknown (hello Omicron), some
| vaccines do seem to cause issues with younger folks (20-29
| years old can get myocarditis) so we should be careful, but
| all in all, we don't have a better way to fix this
| situation than getting a lot of folks vaccinated.
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| I see your point, but two objections.
|
| - Nuanced opinions and good information is rarely free, be
| it in monetary terms, be it in the invested time,
| relationships, etc. Thus, if you're not planning to give up
| most of your time for any topic, you better find good
| proxies. And currently the press provides more noise than
| signal. This is problematic.
|
| - If you know anything about Spain is that it's basically
| Game of Thrones made a country. There's so much internal
| conflict that it even gets translated INSIDE of the
| newspapers and TV. You can't take any editorial line for
| granted, because it's more tied to a group of people
| seeking power than any background ideology or anything
| similar. So your balance different views style it's not
| really that practical in Spain.
|
| In fact I can tell you about an Issue where I'm invested
| that it's awful across the board: Housing policy.
| xwolfi wrote:
| I agree in principle but you're missing a small point:
| journalists are not proxies to the truth, they are
| proxies to a perspective.
|
| You should NEVER read an article to learn about an
| absolute reality, but to understand the arguments on a
| complex issue by a small group of stakeholders, by no
| mean guardians of reality interpretation.
|
| If you accept that sad fact of life, that we cant know
| who's right on anything not spawned directly from
| physical reality (and even then...), then you can embrace
| journalistic diversity and read several.
|
| I can give you an example close to me in China: there is
| a debate to have on Tiananmen: the reaction by the
| communist was certainly aggressive, but there are
| nuances. The movement failed to accept several
| compromises because it grew so big nobody could be
| delegated to represent it officially and they got stuck
| on successive waves of negociation that could have ended
| with progress. The army itself struggled and had to
| recall a first wave who fraternized with the movement to
| then lie to a second wave who thought they were crushing
| a rebellion they misunderstood, which probably made the
| massacre more violent than it could have been. I think
| the communists were trapped just as much as the movement
| into an impasse that led to a massacre they didnt enjoy
| having to commit. They're not evil per se in that regard:
| they could not see at the time any alternative.
|
| That's my perspective, it's probably hard to read, but I
| built this complex opinion by reading beyond my comfort
| zone. I could be wrong and must continue to listen, but
| you see how this probably cant appear if you just read
| one side ? And where China is wrong imo is they refuse to
| discuss it openly in those terms. If a French immigrant
| raised in the fear of communism can accept to tolerate
| their side, what are they so scared of ? Throw
| perspectives at people and they ll figure someth out.
| danbolt wrote:
| > You can't take any editorial line for granted, because
| it's more tied to a group of people seeking power than
| any background ideology or anything similar.
|
| I don't mean to misrepresent the parent's argument, but I
| think they would demand the same solution of editorial
| transparency towards the groups of people seeking power
| you mention. That said, I might be coming from a place of
| ignorance here.
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| I'm not really sure I understand what you mean, sorry.
| Who would demand what? What's "editorial transparency"?
| xwolfi wrote:
| In France we mean by that that all newspaper have a
| public well accepted stance on the political spectrum,
| with candidates they push without hiding and ideologies
| they maintain.
|
| As long as their leaders and famous journalists are clear
| they're a perspective and not "the truth", I m fine with
| the communists fighting the nationalists in their
| respective newspapers even if I disagree with what I
| read. At least I know what and why they think these
| things and I can sometimes accept an argument if only to
| build an iterative counter argument myself.
|
| The difference I saw with facebook even in France, is
| that it's all blurred. I cant cross the Figaro with the
| Monde to figure two of the sides of an issue, now I
| receive some neutral looking information with a vague
| source. It struck me when a colleague started repeating
| an horrendous story and we investigated together to
| realize she was sourcing it from a facebook post by our
| "the onion" equivalent !!! She couldnt see the source
| because it's too blurry in between her grandma rants and
| some cnn-style generic information.
|
| It doesnt change that in the US I see with worry that
| even when lines are clear, the debate is heated. Also
| because there's no spectrum but just two solutions to any
| issue: democrat and republican. What was hailed as a
| miracle in democracy (just 2 fuzzy groups of dispationate
| interest) is starting to look like a weakness (to the
| death identity conflicts pushed by their respective
| extremes) while with 13 parties in elections in France,
| you can express nuances.
| xondono wrote:
| That would be a hard thing to achieve, given that we are
| talking about unnamed, unidentifiable groups.
|
| What GP meant about Spain being similar to GoT, is that
| there's a lot of shifting alliances and moving pieces in
| the background.
|
| You might think channel A has ties to party B, and thus
| you can asume that they are softening the blow if they're
| reporting bad news about B, but Spain has more than two
| parties (for now), and maybe channel A is actually
| exaggerating because it would put party C in a good
| position to sway votes from the opposition while not
| taking votes from yourself.
|
| As an US equivalent if a third political party had a
| 10-15% of the votes, you'd see Fox reporting in a way
| that tried to sway democrats to the third party.
|
| Since in Spain the way seats in congress are allocated
| benefits parties with bigger percentages, this strategy
| is possible.
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| It's even worse than that. Groups inside the National
| Police do conspire against each other (I think there may
| be at least three of them) + Center of National
| Intelligence.
|
| The same happens in the IRS Equivalent, and other
| institutions, like autonomous comminites (~ US States).
|
| I mean, I'm talking about real plots here, like managing
| media influence, trying to put people in jail, and all
| the ingredients for a Netflix series.
|
| It's basically impossible to keep track of it, even for a
| politics nerd like me.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| It's one thing to embrace diversity of opinion. However
| recently in the USA some right wing outlets have become
| nothing short of 50% straight lies and right-wing
| propaganda mixed in with some small amount of truthful
| reporting. See Newsmax or OANN which are mostly lies and
| Fox which is a strange mix of normal news and "opinion
| news" that often also full of lies but not as often as the
| others.
| rendall wrote:
| So what? Honestly, I don't understand the direction of
| your point.
|
| Is it _Don 't_ have opinion diversity? _Control_ what
| people hear and believe? Don 't allow (what you consider
| to be) lies? There are so many responses to each of
| these.
| namelessoracle wrote:
| It sounds like someone being a fact checker is the best way
| to know they arent communicating facts ironically enough.
|
| Kinda like a modern day Ministry of Truth.
| superflit2 wrote:
| Well...
|
| Who owns the Media then?
| rabite wrote:
| cool it with the anti-semitic remarks
| twic wrote:
| Rupert Murdoch is Jewish?
| superflit2 wrote:
| It took a lot of work finding one that was English/scott.
|
| There is the famous Elon Musk tweet
|
| https://i.4pcdn.org/pol/1637457156799.jpg
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| When did he tweet that?
| mattrighetti wrote:
| Looks like May 27th, 2018.
|
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1000560049389907969?r
| ef_...
| reducesuffering wrote:
| He was referring to "powerful people" not jewish people.
| The previous tweet said "Do you think it's in the
| interest of powerful people to..." So he was playing on
| that.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| That's not who Elon was referring to. And the Economist
| is primarily owned by the Italian Agnelli family, not
| jewish people. I'll leave it for you to decide how many
| other things it gets wrong...
| superflit2 wrote:
| From google
|
| ``` Aside from the Agnelli family, smaller shareholders
| in the company include Cadbury, Rothschild (21%),
| Schroder, Layton and other family interests as well as a
| number of staff and former staff shareholders. ```
| a9h74j wrote:
| This will be some snark in this comment, but against my own
| country and not you and yours. I invite a cross-cultural
| comment on competence.
|
| Are the partisan fact-checkers in Spain at least competent
| enough to write grammatical, parsable sentences and titles?
|
| From the BMJ OP: > It has a nonsensical title: "Fact Check:
| The British Medical Journal Did NOT Reveal Disqualifying And
| Ignored Reports Of Flaws In Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Trials"
|
| Like the BMJ apparently, I first read this with a comma or
| mdash after 'Disqualifying' -- hence a broken sentence. With
| more thought, perhaps the inferrable punctuation intended
| 'Disqualifying-And-Ingored' -- in which case they might or
| might not be fact-checking a straw-man claim.
|
| A negligible point perhaps, but the one fact-check I recall
| Dr. John Cambell on YT examining also included a broken
| sentence. (Small sample size, I know.)
|
| To me, this speaks to the qualifications and processes of the
| fact-checkers under debate here, attempting as they are to
| adjudicate in scientific debates.
|
| Attempting as they apparently are to define truth.
|
| (Or perhaps Meta does A/B testing by breaking sentences in
| search of more engagement.)
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| In Spain journalism is lazy, but instances of poor writing
| are much less common than in the anglosphere. They do
| clickbait, but maybe it's because the spanish language is
| more formal than english, you can't really bee too creative
| without writing something meaningless.
| Eduard wrote:
| This comment needs several fact checks
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| _> With more thought, perhaps the inferrable punctuation
| intended 'Disqualifying-And-Ingored'_
|
| Yup, that's how I parsed it.
|
| I had to re-read it to find why someone might think it was
| nonsensical.
| boppo1 wrote:
| I think this is a pretty good summary for the US as well.
| paganel wrote:
| > but in Spain most fact-checkers have very evident ties with
| two political parties, and they handle info in an agenda-
| setting style.
|
| It's the same thing in Romania, they strongly monitor and
| criticise those politicians and public figures who are not
| europhiles while pretty much ignoring those politicians who
| are for stronger EU integration and for more power for
| international institutions and their viewpoints inside of
| Romania.
| kerneloftruth wrote:
| Yes, political censorship is often called "fact checking".
| Facebook invented nothing new, and the sin is them trying
| to convince us otherwise. The increased censorship has been
| demanded by the Democrats, and Facebook is obeying.
| najqh wrote:
| It's called globalism.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| We only effectively have 2 political parties in the USA.
| there are some other parties but all together they only make
| up 5-10% depending on the given year. Libertarian and Greens
| are probably the only ones worth mentioning from a
| statistical point of view. About 40% of Americans register as
| independent (no party) but when you talk to them they are
| usually strongly invested in one party or the other.
| andrepd wrote:
| Not exactly doubting you, but is this _really_ accurate? I
| hear a lot of "fact checkers are biased marxist commies"
| coming from people who just don't like it when "their side"
| is criticised.
|
| Which is silly. At least I can talk about fact checkers in my
| country: they give you a write-up of all the sources and
| reasoning they pursued to ascertain the truth of some thing,
| then add their own evaluation in a scale of true, mostly
| true, false, pants on fire. How can people say they're biased
| when they give you a 100% transparent detail of how they came
| to their conclusion?
|
| Also, it's funny when people say that multi-billion dollar
| media corporations are biased... towards the left x)
| smsm42 wrote:
| In the US, there was a brief period when real fact-checking
| existed. Then the political activists saw that the regular
| press had lost all credibility, but the fact-checking brand
| still retained some, so they made a hard push to take them
| over. Which by the time of covid has been already mostly
| complete, and with the push to fight "medical misinformation"
| (which was quickly defined as any information that
| contradicts the currently approved doctrine, no matter how
| scientifically based, factually correct or practically
| useful) "fact-checking" has been completely subverted to
| serve the preferred narrative and suppress any heretical
| thought.
|
| > The reality, at least in Spain, is that fact checkers are
| just a side-effect of the kulturwars and don't bring any
| truth to the table.
|
| I am sad to note that the situation in the US is exactly the
| same. Though the majority of "fact-checkers" and all major
| social networks are on single side of the said wars.
| rocqua wrote:
| Thing is, if the idea is to stop wrong conspiracy theories
| from veing talked about, it makes sense to ban legitimate
| science that points in the direction of the conspiracy. If
| you want to do propaganda, then misinformation is useful.
| But even using only good-faith articles as sources, you can
| still make your propaganda, it will just be harder.
|
| Especially with covid it seems like social media has
| decided to counter propaganda rather than misinformation. I
| can see why, but I think it is wrong. Especially if the
| argument is 'this is false'.
|
| To me, this shows once again that content moderation
| against misinformation does not fit with private parties.
| BrazzVuvuzela wrote:
| There is a serious flaw in the way schools teach people
| about propaganda, that leaves people believing that
| propaganda is synonymous with lying, and if a claim is
| factual then it isn't propaganda. Propaganda is any
| communication that is calculated to further an agenda.
| Propaganda uses truth, lies, everything in-between, and
| everything else (claims that don't lay on the truth-lie
| continuum at all; e.g. subjective values.)
| jevoten wrote:
| > But even using only good-faith articles as sources, you
| can still make your propaganda, it will just be harder.
|
| That's what, at their best, most of the media are doing.
| Presenting well-researched, balanced, truthful stories,
| carefully selected to promote their own ideology. Forget
| journalism - this even happens in peer-reviewed science:
|
| _Ceci et al. (1985) found a similar pattern. Research
| proposals hypothesizing either "reverse discrimination"
| (i.e., against White males) or conventional
| discrimination (i.e., against ethnic minorities) were
| submitted to 150 Internal Review Boards. Everything else
| about the proposals was held constant. The "reverse
| discrimination" proposals were approved less often than
| the conventional discrimination proposals._ -
| https://jsis.washington.edu/global/wp-
| content/uploads/sites/...
| rocqua wrote:
| Using an article critical of the pfizer trials in a well
| balanced truthful way is one thing. Using that same
| article to argue that e.g. the government is trying to
| poison us (or microchip us) is another thing entirely.
|
| I think we need to work against the latter. I don't think
| censoring good-faith articles that are often abused is
| the way to do that.
| chimprich wrote:
| > "fact-checking" has been completely subverted to serve
| the preferred narrative and suppress any heretical thought
|
| I don't think this is correct. In my experience, most
| online "fact checkers" seem to get it right the great
| majority of the time.
|
| Can you point to some examples you are thinking of?
| base698 wrote:
| This is a good one: https://www.snopes.com/fact-
| check/blm-terrorist-rosenberg/
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| In regards to medical "fact checking" at least ( though
| obviously extended to pretty much anything ) the same
| people who tell me men can get pregnant and women have
| penises are the same ones telling me the vaccine is good.
| The same people who "fact checked" covid passports as a
| conspiracy theory a year ago and the same ones "fact
| checking" it as effective and necessary now. The same
| people who call me selfish for wanting to live normal
| after so long and the same ones having galas and parties
| for themselves.
|
| I don't know about you but I don't like being gas
| lighted.
|
| I do not believe fact checks. They have zero credibility.
| smsm42 wrote:
| Remember the lab leak conspiracy theory, that got people
| banned on the spot? Every fact checker would tell you
| there's no scientific basis for it, every scientist worth
| of their name is opposing to it and it's a complete
| fabrication spread around by conspiracy nuts. Except it
| turned out not only it is not so, but people who said it
| _knew_ it wasn 't so and were lying because of vested
| interests, which they failed to disclose and hoped to
| keep hidden, but "conspiracy nuts" revealed it and the
| house of cards collapsed. For example:
|
| https://www.politifact.com/li-meng-yan-fact-check/
|
| Note they didn't say with scientific humility "we do not
| know if that scenario actually happened, more data is
| needed, it's too early to make the conclusion". They say
| "it's ridiculous and debunked" and rate it "pants on
| fire" (i.e. an obvious outrageous lie). They act as if
| they are the ultimate authority with absolute knowledge
| of the facts and expertise to make such calls - while
| they don't have neither the facts nor the expertise. And
| this happens again and again.
| 6510 wrote:
| People rarely get anything right. We do the best we can
| based on the time- and information available while trying
| not to bite the hand that feeds us. Fact checkers are no
| different.
|
| Zuck ofc really likes to feed on things. Getting rid of
| information is okay as long as it doesn't gets in the way
| of his feeding. FB fact checking is both expensive and
| crap but still light years ahead of amazon reviews.
| hogFeast wrote:
| The BMJ, ironically, is prone to publishing articles that make
| unverified claims without making clear rather significant
| conflicts of interest.
|
| Infamously, they published a largely spurious article which
| claimed that UK govt cuts had killed hundreds of thousands of
| people, they failed to make clear several aspects of the data
| that didn't support their conclusion which ofc was that doctors
| should get more money, they also failed to mention that one of
| the authors ran a company selling stuff to the NHS that was
| linked to the conclusions or that the lead author of the paper
| had no statistical training.
|
| Unfortunately, life is like this. Doctors would prefer that
| people just listen to them, they are very serious people after
| all, we should believe everything they say. Most fact-checking
| services in the UK have a ludicrously political bent, they pick
| whatever facts and sources support their argument. In practice,
| they are just attempting to stop all debate about a topic. Life
| is messy, people will have different opinions even if they
| acknowledge the same facts, proof is often messy and unclear
| (if you look at some of the forecasts for Covid this year, just
| ludicrously wrong and all errors in the same direction...we
| need criticism, we need debate...afaik, only one publication
| has actually highlighted all these forecasters who dominate the
| media making consistently bad forecasts...where are the fact-
| checkers now? Too busy hunting down shadows on Twitter.). Deal
| with life as it is, not life as you wish it was (again, doctors
| in the UK are more guilty than anyone in civil society of this
| error, their lobbying/political power is immense, their view
| is: might makes right).
| specialp wrote:
| I am not a fan of Facebook, but this is one reason they did not
| want to get into being the arbiter of what is true (Along with
| a lot of other less noble reasons). There are indeed things
| that are demonstrably not true, or presented in a very
| misleading manner, but there's a whole class of things that are
| in between.
|
| The scientific world in general is a community where research
| about things comes in, people digest it, and come to a
| consensus. This includes some contradictory things or things
| that turn out to be faulty conclusions. This does not make them
| "fact check verified false". It is a stream of information that
| is weighed and honed over time with further research or
| questioning.
|
| Now I agree people are very bad (even "smart" people) at
| ditching their inherent tribal nature to weigh data that
| supports their bias more highly. The echo chambers of partisans
| on social media will assign an impossible burden of proof
| against evidence that challenges their thought on something and
| have no burden of proof on the converse. But that does not mean
| that we can then make it binary of "true" or "untrue" to stop
| this. "Fact-checks" feel good, but it is clear now they are
| being extended to not just the realm of demonstrably false
| information and more into the opinion and inconclusive realm.
| smsm42 wrote:
| Oh, they did want to get into arbitering very much, and they
| got into it. What they didn't want is responsibility for
| their actions. They wanted to ban whoever they wanted to ban,
| but never be questioned on either the fact or the lack of ban
| in any particular case, and on the random and inconsistent
| enforcement of any "policies" they might have. They wanted -
| and still want - all the power and none of the
| responsibility.
| specialist wrote:
| If Facebook doesn't want to be arbiter, they should stop
| arbitrating.
|
| The moment Facebook chooses what to display, they own the
| content.
|
| And it just so happens that what Facebook chooses to display,
| chooses to recommend, are the lies, more often than not.
| otterley wrote:
| I don't know exactly what you mean, but from a legal
| perspective, Facebook most certainly does not "own"
| anyone's content by virtue merely of putting it in
| someone's News Feed.
| lloydgrossman wrote:
| You didn't really give any legal perspective. Either
| Facebook owns the content and the liability as a
| publisher, or it's a platform and shouldn't fixing
| content towards what they want to show.
| nradov wrote:
| You're not making any sense. From a liability standpoint,
| there is no legal distinction between platform and a
| publisher.
|
| You might be getting confused by the concept of a common
| carrier. Facebook is not a common carrier. It might be
| possible to amend the common carrier law to cover
| Facebook, but in the current political climate that seems
| unlikely.
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/153
| mlyle wrote:
| Facebook is not a common carrier, but enjoys liability
| protections under the CDA Safe Harbor:
|
| 47USC230(c)(1) "(1)Treatment of publisher or speaker No
| provider or user of an interactive computer service shall
| be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information
| provided by another information content provider."
|
| And definitions-- 47 USC 230(f)(3) The term "information
| content provider" means any person or entity that is
| responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or
| development of information provided through the Internet
| or any other interactive computer service.
|
| Of course, CDA also excuses Facebook from making tilted
| or faulty moderation decisions in good faith.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Facebook can allow whatever they like on their website and
| it is perfectly legal. I would rather they filter out 98%
| of the tripe with a 2% fail rate (sorry BJM!)
| dablweb wrote:
| You'd think so, but in doing so you've just imagined the
| world's most terrifying propaganda tool.
| Closi wrote:
| Exactly, let's not forget that any story that refers to
| Taiwan being an independent country is marked as "fake
| news" in some parts of the world which has a chilling
| effect.
|
| Why do we assume our own governments will also be immune
| from the same temptations?
| postingawayonhn wrote:
| The moment Facebook stops trying to be the arbiter is the
| moment the government steps in and places heavy regulations
| on them.
| specialist wrote:
| Facebook's algorithmic outrage amplification is necessary
| to prevent an overbearing government from forcibly
| reverting parasocial norms to a simple chronologically
| sorted inbox?
| labster wrote:
| A chronologically sorted inbox is the worst possible
| world for The Facebook. How can you boost user engagement
| with advertisers if you don't use algorithms that repost
| years old stories of that time your dog died?
| prostoalex wrote:
| > A chronologically sorted inbox is the worst possible
| world for The Facebook.
|
| As an aside, chronological sort key has been available in
| the previous designs, and the URL still works
|
| www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr
|
| It has its limits of usefulness, though - some group
| admins moderate new posts in bulk once a day (if that),
| so depending on the time of visit you might be swamped
| with dozens of posts from the same group.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| It's not a matter of truth or not. They suppressed an article
| reporting on whistleblower accusations and documents backing
| them up.
|
| The press cover people getting accused of crimes all the
| time. The press does not say "this person committed that
| crime." The press reports on arraignments, events at trial,
| verdicts, and reactions from relevant parties like legal
| experts.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Overall they are doing more good than harm. Quickly cutting
| disinformation about covid and sending hateful
| racist/terroristic politics down the toilet where it belongs is
| important even if they mess up occasionally. I would have them
| hire fact checkers than just let the garbage that floats around
| freely on facebook not get shutdown.
| hedora wrote:
| As the letter points out, in this particular case, fact
| checking is not hard.
|
| In fact, this is one of the easiest scenarios for a fact
| checker to handle correctly.
|
| The source is a reputable, top-tier peer-reviewed publication.
| Even an inexperienced (but competent) fact checker could check
| run literature searches on the journal, reviewers and authors.
| This would reveal that they're working at reputable
| institutions, and have been for decades.
| HamburgerEmoji wrote:
| You're advocating against the actual scientific process, for
| something akin to the Ministry of Truth.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| That's not fact checking, that's reputation assessment.
|
| It's not hard to keep a list of journals and assign them a
| reputation score. Commercial services do exactly this.
|
| But even the best journals screw up, especially in their blog
| posts!
|
| Remember the "fact-check" wasn't for the peer reviewed
| article itself, but a blog post promoting it.
|
| Even if the BMJ has a high reputation score, not all of its
| blogs should share that. It might be run by the social media
| team - not the editorial staff.
| srcreigh wrote:
| No.. the fact checker should also make sure true facts aren't
| being used out of context causing the reader come to
| incorrect conclusions. That's what is happening with the BMJ
| article.
|
| That's why the fact check report doesn't mention any specific
| factual inaccuracies. Context matters, missing context is a
| problem.
|
| EDIT: see here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29597047
| hammock wrote:
| What incorrect conclusion and who came to it?
| sul_tasto wrote:
| The BMJ article being discussed points out flaws in the
| medical validation of the covid vaccine. While true, this
| medical journal article is being used by the anti-
| vaccination advocates to make a more general claim that
| the vaccine is ineffective/dangerous/evil, etc.
|
| Even though the medical journal article accurately shows
| problems with this specific aspect of the
| medical/clinical review of the vaccine, the vaccine is
| proving effective in combating the transmission and
| severity of the covid virus. Many of the people currently
| going to the hospital for covid are unvaccinated. This is
| placing a heavy burden on the hospitals and preventing
| other people from getting the care they need.
|
| People are fighting over specific facts because they are
| trying to influence the broader narrative/discourse going
| on in society about covid, vaccinations, lockdowns, etc.
|
| Comments in this thread are discussing facebook,
| journalists and fact-checkers, and their roles in
| influencing public opinion and social discourse.
| mmcgaha wrote:
| Please do not protect me from the truth even if it leads me
| to inconvenient conclusions.
| srcreigh wrote:
| BMJ is protecting you from the truth by hiding additional
| relevant information.
| hpoe wrote:
| Under that system a young German scientist who wrote about
| the photovoltaic effect would be ignored and classified as
| non-reputable. Just saying being part of the institutions
| doesn't make on right it makes one prominent.
| rg111 wrote:
| > _there is a limit to what independent fact checking can
| accomplish_
|
| Slightly on a tangent, but it is worth mentioning.
|
| I used to be a regular part of both English and a regional
| language version of <very overhyped SV darling Q&A site which
| still survives and many wonder how and why>.
|
| There were moderators on this site. And moderation was overseen
| by "Community Managers" who are humanities majors and MBAs.
| They not only let very wrong answers on scientific,
| mathematical, and technical matters stay on their platform
| until and unless reported by someone with good credentials,
| they also picked up "top writers" from people who wrote weirdly
| wrong things like Python being a database, or Quantum Mechanics
| determining the radii of solar systems.
|
| It was _embarassingly_ funny to watch. The arts major, MBA
| community managers did not know jack about programming or
| physics, yet, they are supposed to choose "top writers".
|
| This also points the flaws in the thought that professional
| factcheckers should exist and they can be trusted with every
| topic.
|
| _They simply won 't know enough. Ever._
|
| A knowledgeable SWE won't work for a Q&A site's moderation or a
| renowned biologist for Facebook factchecking. They would rather
| work at a high-paying tech job and a tenure track professorship
| or big pharma, respectively.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| This sounds vaguely familiar. Do you think the people who
| created this site had recurring opinions on a particular type
| of punctuation?
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| You could work for the media/press if it was worth it as a
| side gig. But they tend to pay badly.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Repeal section 230.
| choppaface wrote:
| Facebook / Meta has argued in court that their "fact checks" are
| opinion and not subject to defamation etc:
| https://mobile.twitter.com/PoliticalShort/status/14696740408...
|
| This position aligns with Meta CTO boz's thesis of the "Platinum
| Rule:" choose personal success over authenticity.
| https://boz.com/articles/malcontents
|
| The sad thing for BMJ is they spent so much time "investigating"
| and trying to criticize here. That's exactly what Zuck wants---
| any news is good news when you're the dominant network. Following
| boz's own advice ("co-opt the establishment not fight it"), BMJ
| should go after sanctioning the Meta board. E.g. file a breach of
| fiduciary claim with the SEC. Everybody should be doing that.
| False "fact checks" can legally mislead users, but you can't
| mislead investors. Get Zuck and his empty metaverse vision out of
| there before Snap and Ticktok take he market.
| [deleted]
| dekhn wrote:
| Both Facebook (now Meta) and Youtube bungled their fact checking
| by disabling posts and videos that were counter to some
| narrative, but not factually incorrect. That places them in a bad
| position, and they need to be called out publicly, as no other
| mechanism so far has pushed them towards more accurate fact
| checking.
| [deleted]
| borplk wrote:
| They didn't "bungle" it. It's working as designed.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post this sort of shallow, grandiose rhetoric.
| It leads to low-information, high-indignation discussion--
| i.e. flamewar--i.e. the crap that we're trying to avoid here.
|
| If you want to make this kind of critique, fine, but you need
| to do it with substance and not just turn up the volume knob.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| seniorivn wrote:
| what is the reason to assume that the way their system
| works for years is not the intended way?
| dang wrote:
| Attribution of intention is extremely unreliable.
| philovivero wrote:
| I note how your comment has been largely ignored by... the
| massive numbers of Facebook and Google employees reading this
| site.
|
| If there was an ounce of integrity in Tech these days, this
| would have been called out, front-and-centre, and remedies to
| it would have been enacted. Instead, here we are almost two
| years later, and we're pretending that never happened. In some
| cases it's even being memory-holed. I predict within 4 years,
| it will be common to call someone pointing this out some sort
| of rabid conspiracy theorist.
|
| You cannot trust FB. You cannot trust Google. You cannot trust
| mainstream newspapers. You cannot trust the CDC. They got
| caught lying to you. Repeatedly.
|
| Obey at your peril.
| aqfamnzc wrote:
| What did the CDC lie about? (Honest question)
| satellite2 wrote:
| About the efficacy of masks. They said they were not
| efficace to avoid hoarding and to reserve the small
| existing stock for medical professionals.
| freebuju wrote:
| Am sure you can find plenty when you go down this rabbit
| hole but you can start here:
| https://twitter.com/us_fda/status/1429050070243192839
| philovivero wrote:
| Thanks for trying to help out, but that's the FDA, not
| CDC. And this is a much murkier situation. Ivermectin
| does seem to help Covid, but it looks like that's
| correlation, not causation.
|
| Astral Codex Ten has a great writeup on this, and a big
| controversial debate with the ivermectin crowd. It's
| pretty glorious, and I do recommend reading it in its
| entirety.
|
| If you do want to call this a lie, I suppose I could see
| it. Someone claims something helps Covid, but it
| shouldn't, because it doesn't make sense, so instead of
| trusting the studies, they go out making a bold claim
| like this, that ivermectin is completely ineffective.
|
| In any case, this does reduce trust in those agencies,
| when they ignore science and instead spout off
| politically-expedient dismissals of data.
|
| But I wouldn't call it lying, really.
| freebuju wrote:
| You are right. Had a brain fart moment there. Still a
| good place to check as some of these official statements
| from the two leading public health bodies communicate the
| agreed-upon response to the disease.
|
| On Astral Codex Ten's piece, I assume you are talking
| about this one [0] The whole piece is such a doosie. Am
| almost sure 90%+ of the non-core audiences that landed on
| the page never scrolled to the end. If you are going to
| debunk a controversial subject, KISS. Not to say he
| didn't do a good job at poring through the numerous
| inconsistent data and studies carried out on the
| possibility of use of ivermectin for treatment. But am
| sure I came across some of his material on the interwebs.
|
| Back to the source material of this post, FDA were
| completely malicious by tweeting that. Their linked post
| even goes to mention that taking ivermectin could be
| lethal for you.
|
| What happens when the body whose sole job is to be the
| arbiter of truth and science regarding safety of drugs
| knowingly makes obviously dubious false verifiable
| claims? They are either knowingly participating in a lie
| or they are incompetent.
|
| [0] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ivermectin-
| much-more-t...
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| During the early days of the pandemic the CDC discouraged
| mask wearing, saying that it increased the need to touch
| one's face and that would increase transmission of COVID.
|
| This turned out not to be true, and they said they
| disseminated this information to avoid a run on masks and a
| shortage of PPE for medical settings / essential services.
|
| This is how I remember it. May be wrong
| mitigating wrote:
| ". You cannot trust mainstream newspapers. " Which newspapers
| can you trust?
| philovivero wrote:
| It used to be a pretty short list, like NYT and Washington
| Post. But since the Trump era... honestly? None of them.
|
| I am literally unaware of a single mainstream television
| station, newspaper, or magazine that hasn't been caught in
| blatant politically-motivated lying.
|
| My rule-of-thumb for news sources is: I need to see zero
| lies for at least two years before I trust them again. This
| is different than mistakes which are immediately and
| prominently corrected with front-page stories as big and
| bold as the original mistaken story. I'm unaware of any
| currently mainstream TV/newspaper/magazine that ever
| retracts their "mistakes" anywhere close to this standard
| as well. Hence, the lack of trust.
| jsdevtom wrote:
| While I agree with you for the most part, their responsibility
| should not be fact checking. That should be left to the
| individual.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| _They_ made themselves the fact checkers. If they 're going
| to take the mantle of "fact checker", it is their
| responsibility to do it well.
| bagacrap wrote:
| On the contrary, it's politicians and old media who came up
| with the "fake news" slogan and demanded FB and others
| start censoring opposing viewpoints. FB is all too happy to
| help spread falsehoods and inflammatory articles since they
| both drive engagement.
| mitigating wrote:
| No, "Ninety-five percent of Americans identified
| misinformation as a problem when they're trying to access
| important information."
|
| "According to the poll, 79% of Republicans and 73% of
| Democrats said social media companies have a great deal
| or quite a bit of responsibility for misinformation."
|
| (https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-
| technology-b...)
|
| Talk about "fact checking" you just make a statement
| about what people think and provided no evidence to back
| it up. That's the main problem here. Also "old media"?
| ralusek wrote:
| Thinking "misinformation is a problem" is not the same as
| thinking "politically biased corporations should censor
| what they deem to be misinformation in accordance with
| their own biases."
| Kiro wrote:
| They only did it after being pressured by the same people
| that are now saying they should not have done it. It
| doesn't matter what they do at this point. They will come
| out as the bad guys regardless.
| yesco wrote:
| I think them being the same people is exceptionally
| unlikely
| Kiro wrote:
| Seems to me that everyone agreed that Facebook had to do
| something about misinformation and that everyone is now
| outraged that they did. Where are the people defending
| the fact-checking they helped make reality? No, I think
| everyone just loves to hate on Facebook.
| hetspookjee wrote:
| I never agreed that Facebook took a seat in the chair of
| fact checking. I'd rather, along with others, would've
| seen that Facebook got hammered with fines into obsolence
| for fueling the world with controversy and doing
| everything in their power to keep revenue on top of fact
| checking. In regard if facebooks approach, it is
| laughable what Facebook is doing on their scale. It is
| barely enough with the amount of persons, and the way
| they enable people to share as much shit as possible.
|
| So in short Facebook is doing way too little and doing it
| wrong too. But it does seem like the cheapest option for
| them to keep the lawmakers at bay.
| WindyCityClient wrote:
| I mean yes, when asking someone to clean a mess they did
| make, and they do it as spreading the mess around, to
| make it worse, then you still allowed to be mad at them
| about that mess.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Facebook's actions increasingly resemble those of a traditional
| media company. They make editorial decisions about what to
| promote via their algorithms and fact check posts. I wonder if
| there's a risk of them losing section 230 protection if they
| continue down this path.
| jcadam wrote:
| I think they're already there. Further, I think section 230
| protection should be limited to smaller companies.
| archhn wrote:
| There should be a discussion page, like on Wikipedia, for "fact
| checkers" to publicly interact with those who post "misleading
| information." It's highly upsetting that there was no process for
| this entity to challenge the ruling of the "fact checkers."
| Especially since it is an established medical journal.
|
| Why can't we have open discussions about "the facts?" Are we
| living in a democratic country or an authoritarian country? For
| those that say "Facebook is a private company, it can do whatever
| it wants on its platform," I think it's important to distinguish
| between the legal right for a company to do something and the
| moral character of their actions. In other words, Facebook may
| well be within their rights to do what they are doing, but that
| doesn't mean it is moral. Given that we are a "democratic"
| country, our moral judgements should weigh heavily against these
| types of authoritarian actions, even if they are legal.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > "Facebook is a private company, it can do whatever it wants
| on its platform," I think it's important to distinguish between
| the legal right for a company
|
| I'll go a step farther. For those who say "facebook is a
| private company, it can do whatever it wants"... does that
| include taking a completely hands-off moderation policy? I'm
| pretty sure that the answer is no - because the U.S. government
| will step in if they try. They're already in legal trouble over
| the Myanmar/Rohingya thing - what we're seeing is _not_ Mark
| Zuckerberg standing up for his moral principles. What we 're
| seeing is government coercion.
| archhn wrote:
| Great point. Ultimately there are always coercive forces that
| put pressure on companies and individuals to comply, even if
| the legal system isn't directly invoked to force compliance.
| The case you're making is important because implies that
| Facebook is being puppeted by the will of the government. If
| this is true, then Facebook IS the government. If one entity
| is controlled by another, then the separation between them,
| i.e., private corporation vs. government, is illusory.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| History rhymes.
|
| In the medieval ages, book production and reading were rare and
| highly controlled capabilities unavailable and unpractical to
| learn to most. Then Gutenberg and his movable type printing press
| came around, and suddenly affordable media production and with
| it, reading. People quickly learned that not only you could print
| books, but also (political) leaflets, and before long, you had
| all kinds of these early propaganda instruments floating around,
| some more outrageous or potentially dangerous than others, from
| commentary about the local counts's promiscuity to divergent
| religious or reports on UFO sightings[1]. This of course did not
| suit the powers to be, and they introduced strict controls on
| what could and could not printed, they set up censorship offices
| and heavily taxed or banned private, unlicensed movable type
| presses. We can only dream about what information, which plays,
| which artifact we lost because they never were created - and we
| can be thankful that censorship never works 100%, and some still
| was printed in secret. It took us 300-400 years and several
| bloody revolutions to get rid of these governmental controls -
| and it is a process that has not been completely finished in many
| parts of the western world.
|
| Then, much later, the Internet came around, the Web being
| intended as a document store/sharing system for scientific
| information ("books"). Access to the net was rare and most people
| did not see the point in getting it ("reading"). But eventually,
| the system became more ubiquitous and with more non-scientific
| info around, people started to flock in ("more readers").
| Simultaneously, publishing on the net became more approachable,
| and this made all kind of low-level information available, which
| sometimes was outrageous, sometimes outright dangerous
| ("leaflets"). And in the last five years or so, we have seen an
| increasing push to supress unwanted information (under the guise
| of "battling fake news") and opinion ("censor's offices"). And
| just like back then, we will see that censorship does not work
| perfectly - but how much information will be lost, how much this
| will hold back society.
|
| This BMJ thing is a symptom of a beginning of things, things will
| become a lot worse before they become better.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1561_celestial_phenomenon_over...
| MaxMoney wrote:
| "Fact-Checkers". Imagine relying on someone else to check things
| that exist.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| So I have a theory (wild conjecture actually).
|
| AI needs good training sets - that is large corpuses of data
| about a domain, which have been accurately labelled so the AI can
| learn safely. Curated content basically. Image recognition
| software is suffering from this as all the large corpuses are
| basically the same three or so.
|
| When we move into the realm of knowledge about the human world,
| economics, politics etc. then having a corpus is easy. Just
| download reddit, twitter and 4chan. But having a labelled corpus
| is really hard and _trusting_ one. I mean 4chan might be able to
| teach an AI but you would not want it to date your sister
| afterwards.
|
| Journalism is basically a means of labelling the corpus of
| "everything" - and it is only trusted because "most people" trust
| what WaPo or NYT say. And the new generation of non traditional
| journalists (err, Captain Disillusion?) are doing something
| similar.
|
| But there is no real means to decide what is a correctly labelled
| corpus or what is not. We have a long process of discussing the
| hard stuff - from flame wars to editorial letters to courts and
| scientific papers.
|
| Ultimately if we think AI is going to help us manage the flood of
| information (and I am not sure how else) we need to put effort
| into training it - and that basically means journalism. Proper
| Nournalism.
|
| It's not Facebooks job to decide truth. But is it the governments
| job? Is it everyone's? how do we build this labelled corpus at
| scale public ally and with trust and verification?
| ford_o wrote:
| So what is your theory?
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| Journalism acts as a corpus labelling process for the slow AI
| that is society, also that most companies have an internal
| labelling process (we will trust these inputs from outside,
| and we inherently trust anything internal) - this also needs
| a rethink (ie that companies will need to have trust in
| incoming data whether internal or external and that labelling
| will need to become more explicit.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Who checks the checkers?
| pwned1 wrote:
| Facebook themselves state that their "fact checkers" are not
| really checking facts, their work is opinion.
| gweinberg wrote:
| They shouldn't be called "fact checkers" then, they should be
| called "opinion police".
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Thought police, then?
| tbihl wrote:
| "The stories and information posted here are artistic works of
| fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted
| here as fact."
| etchalon wrote:
| That's a legal distinction.
| a9h74j wrote:
| Appropriate indignation and demand on BMJ's part.
|
| Meanwhile, in the Stossel libel case, Facebook's lawyers
| allegedly 'claim that Facebook's "fact-checks" are merely
| "opinion" and therefore immune from defamation.'
| cronix wrote:
| It's basically the same road the NYT is doing in the Project
| Veritas defamation lawsuit. NYT is also used as a source by
| other "fact checkers," including Facebook. NYT admits they
| published opinion as fact in a factual A1 page news story.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mbkd2yll14
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| I am not a lawyer but that seems like some like a legal
| "gotcha" claim that most courts would frown upon.
|
| They positioned these "fact checkers" as arbiters of truth. At
| no point in the past year has Facebook indicated that these
| were merely opinion.
| btbuildem wrote:
| Wow that's twisted
| EdSharkey wrote:
| They claimed it was "protected opinion", now that's cocky!
|
| > The quote in Facebook's complaint is,
|
| > "The labels themselves are neither false nor defamatory; to
| the contrary, they constitute protected opinion."
| hcrean wrote:
| They should sue the fact checker rather than Facebook; easier
| and this will likely have the same impact on the fact-checker
| market.
| xondono wrote:
| They sued both Facebook and the fact checker.
| a9h74j wrote:
| Late edit: 1) bold and capitalize 'allegedly' above; 2) in the
| response linked in a comment below, on p.2 lines 7-8, Meta
| claims the [fact check] _labels_ constitute protected opinion;
| 3) it could easily be a libel non-case, especially as it is
| Stossel.
|
| My impression is that Meta's distancing move ("third party"
| fact-checkers, with label/pointer linkage) is more solid than a
| claim, say, "I am merely the owner of the _safe and the
| combination_ , your Honor, not the contents themselves."
| However, if someone such as Stossel wants to pierce the veil
| with regard to 230, so to speak, it seems a good question
| whether a prominently linked "fact check" has the same
| ontological/moral status as any uninvited third party post.
| sjy wrote:
| > Meta is alleged only to have superimposed a fact-check label
| on the Fire Video, describing Climate Feedback's conclusion
| that the video was "missing context." Stossel does not claim
| that label is actionably false--presumably because it is
| protected opinion. The conclusion that the video was "missing
| context" is necessarily a judgment call, one that is "not
| capable of verification or refutation by means of objective
| proof."
|
| Seems like a reasonable claim to me.
| https://wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Faceb...
| clusterfish wrote:
| Either you're checking objective facts, or you're providing
| subjective opinion. You can't label it as the former in
| public, but in court claim it's the latter. Legally, maybe,
| IANAL. Reasonably - no.
| a9h74j wrote:
| Good point; see my late edit directly above. Thanks for
| adding the link.
| BrazzVuvuzela wrote:
| Fact checkers fear being fact checked, is anybody surprised?
| ctdonath wrote:
| How often are "open letters" actually read by the imputed
| recipient?
| sm4rk0 wrote:
| We don't need "fact checkers", we need educated people who can
| think on their own.
| zhrvoj wrote:
| This is anarchy, and it's good.
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| Ah well, with a smile on my face I remember that we just had the
| fact-checking discussion here on HN a few months ago.
|
| Let me just say: This case proves that so-called "fact-checkers"
| themselves need to be scrutinized even more than the claims they
| are "fact-checking".
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| > As current and incoming editors in chief, we are responsible
| for everything The BMJ contains.
|
| And here lies the crux of the issue : Facebook (and other Meta
| services) currently don't.
|
| While since they decided that they wanted to moderate
| _themselves_ what people were posting on their websites, and they
| are neither a small service, or a nonprofit (or potentially other
| attenuating circumstances), they _should_ be responsible for
| everything that Facebook (et al.) contains.
| scotty79 wrote:
| > As current and incoming editors in chief, we are responsible
| for everything The BMJ contains
|
| That's also not a very honest claim in such broad sense of term
| "responsible" that we usually use when we talk about what
| Facebook does.
|
| Was Lancet responsible for publishing Andrew Wakefield paper?
| Yes. Does it try to pay for damages suffered by every person
| who had infectious disease with severe outcome that was a
| result of people not taking the vaccine because of modern anti-
| vaccine movement this paper has spawned? No.
|
| They are responsible for what they wrote. Not for what people
| reading it did. But when we talk about Facebook we want it to
| be responsible for all societal impact. So the people shouldn't
| be surprised that Facebook might not only consider if something
| is true or accurate, but also if it remains so in the heads of
| the readers. Because we expect Facebook to consider it.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| To be more clear, I do _not_ want Facebook to be responsible
| for societal impact, but rather to not even be able to exist
| because any for profit company that tried to pull this kind
| of widespread power over communications would have its growth
| ground to a halt by having to constantly defend itself
| against legal charges.
| [deleted]
| tomohawk wrote:
| When you have partisans in high positions such as the head of DHS
| telling companies like Facebook what should be allowed and not
| allowed, there is a big problem.
|
| Here is a video interview of the head of DHS:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp3r04dfpZA
|
| Just what does the head of DHS consider "misinformation" you have
| to wonder. It was not long ago we didn't really care, because
| they would not have dared to infringe on free speach.
|
| I wonder what other partisans in power are saying to social media
| companies?
| OldManAndTheCpp wrote:
| "Fact checking" serves only to ossify the current view on any
| emerging discussion. Vatican "fact checkers" kept Galileo under
| house arrest for spreading "fake news", in a sense.
|
| This is an unwinnable fight, the only reasonable response is to
| abandon the pretense that opinions are facts, and that most
| people can't distinguish truth from falsehood.
| clarge1120 wrote:
| "Fact checking" as guard rails for protecting a narrative is
| (hopefully) a fad that will pass us by like bad fashion choices
| in the 1980's.
| loldk wrote:
| Just because someone can use something to destroy and hurt
| humanity or smaller or larger groups of people or living
| things... doesn't mean we should let those bad actors have
| their way by not using them for good, which is the whole
| point.
|
| Listen to yourself. You are allowing MSM to manipulate the
| meaning of things in your mind.
|
| You literally just suggested that fact checking in general is
| bad and should go away. I know you think that everyone is
| operating under the context of malicious/false fact checking,
| but that is my point: you all have undergone a paradigm shift
| in which you allow the meaning of words to change based on
| false flags and what mentally ill people are claiming is
| "fact checking".
|
| Stop.
|
| Everyone should be learning critical thinking and fact
| checking. Uneducated and vulnerable people need to understand
| this and see the difference between someone else doing it for
| them, and they themselves being able to see clearly what is
| happening to their lives.
| deft wrote:
| "fact checking" is bad. I'm not sure what the good version
| of it you imagine. By "fact checking in general" do you
| mean pointing out when someone is wrong? The parent comment
| sees fact checking as one thing: propaganda used to shut
| down heterodoxy. It has nothing to do with facts or truth.
| SantalBlush wrote:
| If fact checking is bad, why are you wrapping it in
| quotation marks? Is there a difference between fact
| checking and "fact checking" implied here, and if so,
| what is that difference? Please elaborate.
| henrikschroder wrote:
| In 2020, talking about the lab-leak theory was labelled
| "misinformation" and brutally purged from social media by
| "fact-checkers". In 2021, major news outlets started
| talking about it, and then it suddenly became ok to talk
| about it on social media again, and the "fact-checkers"
| did a complete 180 on the issue.
|
| They're not checking facts, they're just enforcing the
| mainstream view. The mainstream view is often correct,
| but sometimes it isn't, and then the fact-checkers are
| just horribly wrong, and suppressing actual debate on the
| merits of an issue.
| r-w wrote:
| I think people kept it taboo for as long as they could
| because: people were literally dying due to low
| vaccination rates, which were caused in large part by
| such specious conspiracy theories. Fact checkers did not
| do a 180, it is still widely considered a conspiracy
| theory, and its very existence harms public health even
| if there's a remote possibility it's true.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lab_leak_theory
|
| "Some scientists agree that the possibility of a lab leak
| should be examined as part of the ongoing investigations
| into the origin of COVID-19, though they have expressed
| concerns about the risks of politicization."
| joshuahughes wrote:
| This reads like a lot of mental gymnastics attempting to
| excuse the inexcusable.
|
| You argue that blocking debate is a righteous act because
| the theory's "very existence harms public health". I'd
| counter that the gagging of a concerned public breeds
| distrust that is vastly more harmful than allowing debate
| would have been.
| freewinz wrote:
| Unfortunately this wikipedia article serves effectively
| as yet another type of political "fact checking".
| Multiple virologists have stated that the only evidence
| in existence currently points to a lab leak. Labelling it
| as a fringe or destructive "conspiracy theory" is
| complete BS and it's not even conspiratorial, it's called
| a mistake and lab leaks have happened in the past.
| freewinz wrote:
| The Wikipedia article is frankly disgusting. The two
| options are natural origins or leaking from a lab and
| currently there is more evidence for leaking from a lab.
| There is no debating this. The Wikipedia article has
| already chosen a conclusion with no evidence and also is
| slandering the other possibility for political reasons
| while simultaneously saying that it can't be the other
| potential cause because it might be politically
| motivated. Absolutely disgusting. I expect better from
| Wikipedia
| deft wrote:
| there is no difference, I put it in quotes because its
| newspeak.
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| Fact checking is simply applying some standards to
| information. People do this in their own minds every day.
| Outsourcing it to others can be dangerous, but it's not
| inherently so. If you choose to believe something you
| read, you're placing your trust in someone else - a news
| organization, government, friends, family, whoever. If an
| organization set up for fact checking has published
| standards and list the violations of those standards when
| they deem something to be false or misleading, then why
| shouldn't you trust them? To be clear, I'm not suggesting
| Facebook fits the bill here - you attacked the very idea
| of fact checking, which, when done right, is a valuable
| thing to have in society, unless you just literally trust
| no third parties that present information to you.
| marstall wrote:
| fact checking is a normal part of a normal news organization.
| They all do it and it's above board. I was briefly a
| freelance journalist at a major urban newspaper and here's
| how it worked for me:
|
| - as I researched and reported, I kept notes about the source
| of every piece of info I got.
|
| - as I wrote, I noted that source every time I stated a fact
| (using phrases like "according to")
|
| - my editor asked me in general whether I had done all this -
| and during the editing process drilled down on several facts
| I stated and what the basis for them was.
|
| - A factual error once crept into my story through the
| headline, which was written by a different editorial team. It
| was a minor thing, but it was a big deal, my editor was super
| stressed, and they issued a printed retraction.
|
| - This was all inline with the general policy followed by a
| 300 person newsroom.
|
| - Editor's year-end review is partly based on the number of
| retractions issued.
|
| - The culture of the organization was such that if a known
| error made it into print, and there _wasn 't_ a retraction,
| that would be basically a scandal.
| specialist wrote:
| TLDR: Show your work, cite your sources, sign your name.
| Update content as new details emerge. Tada! Journalism.
| sharklazer wrote:
| Fact checking has only become a PR management tactic that
| arrived in the 2000's, only as the cost of sharing your mind
| rapidly became zero. Before the widespread adoption of the
| internet, you were limited to broadcast and print. You could
| pay for a license from the FCC, or license a station with
| cable or go and print and distribute your text. Very little
| incentive for non-commercial work and certainly no avenue for
| simply anybody to say anything in a way that can spread
| easily.
| bjt2n3904 wrote:
| Still waiting for the apology from all the people who said that
| this was all very necessary to combat misinformation and save
| democracy, and that any suggestions that this could possibly
| have bad outcomes was relying on a slippery slope fallacy, and
| not to be regarded.
| askin4it wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSc6RTDfqtk&ab_channel=Rando.
| ..
|
| the truth hurts...if you care about the truth...
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| This story is literally about a single instance. By that
| logic, a single instance where fact checkers proved something
| was false is enough to justify their existence.
| native_samples wrote:
| As the BMJ article points out, Cochrane has had the same
| problem, and it's not like these are the only two cases.
| There have been huge numbers of statements by high profile
| experts and professors being labelled as fake news by
| journalism interns at "fact checkers". You may not be aware
| of them but this is a very frequent problem.
| bjt2n3904 wrote:
| People just don't get that this is a matter of principle,
| not a matter of large numbers.
|
| The truth being suppressed once is far worse than a
| thousand lies.
| throw10920 wrote:
| > By that logic
|
| No, _not_ by that logic. The logic is "some people claimed
| that claims of the possibilities of bad outcomes were
| instances of the slippery slope fallacy, and now that the
| bad outcomes were actually realized, they should apologize,
| because something isn't the slippery slope fallacy if
| things further down the slope have actually happened".
| That's not even remotely connected to anything you said
| here.
| cracell wrote:
| Fact checking is just censorship. It's literally a group that
| gets to decide what is an acceptable view and what isn't. How
| is that not just plain censorship?
|
| You can certainly argue that censorship isn't always a bad
| thing. But calling censorship "fact checking" is purposely
| misleading.
| natded wrote:
| Fact checking is censorship taken on behalf of protected
| opinions. This is what Facebook itself has asserted in a
| lawsuit[1]. It is an political act, taken against political
| enemies. Schmitt would have a field day in 21st century.
|
| > [1]
| https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1469331084550852615/ph...
| docmars wrote:
| You couldn't have stated this any better or more succinctly.
| Well said. This is the reality of our current day situation
| in corporate news media, politics, and the sharing of
| information on social media with people we care about.
|
| Imagine if CNN interjected in our in-person conversations
| with friends and family on nearly everything we said -- it
| would be a nightmare -- and on social media, there is no
| difference in its nightmarishness or weight, and to think
| that some millions of people are in full support of such
| interjections in order to protect their own narrative,
| because as long as someone powerful is watching out for them
| to prevent the high crime of "disagreement" viewed as
| dangerous bullying, they couldn't care less how negatively it
| impacts society, much less the other side of the aisle's
| freedom to discuss, debate, and participate in the broader
| discussions society brings us.
|
| There's a lot of irony in nearly an entire political segment
| (leftists) in 1) supporting third wave feminism as a means to
| shut down, specifically men, from correcting others when
| they're wrong, or simply acting on one's behalf out of
| kindness (I ain't need no man), and 2) supporting the same
| behaviors by abusive corporate media outlets and paid
| commentators acting on behalf of social networks.
| greenyoda wrote:
| > "Fact checking is censorship taken on behalf of protected
| opinions"
|
| In this context, it is the fact checks that are claimed to be
| protected speech.
|
| "Protected" refers to statements of opinions (as opposed to
| facts) being protected by law against allegations of
| defamation. For example, if I publish something as a factual
| statement, e.g., "Mark Zuckerberg is a criminal", I can be
| sued for defamation (if it is false). However, if I say "I
| think Mark Zuckerberg is a criminal", I can't be sued for
| defamation.[1]
|
| Thus, Facebook is defending itself against a defamation suit
| by arguing that all its "fact check" labels are merely
| statements of the fact checker's opinion, not actual
| statements of fact.
|
| In particular, the paragraph quoted in that Twitter post does
| not refer to any attempt to protect an opinion against
| "political enemies".
|
| [1] See
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation#United_States - In
| particular: _' Defenses to defamation that may defeat a
| lawsuit, including possible dismissal before trial, include
| the statement being one of opinion rather than fact or being
| "fair comment and criticism".'_
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| At no point prior to this claim in court has Facebook ever
| labeled one of their "Fact checks" as opinion. They've been
| passing them off as "objective".
|
| I don't see how that's much different than a newspaper
| running front page stories that asserting that everything
| John Doe says is inaccurate then a year later saying "oh it
| was just our opinion".
| greenyoda wrote:
| I certainly agree that Facebook wants its users to
| believe that their "fact checks" are objective. But the
| quoted paragraph wasn't intended for the general public
| to see - it's trying to get a judge to dismiss a lawsuit
| against them. Facebook would like to have it both ways:
| credibility for users and deniability for people who want
| to sue them. I wonder if the judge will be convinced by
| their argument.
| ineptech wrote:
| I don't think it's unwinnable; we don't want FB to arbitrate
| between competing scientific opinions, we just want them to
| blackhole Magic Healing Water and Covid Vaccine 5G Drone
| Tracker type bullshit.
|
| It may be true that it's hard to draw a clear line between
| bullshit and almost-bullshit, but it's hard to draw a clear
| line between porn and almost-porn and they somehow manage to do
| that okay.
|
| edit because apparently this wasn't clear enough: the way you
| distinguish science from bullshit is not by evaluating the
| claims (that's what I am arguing we should not trust Facebook
| to do). One is a money-making endeavour and the other isn't,
| and that's the basis on which they are distinguished. Even the
| worst science is not festooned with ads.
|
| I'll say it again: "Facebook doesn't do a good enough job of
| evaluating accuracy" is a trap, and it's a trap they
| desperately want you to fall in to. If we get to the point
| where we put any value in FB's evaluation of any scientific
| claim, we're already into dystopian sci-fi territory, no matter
| how good a job they do.
| kradeelav wrote:
| YMMV, but I don't think social media companies have done well
| at all regarding the latter with erotic works.
|
| Every single (semi)-erotic artist i know has faced a daily
| struggle of avoiding their work (and livelihoods) being
| demonetized somehow - whether it be shadowbans, straight up
| sudden bans, deactivations of accounts under false pretenses,
| etc. One could argue there's a difference between 2D art and
| "live action porn' but I'd say as an artist the line is a lot
| fuzzier than most think, as there tends to be a suspicious
| amount of activist work that tends to get shoved under the
| "porn" rug because it makes it easier to hide dissenting
| minority opinions.
| PKop wrote:
| This is a political fight. The mistake is believing in some
| sort of disinterested, unbiased institution adjudicating
| truth separate from influences of interest groups and
| political power.
|
| The existence of power-centers like giant social media
| monopolies guarantees they are targets for political
| interests to hijack that power & censor opponents. Even if
| you could snap your fingers and magically populate these
| dominant platforms, and media/journalist institutions as
| well, with good faith actors (even here they are limited by
| their ability to actually know what is true), this wouldn't
| be a stable equilibrium and would in short order be populated
| and/or lobbied/pressured/swayed by political opportunists.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| That's a good analogy (bullshit -> porn), and we would expect
| a system that is working as intended to be having precisely
| the kind of animated discussion around what is bullshit and
| what isn't that this open letter from BMJ represents.
| dporter wrote:
| The difference is that one doesn't need a special education
| to identify porn. The average low-wage content moderator at
| Facebook likely does not have the scientific background to
| distinguish between bullshit and science. Case in point, this
| article.
| paul7986 wrote:
| What's wrong with the Pfizer vaccine data?
|
| I mean the FDA is asking for 55 years to process and release all
| such public data to the public now..
| https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/wait-what-fda-wants... .
| Which to me is concerning as well the CDC just announcing not to
| get the J&J shot but the other two.
|
| Early science .. we all jumped in like guniea pigs ... some
| forced to like myself where Ive already been burned twice (hernia
| mesh implant recalled causes pain forever and a med I took
| damaged an organ) by early science/profits over people crap.
|
| Also any media to research where bias (pro or not pro vaccine ...
| left or right) is.. is hard to believe as truth. Bias clouds the
| truth always! Im sure any vote on my post is biased based ... pro
| vaccine or anti. Im in the middle and wanted to wait to see years
| of data to see/find out which one was the best .. which one was
| the worst but i wasnt given that opportunity... get vaxed or if
| not lose everything.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| Relevant: Stossel's lawsuit against Facebook for libelous
| statements against him contained in 3rd-party fact-checks:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qmht6Tbtzg
|
| 2 of the 3 reviewers had not even seen the video Facebook labeled
| as "misleading". The other refused a request for an interview.
| adjkant wrote:
| More context here, as I had to look it up and this one fits
| into the same pattern, but adds a layer of muddiness:
| https://variety.com/2021/digital/news/john-stossel-sues-face...
|
| In Stossel's case, one of his video's is being very closely
| taken to their implications, and being marked accordingly as
| "misleading" and "missing context". In the case of the BMJ, the
| factcheck title is fully inaccurate and itself is misleading.
| The Stossel case highlights this nuance, but in the end appears
| to be a partisan test of the legal waters. Facebook itself has
| spoken on that one and has defended it.
|
| Of note though is this passage:
|
| > In a previous response posted by Climate Feedback to
| Stossel's charges about the fact-check rating on the
| "Government Fueled Fires" video, the organization wrote,
| "Stossel complains that we should not have rated his post using
| a claim review of a quote that does not appear in his video.
| This is a misunderstanding of how fact-checking partners
| operate on Facebook. Given that many pieces of content posted
| on Facebook can separately make the same claim, it is not
| necessary to create a separate claim review article for each
| post we rate. It is, of course, necessary that the claim we
| reviewed is representative of the claim in each post we rate,
| which is true in this case."
|
| It seems like in an effort for efficiency, articles are grouped
| together. I wonder if some article citing BMJ made the
| inaccuracies, and then the source got grouped into the same
| article group. It seems like that is a corner that cannot be
| cut here. To the surprise of no one, fact checking is hard and
| trying to group things together will cause problems. It seems
| to me that the critics are right to point out that fact
| checking will simply not scale while maintaining accuracy.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| > In Stossel's case, one of his video's is being very closely
| taken to their implications
|
| What?
| TheMagicHorsey wrote:
| These people really annoy me.
|
| Yes, there may be some data integrity and procedural integrity
| issues with one, or two, or even three of the hundred plus
| sites/contractors used to collect data on any given vaccine
| trial. However, by using modern statistical methods, and
| auditing, we minimize the impact of these possible errors.
|
| In addition to this, the Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer has now
| actually left trial and been ADMINISTERED TO MILLIONS OF
| PEOPLE!!!!! So we actually have data now, in some cases from 6
| months ago and longer, showing that, at least for effects that
| are short term visible, there is very little to worry about. How
| do we know this .... THROUGH ACTUAL MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF
| VACCINATION DATA IN THE GENERAL POPULATION. The trial data is
| LESS AND LESS RELEVANT.
|
| This BMJ may have been a reputable publication at some point ...
| I'm not going to assume it wasn't ... but if you read the study
| and the article posted you'll very soon realize that this is some
| shoddy bloody journalism. AND, YES, it will misinform people,
| because Joe Rogan and the like do not apply suitable skepticism
| when considering the claims of these "scientific skeptics".
|
| I wish everyone could actually take the time to read these long
| medical articles. But most people can't. I happen to be working
| on a project where I have to occasionally read and digest "fact
| finding" content to judge its accuracy. And even I am growing
| exhausted with what I have a financial interest in doing, because
| of the sheer stupidity of the interpretations of data by the Joe
| Rogan crowd ... and it's always something you need to dig a layer
| deep to uncover too. So sometimes reasonable people without free
| time can get bamboozled because Rogan and Co. seem to have
| neocortexes that operate with some strange parameters.
|
| P.S. In general I agree that "fact-checking" is a bad idea. I
| prefer crowd-sourced fact-checking from a community ... basically
| like Hacker News comments. A lot of fact-checking is just
| mirroring the prevailing political mood.
| srcreigh wrote:
| After reading both articles, I am skeptical about the BMJ
| article.
|
| It paints a bad picture, but it doesn't seem to answer overall
| picture about the vaccine. Namely, was there testing done by
| other people for the vaccine?
|
| Misinformation doesn't have to be completely made up. The worst
| misinformation is carefully selected parts of the truth.
| ConanRus wrote:
| Everybody knows now that the left media "fact check" is just a
| censorship. I'd like to see Congress investigating all that shit,
| but that probably won't happen.
| abacadaba wrote:
| We landed on The Moon!!!
| twirlock wrote:
| Wait a minute, I think they're saying something bad about
| vaccines >:(
| smsm42 wrote:
| It is hilarious to me that some random people with no relevant
| credentials to speak of declare an article in a professional
| journal a "hoax", get their word taken as "fact" by Facebook and
| wide-ranging censorship decisions performed on the basis of that,
| and they also get paid handsomely for that (AFAIK selling
| services to Facebook and alikes is their whole business model).
| To make it even more hilarious, looks like one of the founder
| worked for CNN before as entertainment reporter - and we know
| entertainment reporting is the most scientific and fact-based of
| all reporting venues, and CNN is the most hoax-free of all
| networks!
|
| By this point, anybody who relies on Facebook and their "fact
| checkers" as a source of relevant information on any topic is a
| doofus.
| gadders wrote:
| Most fact checkers don't check facts, they manufacture context.
| AlexTWithBeard wrote:
| One thing that puzzles me: why people (still?) use Facebook?
| What's so good about it? There are dozens of platforms where
| people can post their thoughts, like and be liked.
|
| I feel like something's evading me. Is it because I'm an old
| fart?
| emtel wrote:
| For most people, Facebook is the only place where they can stay
| in touch with their family and friends. My friends and family
| are not and never will be on mastodon or diaspora or anything
| like that.
|
| Also, private special interest groups on Facebook are really
| excellent. There's nothing else like it. Sub Reddits are good
| for anonymous/psuedonymous general discussion, but for actually
| meeting and interacting with people who share your interests,
| and especially for sharing pictures/videos, I haven't seen
| anything better than Facebook. I'm a member of several music
| related Facebook groups - they get far more high quality
| participation (and fewer flame-wars) than comparable old-school
| web forums.
| AlexTWithBeard wrote:
| > For most people, Facebook is the only place where they can
| stay in touch with their family and friends.
|
| I don't understand what's wrong with a group chat in <your
| favorite messenger>?
|
| Not arguing. Just lost. Completely lost.
| mike00632 wrote:
| Facebook Marketplace is also really convenient.
| seeEllArr wrote:
| Their friends/communities are on it. At least, that's why I
| haven't uninstalled, I just aggressively unfollow/block things
| I don't want to see.
| vmception wrote:
| People believe they get value from the groups
|
| This has largely replaced forums
|
| Facebook tried to make a separate groups product for people
| that just want groups and not the rest of Facebook
|
| Just like Messenger can be used without a full Facebook account
|
| It is higher value for users than the newsfeed other social
| network experience, but it mostly sucks too
| olyjohn wrote:
| Groups are a disorganized mess of the same repetitive trash
| over and over. It's the same problem in every group. Just
| miles and miles of random posts with no way to organize them,
| and a shit search feature.
|
| The only reason it killed forums is because they lowered the
| effort barrier. Forums were great because it required logins,
| and a minimal level of competency in order to use it. Only
| people who really wanted to be part of the forum would join.
| A simple login was enough barrier to keep out people who
| didn't want to put in any effort to their contribution.
| Facebook made it so that you can just go click a button and
| upload a picture and contribute a shitpost with no effort.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Facebook is the Internet for millions of people.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| In my experience, Facebook is the platform which is most tied
| to people you actually have interacted with in real life, and
| that's by a large margin. I know the reddit account of like 1
| person I know IRL (I don't even know my wife's account). ...but
| my facebook friends consist of basically everyone I know that
| still has a facebook. A lot of that is just the network effect
| and momentum, but still.
| chillingeffect wrote:
| even my best friends wont tell me their reddit IDs and I
| don't tell them my alts.
| chillingeffect wrote:
| the abundance of real names, the relative absence of juvenile
| spazzes. my gen X buddies and I and our families can share
| family-friendly/public-safe info with a great signal-to-noise
| ratio. Also the Groups are emerging as the most useful part of
| it.
|
| It's not good for edgy discussion, but consider this: social
| media platforms are more like: "which platform is good for what
| type of interaction" vs. "is this a good social media platform
| or not?" When I want spazzy bullshit I go straight to /b. I
| avoid twitter, tumbler, and tiktok like that plague because I
| don't want to be a human garbage filter looking for diamonds in
| the rough. I go on Instagram sometimes for pretty stuff from
| people I kind of know.
| streamofdigits wrote:
| An oligopoly of walled gardens that control all information flow
| with little accountability based on opaque algorithmic operations
| and dubious business models is a bad, unworkable design, who
| could have guessed that?
|
| A small minority of people here and elsewhere are tearing their
| hair at the insanity. In the meantime a tiny municipality in the
| Netherlands gives the go ahead for meta to build the largest
| datacenter in Europe.
|
| Somehow once the giant wheels of societal regression are set in
| motion there is nothing to stop them.
| mikewarot wrote:
| Could rogue "fact checking" be considered Defamation on the part
| of Facebook?
| joelbondurant wrote:
| Only the USA Fact-Check Algorithm from the Science Ministry can
| ordain new science facts, Facebook is an illegitimate science
| authority administrator.
| concinds wrote:
| Fact checking was an innocent thing back in 2008 and 2012 when it
| was almost solely about fact-checking objective numbers brought
| up by party candidates in national debates. "The GDP grew by
| 2.5%!" False, 2.3%. That worked fine.
|
| But the Murray Gell-Mann amnesia effect infected fact-checking,
| and turned fact-checking into an extreme danger to democracy
| (ironic, considering it's supposed to "save democracy"). Fact-
| checkers are not subject experts; they all seem to believe that
| you can get to the "truth" after half an hour of Googling. That's
| not true! Even domain experts might need weeks or longer of
| research to reach a confident opinion on a topic, and that's with
| a very strong and wide knowledge foundation.
|
| An obvious impact of fact-checkers' universal Dunning-Krugerism
| is that they end up biased against certain facts, if they believe
| those facts to be "promoting harmful narratives". If people hear
| about Pfizer's mistakes, they might not want the vaccine, so
| they're biased towards suppressing the BMJ article.
|
| Fact-checking leads to implicit (if not deliberate) paternalism,
| where information is only allowed to spread if it has no negative
| connotations. Unfortunately, that means no scrutiny for the FDA,
| for Pfizer, and a democracy that decays even further. I could
| give comical examples of recent incorrect fact-checks on European
| television, where mistake were all biased against narratives that
| would have harmed the centrist government.
|
| Corporations like Facebook, Twitter and Facebook just shouldn't
| have this much power.
|
| Could a grassroots cultural movement like the 60s happen again
| today? One that's anti-authority, anti-elite? Not a chance in
| hell, not just because of fact-checkers, but because of how much
| cultural power has been taken from the people. The elites made
| sure of that: even _music_ , which was at the very heart of these
| cultural movements, is now controlled by unchecked corporate
| power. (And the consequences are disastrous: pre-pandemic, 40% of
| young people felt chronically lonely; atomization is inevitable
| in a heavily "controlled" and restrictive culture.)
| dtrain2017 wrote:
| I cannot believe that this guy was fired on the same day he
| leaked to the FDA. This means the FDA reported him to Pfizer??
|
| He blew the whistle on the following: some staff were not
| blinded, potentially unblind recipients, quality control on the
| paperwork, the patients weren't followed up with.
|
| It just adds to my nihilism, tbh.
| DrHilarius wrote:
| It wasn't clear from the original article whether FDA notified
| the whistleblower's employer or they found out on their own
| somehow.
| [deleted]
| bArray wrote:
| A lot of the comments here appear to give Facebook some benefit
| of the doubt. Whilst this would also be my default position,
| let's not also forget that Facebook makes money entirely through
| advertising and Pfizer is a massive sponsor/advertiser [1]. There
| appears to be a massive conflict of interest here.
|
| Also encase it wasn't already clear, 'independent fact checkers'
| are themselves not free from bias, particularly political bias. I
| find it deeply concerning that we allow some unaccountable
| authority to state truths, on very important issues that are
| heavily political.
|
| In UK parliament for example, there is the concept of the
| 'faithful opposition'. They rarely agree with the government of
| the day, but what makes them 'faithful' is their opposition in
| good faith. Where is the faithful opposition to the fact
| checkers?
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlARrmWhHXo
| umvi wrote:
| So basically everyone's worst fears back when "fact checking" was
| being introduced were realized - fact checkers becoming thinly
| veiled political censors that only allow certain narratives
| through regardless of the actual nuance/truth.
| pfortuny wrote:
| They seem to have forgotten the Inquisition.
|
| Really, in their view they were just trying to help people not be
| infected by false claims.
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to
| HN. We're trying for something different here.
|
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29596102.
| jf22 wrote:
| Can I ask if you think Facebook fact checking is as serious as
| the Spanish Inquisition?
| zepto wrote:
| It has the potential to be. Of course they aren't going to
| torture individuals, but they could easily amplify large
| scale suffering stochastically.
| tbihl wrote:
| Not in any meaningful way without first coming to terms on a
| shared ethical framework and a common understanding of
| 'serious', no.
| SantalBlush wrote:
| You're not wrong, but this whole discussion is about
| ethics, and I don't see any shared ethical framework being
| established.
| xenocratus wrote:
| Another question would be: which Spanish Inquisition - the
| real one, or the one that lives in popular culture?
| pfortuny wrote:
| I am talking of the real one (which as you say is much
| milder than the popular one): they did burn books and
| prosecute people for their ideas, which is what I was
| thinking of.
| pfortuny wrote:
| It is the thought behind it: there is a single true opiniom.
|
| Mind you: it may even be worse. Not in terms of physical
| harm.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| What single true opinion is that?
|
| As I see it, there's lots of opinions, some are clearly
| wrong, and some are varyingly plausible. Annotating the
| clearly wrong ones isn't anything close to claiming that
| there is only one opinion.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| "Fact Checking" is effective clickbait. Just claiming something
| is a hoax generates more engagement than claiming something is
| factual. Humans have a bias towards believing claims that
| wrongdoing has occurred (self-preservation / avoidance of harm).
| It is in Meta's commercial interest to hire people to flag
| stories as a hoax in an entertaining way that gets eyeballs (like
| a giant red stamp that says "Flaws Reviewed").
| linuxhansl wrote:
| Let's please not throw out the baby with the bathwater and
| dismiss all fact checking as political, biases, or agenda-driven.
|
| Not agreeing on basic facts in the prime problem in our current
| political discourse. Disagreement is usually a good problem to
| have and leads to testing the complete problem space.
|
| What we are seeing now, though, is the absence of the problem
| space exploration. Instead any discussion is just dismissed by
| calling the other party's information "fake news". In that fact-
| checkers are crucial.
|
| Can the fact checkers be wrong? Sure. Could they have an agenda?
| Sure. Let's fix that. Let's not dismiss them outright as some of
| the comment here suggest.
| wskinner wrote:
| Without getting into the specifics of any individual instance
| of fact checking, it is not at all clear that the presence of
| third party "fact checks" advances towards a shared
| understanding of "the facts". It may be better for the state of
| the online discourse to have no "fact checkers" than for them
| to make perform in this way. And if such mistakes are
| inevitable given sufficient scale, that means it would better
| not to have such entities.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I want statistics rather than "oh no they were wrongs once so
| let's just stop the entire effort" which is precisely what a
| lot of HN people are saying.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Who fact-checks the fact-checkers?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Is Facebook competent to be the fact checker? Demonstrably no.
| So, without necessarily having to judge the universe of
| possible fact-checking possibilities, we can say that what
| Facebook is doing _isn 't working_.
| Stranger43 wrote:
| I think it's worth differentiating between "Reproduction
| Studies" and attempts to streamline the narrative and lets be
| honest the fact checking being called for and implemented in
| regards to social media mostly takes the form of "streamlining
| the narrative".
| lenkite wrote:
| "dismiss all fact checking as political, biases, or agenda-
| driven." But they most certainly are! Facebook themselves
| admitted that their fact-checking is opinion-checking.
|
| https://www.opindia.com/2021/12/facebook-accepts-that-its-th...
|
| Let's remove the term "fact-checking" and replace it by
| "facebook sponsored opinion"
| tlear wrote:
| It is not a bug it is a feature. Fact checkers are just
| propagandists/censors under a different name, contracted out to
| deny direct responsibility.
| valvar wrote:
| There is no such thing as fact-checking without an agenda. What
| would the incentives be? No agenda, no demand, no-one pays for
| it.
| [deleted]
| roody15 wrote:
| Sadly fack checking is often conflated with outright bias and
| narrative control. You can literally post links and direct quotes
| from the cdc's website and get flagged and removed by twitter for
| "misinformation".
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