Fact checking has been laughable from the beginning. It is inherently biased. The heavy political leanings of those in direct control of the organizations' verdicts are brought up time and time again, and even memes are being made about sites like Snopes. My favorite meme goes something like:
Did x member of y political organization get arrested for hitting some in the head with a baseball bat?
FALSE.
[big block of text]
X member of y political organization was arrested for hitting someone in the head with a cricket bat.
I think what many here and the writers of the article are missing is that you can both be truthful and misleading. These are not mutually exclusive. Let's start with the title: "The Study That Convinced the CDC To Support Mask Mandates in Schools Is Junk Science". If you just read this (titles are very important and most people only read these) what will you take away? What the authors are trying to say is that this one study has problems.
But reading further in the article they rise doubt about masks in general, which is something we know is highly effective (purely from a physics point of view). They don't say masking is effective, they continually question if it is. This is really problematic. The study being wrong doesn't question _if_ masking is effective, but _how_ effective. There's a major difference in these statements and they can have readers, who are not experts and don't know scientific vernacular, to doubt and distrust more science than the article _technically_ draws into question. The article is suggesting that this is the norm and because this study is bad we get to question all the others.
So the problem here really is that while yes, the article only questions the one study they do so in a way that questions more fundamental knowledge that we have. Masking works. How much? Harder to say. There's a few old sayings such as "the devil never tells a full lie" or "the devil sows doubt" (often with truth). These are the errors that the authors are making here.
I would conclude that they aren't inaccurate, but are misleading.
> which is something we know is highly effective (purely from a physics point of view)
This in itself is a tricky claim to make with confidence. I agree we know certain types of masks (N95) are highly effective at preventing spread of airborne illness if worn properly.
But... in the context of the article you referenced, are you prepared to defend the claim that cloth masks which haven't been washed for months and are frequently touched, adjusted, and worn incorrectly by kids and teens are "highly effective at preventing spread of airborne illness"?
You are coming to this article with your own biases. You seem to be basing your analysis that we "know" masking is highly effective. That is not true. The evidence used to justify this policy is low quality(don't you remember the CDC hair salon study) and dependent on the precautionary principle. High quality evidence on masking has either low effect sizes or is inconclusive. It is certainly not settled science.
If we question the motive or even the eventual consequence of an article but not the truth, that’s NOT fact-checking anymore but purely intention-checking, whose intention and what the hell it might be. At least at that point, “fact-checking” is becoming a propaganda machine, no more, no less. Communist countries have even “security law” to put people in jail based purely on intention and eventual consequences.
Btw, the “fact-checker” labeled the article as “false information”, not as “misleading”.
Your very statement of "which is something we know is highly effective (purely from a physics point of view). " is misleading
As both this story, and the "fact checked" story (as well as the position of many others) is not really talking about masks at the physics level (though new data about omicron is placing that in question now as well) but masking as a POLICY
it may be true that masks themselves are effective, but due to human nature masking POLICIES, including masking POLICIES in schools are not. Human interactions with the mask have we have seen countless times are far far far from perfect, people pulling on the masks, masks around chins, removing the mask to cough or sneeze, etc. Children will be even less disciplined
So I dont think they are questioning the mask as a technical barrier to stop covid, they are questioning the masks as a public policy given that humans are involved
Sigh. Comments in this thread are predictably polarized.
I personally think that fact checking is potentially damaging to society but so is the ability of social media to spread misleading claims.
It's difficult to predict which is going to be worse in the long run. As in many things we'll probably learn to tolerate a degree of both and aim to find a "least worse" outcome.
Anyone claiming here either that no fact-checking would be the best outcome or it's inverse (I can't quite formulate what that would be right now) is probably wrong and the messy middle is probably correct.
I think part of the problem is the polarisation in and of itself. It leads one to think that there are only two sides to any story when, in fact, there are usually several.
I believe that this push for fact checking lately is a symptom of a larger problem. How often is there genuinely a single, correct version of events, and then an incorrect one, at the scale of humanity we're talking about?
And why is it hard to bridge that gap? If you take to social media, it can be really hard to have a conversation between two politically opposed groups of people without it immediately jumping to aggression.
Flat Earth News is an old book now but it's a worthwhile read still.
"Fact checkers made a mistake" articles draw out a certain crowd, and their over the top rhetoric is always the same. The dominant narrative in here is unlikely to correspond with the public at large, or even the majority of HN users.
This is a particularly weird submission because the article the person authored was basically blogspam. They took someone else's hard work, put a clickbait title on it intending for the sole value of pandering to a very specific audience, now getting to double down under the auspices of "my blogspam was suppressed" narratives.
And I suspect that the article came under the attention of Facebook because it, exactly as intended by the author, fed directly to a certain crowd that absolutely consumes and propagates fake news (not like "it's open to debate", but just astonishingly nonsensical junk that just makes a wider and wider audience of the gullible and misled). Being embraced by that crowd is probably the biggest indicator to such systems, and 9 times out of 10 it's probably spot on.
Yeah, the problem here is that there is so much disinformation that we need fact checking in the first place. Once you've gotten to that point, there will be no perfect solutions.
But IMO, we're far better off having organizations at least attempt to fact check, even if they get it wrong from time to time. The alternative is an open fire hose of unchecked disinformation, and I'm not sure how we survive that.
Yeah, keeping in mind both the well known problems of censorship and also our societal shitshow driven by disinformation campaigns and other outlandish groupthink, I've got to ponder synthesis here.
I'd like to hope that most of the problem is engagement amplification - eg social media's "algorithmic" editorialization for which they're not even S.230 immune (yet no one has taken them to task). Would things be so polarized if these companies didn't create personalized filter bubbles to drive engagement? Traditionally one's professed opinions had to survive in the scrutiny of the larger social sphere. Now no matter what you say, you're immediately given a soapbox and a tiny receptive audience.
In the long run, big social media like Facebook can only end up being lame, exactly how the nightly news has been - "the revolution will not be televised". Mass media inherently caters to the status quo, because at the very least it's owned by people with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Which points to increased routine filtering that keeps conversation within a nice small Overton window as it has traditionally been - that is to say, lame. In a way the rise of Zuck is an aberration indicating that when you get insanely powerful, there is no large mahogany table of stuffy old guys that sits you down and immediately brings you into their conspiracy "or else" - rather the overall dynamic happens slowly.
I also hope there is a growing up process being done by non-internet-natives newly buffeted by raw unfiltered media, en masse. Twenty years ago I was exposed to chemtrails theories, NSA mass surveillance, 9/11 was an inside job, Austrian economics, sovereign citizens - ideas that put you directly at odds with society, with differing kernels of truth (or not). No matter how much some resonated with me I was never going to start steadfastly preaching back in the real world, because the impedance mismatch was too large. Eventually you gain a sense of wisdom about the implications of these various theories and the cost of acting on them (regardless of their validity).
What I see missing today is any of this wisdom - sure vaccination could be a government sterilization campaign, but since you've made it through life so far generally trusting institutions including large corporations, perhaps following the actions implied by the conspiracy theory is imprudent. Maybe I'm being overly hopeful too, or this dynamic won't be reached because of a critical mass creating its own social proof, or it will take a few old generations to pass on and new generations steeped in the Internet's hostile noise to develop collective social wisdom.
Or maybe global communication is just the Great Filter.
I am 44 and if I had to sum up what I've learned in my life into one concept it would be this:
The truth, real truth, is EXTREMELY hard to ascertain. Therefore, be open to new ideas, but slow to accept anything as absolute truth. Those in power push narratives. Conflicts of interest make data questionable. "Experts" are just people with their own inherent biases. And often we simply learn new things.
Therefore, I can think of very few things more damaging to society and free speech than "fact checkers". Almost always I find that their "facts" are nothing more than the "opinions" of the most powerful and influential group at the time, and are usually entangled with politics. In short, "fact checkers" don't actually understand the definition of what a fact is, but are quick to declare them, and this is contrary to my experience of real, actual truth.
> "Experts" are just people with their own inherent biases
I get where you're going here, and I don't totally disagree, but that's not "just" what experts are. Typically experts are people who have spent far more time than other people doing exactly what you're describing: slowly sifting through and cross-referencing data, asking questions, digging up resources, and testing hypothesis.
It's good to be skeptical, and it's important to understand that experts have bias too, but there's a difference between someone who has passively consumed information in a biased manner and an expert who has dedicated real research to arrive at their viewpoint. Being able to consume and be critical of information from biased experts while still benefiting from and being enriched by their knowledge and expertise (instead of disregarding it because you disagree) is I think the crown jewel of "critical thinking".
The truth, real truth, is EXTREMELY hard to ascertain. Therefore, be open to new ideas, but slow to accept anything as absolute truth.
Talking about trying to find an "absolute truth" is disingenuous. Yeah, we absolutely know 1+1=2, but it's impossible to absolutely know how a stock will perform. Often times, a situation doesn't call for finding "the real" or "absolute" truth, but coming to a conclusion using only the best info you have on hand at the moment.
In most cases, you can find the best info. You have to know how to find it though, how to weigh one source against another. It's like the old proverb about teaching a man to fish rather than giving them a fish. Learning "how to fish" is something you're taught in school, but then again, there are those in power that are making it harder to get a proper education. That's something to be wary of. They aren't just taking our fish, but our ability to fish.
> "Experts" are just people with their own inherent biases.
Experts are usually correct. I have no idea why you would think otherwise. Now, experts in one area often misapply that authority to others where they are not expert, but within their domain they are most often right. And I have yet to see that not be the case.
> The truth, real truth, is EXTREMELY hard to ascertain
It’s really challenging for me to speak in a way that’s unarguable. For example, instead of saying “COVID is now…”, saying “I read an article that says COVID is now…”.
The first sentence is arguable, the second is unarguable because it’s my personal experience. How often do you read articles or reporting that state unarguable truths?
Even a slight tweak from “COVID cases are spiking…” to “The NY Department of Health released data showing an X% increase in reported COVID cases statewide” makes a lot of difference in how I perceive the potential bias or truthiness of the content I’m reading.
One issue driving it is the abandonment of personal responsibility for any aspect of our lives. Americans have it constantly drilled into them to expect authority figures to take the lead on providing our basic necessities, handling workplace disputes, obtaining medical care, etc., why should we be surprised that they’ve lost the ability to think for themselves?
> "Experts" are just people with their own inherent biases.
This is an absurd and false statement, and is a perfect summation of why so much mis/disinformation floats around and is so popular in today's online world.
Experts do indeed have their own inherent biases. This part is a glib truism because experts are people, and all people have biases which both consciously and unconsciously influence their decision making.
But that is not "just" what experts are. Experts are people who have, by definition, expertise in a given subject matter. Unless you too are an equal expert in a given topic, experts--once again by definition--know more than you do in that field.
It doesn't mean you need to take what they say as gospel, so to speak, but it does mean that when the choice is to listen to 'random person on the internet' versus 'someone who has studied something for years and has made valued contributions to the field', the two-despite both having biases-are not on equal footing.
I honestly don't know how people navigate in society without this being plainly obvious to them. The number of people who believe most claims can be checked to any level of certainty is genuinely worrying and highlights a fundamental lack of critical thinking within our society, and therefore democratic process.
As you say, most of the time these aren't "facts", but usually opinions or hypotheses based on a subject interruption of some data. The truth is even if 99% of the evidence we have today suggests masks work, this doesn't mean masks work, just that it's very likely they do assuming there isn't some bias in the research. The reason I mention bias is because it's simply true that in the past research on things like contentious subjects like climate change, smoking and various diets have been biased by corporate interest.
I think the problem we have with misinformation today is less that people sometimes believe the wrong things, but they believe the wrong things with high levels of conviction and passion. The first step in the solution to misinformation in my opinion should be to promote an attitude similar to yours -- one of general scepticism and an openness to new information and beliefs.
I don’t think fact checkers are an enemy of free speech. The entire foundation of science is build upon the process of being able to fact check each other’s findings.
There has also never really been a period in western civilisation where the news media wasn’t heavily controlled and fact checked by powerful editors.
The real issue isn’t fact checkers, it’s that Facebook isn’t held accountable.
If we want a functioning democracy, we need to stop giving major corporations a pass because the manipulation that happens on their platforms is created and run by users. That’s not how we treated News Papers and it’s not how we should treat Social Networks. If Facebook has really been a knowing participant in genocides, then Mark Zuckerberg belongs in the Haag as far as I am concerned.
I swear this is the worse comment I saw on HN, I'm going very political here:
I'm not native english speaker, but calling fact checkers more damaging to society then: fox news, qanon, american nazism, evangelical believes, mormons, all christianity, school schootings, obama being war criminal for drone bombing iraqis, climate catastrphy and propping up islam regimes in saudi arabia etc, war on public transport by motor-lobby, end of democracy in us
I could go for hours, I smell right wing bullshit from miles, or OP is autistic
These are early symptoms of a Truth-Market-Fit approach[1] where "fact-checking" is defined by the financial benefits in keeping a following or customer base.
The "Fact checkers" have become Trust Providers. Different groups of people will choose to 'believe' different Trust Providers according to their own views.
Colion Noir has a similar tale [0] with fact checkers at politifact, and gives timelines of emails, etc that is pretty interesting. He is all about guns, and of course, the person that 'investigates' him is completely against guns. He was also doxed by politifact. The overall process seems disturbing.
None of this should be taken as an argument against fact-checking either in theory or in practice. There is no set of fact checking policies that will be free from errors. (Indeed nor are the journalists who write the articles infallible, as they would surely admit.)
What’s important is that the fact checkers accept corrections and recognize that they are fallible too.
See if you can spot the difference in these two headlines:
"A Study That the CDC Used To Support Mask Mandates in Schools Is Junk Science."
"The Study That Convinced the CDC To Support Mask Mandates in Schools Is Junk Science."
Which one makes it seem like some evidence used should be discarded?
And which one makes it seem like Mask Mandates have been proven to be a Junk Science?
See that word "The" in the headline the author used? That sure makes it sound like the single source of evidence was wrong, and so therefore the conclusion is wrong.
If you want to be really safe, and not clickbaity, you could even go for,
"Mask Mandates May Be Effective, But One Study the CDC Used Had Deeply Flawed Methodology."
That's only four characters longer than the original one:
"The Study That Convinced the CDC To Support Mask Mandates in Schools Is Junk Science."
1. Fact checking is usually biased.
2. The more sensational the headline, the higher the chance of garbage journalism and bias.
3. The more boring nuance the better the chance of accuracy.
If I was building a news ranking engine I would use these principles. It would probably be at least somewhat useful in filtering out the garbage, except no one would use it because the articles near the top wouldn’t get people to click, and the only possible revenue stream would need to be paid since it can’t be optimized for engagement and still function.
These "fact checkers" are nothing more than a means for big tech and big media to push their increasingly authoritarian "progressive" narrative. Until more people realize this and just walk away from FB and other platforms it's going to continue. There's hope though, look at the relative readership / viewership of independent journalists and podcasts relative to mainstream media. When CNN has a clip of a reporter standing in front of a bunch of burning buildings with a chyron that reads "fiery but mostly peaceful protests" even the dimmest among us has to see that they are not a news organization. There are plenty of examples for every other mainstream media outlet as well.
One of the biggest issue with fact checking, is that fact checkers don't try to see if something is true or false. But they guess what people are going to understand from a post and then says whether or not those understandings are true or false.
For example if you say "There is no evidence that mask has helped reduce the spread of covid". You will probably be fact checked as false, because they think people will understand "Masks don't work".
Many people on social media read only the headline, not the full article. (Including here on HN.)
So, it’s arguable that this should be taken into account by fact checking. A title that is misleading is a problem even if the article body itself is scrupulously accurate, since way more people will see the headline than read the article.
This is known and weaponized. A site will intentionally publish an accurate article with an inaccurate or misleading headline. If it is flagged by fact-checking, they get several more cycles of engagement out of complaining about the “unfair” or “biased” fact check, and especially if they get it reversed, as in this case.
In this case the original headline was “The Study That Convinced the CDC To Support Mask Mandates in Schools Is Junk Science.” That is misleading because a) the CDC considered far more than one study, b) which study “convinced” them is impossible to prove and a matter of opinion, and c) “junk science” is an uninformative pejorative.
If the headline had been “One Study the CDC Referenced When Considering Mask Recommendations Had Problems,” it would have been more accurate and less likely to be flagged. But also less useful to Reason in attracting attention and advancing a narrative.
I'm interested in the eventual outcome of this case:
> "This case presents a simple question: do Facebook and its vendors defame a user who posts factually accurate content, when they publicly announce that the content failed a 'fact-check' and is 'partly false,' and by attributing to the user a false claim that he never made?" wrote Stossel's attorneys in the lawsuit. "The answer, of course, is yes."
What to believe nothing just live by my intuition which says ignore all for profit biased media and only believe in long term science..years and years of data.. cause an example the CDC in December recommending against the Johnson and Johnson shot which they previously recommended in early 2021 ..omg ..they are still trying to figure this all out out. My intuition says China knows a lot to all and Covid will further accelerate them to becoming the super power of the world... the world just sits by and let's it happen..has helped them get there too. Ughh
Fact checking just seems like another business we haven't hired to solve a problem generated by the platform itself. I find that the problem here isn't fact checking, it's just the control of these private social media platforms is too broad.
This points to why there needs to be a clearer mechanism of rights for an individual's content. Meta owns a free license to not only repost your work, but also to modify and generate derivative works from it. What I don't understand is what they own when it comes to public content shared via links. Given the success of AMP, I suspect the answer is "you don't own much of anything on the internet".
DRM so far has been successful at allowing content generators to counteract the control of content providers. I sometimes wonder if we need easier personal DRM. Then, if some provider decides to misrepresent you, you can just yank the license. Or at least, there should be some kind of contract between the license holder and the provider.
Maybe web3 helps here? I'm still leery of putting all your eggs in a centralized blockchain system. But other than PDFs, I can't think of other approaches you can take.
If a fact-check is ever found to be wrong, isn't that proof that the fact-checker is claiming things to be fact, when they aren't?
I'd support a licensing system for this, at the individual and company level. If Facebook fact checks are ever wrong, even once, they lose the ability to call anything they do a "fact check". Same reason certain ice creams are now "frozen dairy desserts".
[+] [-] hereforphone|4 years ago|reply
Did x member of y political organization get arrested for hitting some in the head with a baseball bat?
FALSE.
[big block of text]
X member of y political organization was arrested for hitting someone in the head with a cricket bat.
[big block of text]
[+] [-] godelski|4 years ago|reply
But reading further in the article they rise doubt about masks in general, which is something we know is highly effective (purely from a physics point of view). They don't say masking is effective, they continually question if it is. This is really problematic. The study being wrong doesn't question _if_ masking is effective, but _how_ effective. There's a major difference in these statements and they can have readers, who are not experts and don't know scientific vernacular, to doubt and distrust more science than the article _technically_ draws into question. The article is suggesting that this is the norm and because this study is bad we get to question all the others.
So the problem here really is that while yes, the article only questions the one study they do so in a way that questions more fundamental knowledge that we have. Masking works. How much? Harder to say. There's a few old sayings such as "the devil never tells a full lie" or "the devil sows doubt" (often with truth). These are the errors that the authors are making here.
I would conclude that they aren't inaccurate, but are misleading.
[+] [-] umvi|4 years ago|reply
This in itself is a tricky claim to make with confidence. I agree we know certain types of masks (N95) are highly effective at preventing spread of airborne illness if worn properly.
But... in the context of the article you referenced, are you prepared to defend the claim that cloth masks which haven't been washed for months and are frequently touched, adjusted, and worn incorrectly by kids and teens are "highly effective at preventing spread of airborne illness"?
[+] [-] crisdux|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] relaxing|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] merpnderp|4 years ago|reply
It does not go on to make further judgements of masks as you stated. And it's not very long. Are you conflating an article from somewhere else?
[+] [-] sinuhe69|4 years ago|reply
Btw, the “fact-checker” labeled the article as “false information”, not as “misleading”.
[+] [-] axiosgunnar|4 years ago|reply
Forbidding questioning is really problematic.
[+] [-] goodluckchuck|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] syshum|4 years ago|reply
As both this story, and the "fact checked" story (as well as the position of many others) is not really talking about masks at the physics level (though new data about omicron is placing that in question now as well) but masking as a POLICY
it may be true that masks themselves are effective, but due to human nature masking POLICIES, including masking POLICIES in schools are not. Human interactions with the mask have we have seen countless times are far far far from perfect, people pulling on the masks, masks around chins, removing the mask to cough or sneeze, etc. Children will be even less disciplined
So I dont think they are questioning the mask as a technical barrier to stop covid, they are questioning the masks as a public policy given that humans are involved
[+] [-] andybak|4 years ago|reply
I personally think that fact checking is potentially damaging to society but so is the ability of social media to spread misleading claims.
It's difficult to predict which is going to be worse in the long run. As in many things we'll probably learn to tolerate a degree of both and aim to find a "least worse" outcome.
Anyone claiming here either that no fact-checking would be the best outcome or it's inverse (I can't quite formulate what that would be right now) is probably wrong and the messy middle is probably correct.
[+] [-] ljm|4 years ago|reply
I believe that this push for fact checking lately is a symptom of a larger problem. How often is there genuinely a single, correct version of events, and then an incorrect one, at the scale of humanity we're talking about?
And why is it hard to bridge that gap? If you take to social media, it can be really hard to have a conversation between two politically opposed groups of people without it immediately jumping to aggression.
Flat Earth News is an old book now but it's a worthwhile read still.
[+] [-] evv555|4 years ago|reply
* Force transparency on the engagement metrics and the algorithms they drive.
* Have C level executives face prison time.
* Force data interoperability or break up the SM monopolies.
All of these options are less extreme then restructuring society around social media corporations and their stakeholders.
[+] [-] defaultname|4 years ago|reply
This is a particularly weird submission because the article the person authored was basically blogspam. They took someone else's hard work, put a clickbait title on it intending for the sole value of pandering to a very specific audience, now getting to double down under the auspices of "my blogspam was suppressed" narratives.
And I suspect that the article came under the attention of Facebook because it, exactly as intended by the author, fed directly to a certain crowd that absolutely consumes and propagates fake news (not like "it's open to debate", but just astonishingly nonsensical junk that just makes a wider and wider audience of the gullible and misled). Being embraced by that crowd is probably the biggest indicator to such systems, and 9 times out of 10 it's probably spot on.
[+] [-] throwoutway|4 years ago|reply
sadly, fact checking can also spread misleading claims through social media. As others have pointed out here
[+] [-] unclebucknasty|4 years ago|reply
But IMO, we're far better off having organizations at least attempt to fact check, even if they get it wrong from time to time. The alternative is an open fire hose of unchecked disinformation, and I'm not sure how we survive that.
[+] [-] mindslight|4 years ago|reply
I'd like to hope that most of the problem is engagement amplification - eg social media's "algorithmic" editorialization for which they're not even S.230 immune (yet no one has taken them to task). Would things be so polarized if these companies didn't create personalized filter bubbles to drive engagement? Traditionally one's professed opinions had to survive in the scrutiny of the larger social sphere. Now no matter what you say, you're immediately given a soapbox and a tiny receptive audience.
In the long run, big social media like Facebook can only end up being lame, exactly how the nightly news has been - "the revolution will not be televised". Mass media inherently caters to the status quo, because at the very least it's owned by people with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Which points to increased routine filtering that keeps conversation within a nice small Overton window as it has traditionally been - that is to say, lame. In a way the rise of Zuck is an aberration indicating that when you get insanely powerful, there is no large mahogany table of stuffy old guys that sits you down and immediately brings you into their conspiracy "or else" - rather the overall dynamic happens slowly.
I also hope there is a growing up process being done by non-internet-natives newly buffeted by raw unfiltered media, en masse. Twenty years ago I was exposed to chemtrails theories, NSA mass surveillance, 9/11 was an inside job, Austrian economics, sovereign citizens - ideas that put you directly at odds with society, with differing kernels of truth (or not). No matter how much some resonated with me I was never going to start steadfastly preaching back in the real world, because the impedance mismatch was too large. Eventually you gain a sense of wisdom about the implications of these various theories and the cost of acting on them (regardless of their validity).
What I see missing today is any of this wisdom - sure vaccination could be a government sterilization campaign, but since you've made it through life so far generally trusting institutions including large corporations, perhaps following the actions implied by the conspiracy theory is imprudent. Maybe I'm being overly hopeful too, or this dynamic won't be reached because of a critical mass creating its own social proof, or it will take a few old generations to pass on and new generations steeped in the Internet's hostile noise to develop collective social wisdom.
Or maybe global communication is just the Great Filter.
[+] [-] bdhska|4 years ago|reply
Why do you think this? I am struggling to understand.
[+] [-] nu11ptr|4 years ago|reply
The truth, real truth, is EXTREMELY hard to ascertain. Therefore, be open to new ideas, but slow to accept anything as absolute truth. Those in power push narratives. Conflicts of interest make data questionable. "Experts" are just people with their own inherent biases. And often we simply learn new things.
Therefore, I can think of very few things more damaging to society and free speech than "fact checkers". Almost always I find that their "facts" are nothing more than the "opinions" of the most powerful and influential group at the time, and are usually entangled with politics. In short, "fact checkers" don't actually understand the definition of what a fact is, but are quick to declare them, and this is contrary to my experience of real, actual truth.
[+] [-] jhedwards|4 years ago|reply
I get where you're going here, and I don't totally disagree, but that's not "just" what experts are. Typically experts are people who have spent far more time than other people doing exactly what you're describing: slowly sifting through and cross-referencing data, asking questions, digging up resources, and testing hypothesis.
It's good to be skeptical, and it's important to understand that experts have bias too, but there's a difference between someone who has passively consumed information in a biased manner and an expert who has dedicated real research to arrive at their viewpoint. Being able to consume and be critical of information from biased experts while still benefiting from and being enriched by their knowledge and expertise (instead of disregarding it because you disagree) is I think the crown jewel of "critical thinking".
[+] [-] dfxm12|4 years ago|reply
Talking about trying to find an "absolute truth" is disingenuous. Yeah, we absolutely know 1+1=2, but it's impossible to absolutely know how a stock will perform. Often times, a situation doesn't call for finding "the real" or "absolute" truth, but coming to a conclusion using only the best info you have on hand at the moment.
In most cases, you can find the best info. You have to know how to find it though, how to weigh one source against another. It's like the old proverb about teaching a man to fish rather than giving them a fish. Learning "how to fish" is something you're taught in school, but then again, there are those in power that are making it harder to get a proper education. That's something to be wary of. They aren't just taking our fish, but our ability to fish.
[+] [-] new_stranger|4 years ago|reply
Facts come from studies that have been published which are disproven four years later when finally repeated.
So for a couple years at least, it's always clear what the truth is.
[+] [-] HWR_14|4 years ago|reply
Experts are usually correct. I have no idea why you would think otherwise. Now, experts in one area often misapply that authority to others where they are not expert, but within their domain they are most often right. And I have yet to see that not be the case.
[+] [-] awb|4 years ago|reply
It’s really challenging for me to speak in a way that’s unarguable. For example, instead of saying “COVID is now…”, saying “I read an article that says COVID is now…”.
The first sentence is arguable, the second is unarguable because it’s my personal experience. How often do you read articles or reporting that state unarguable truths?
Even a slight tweak from “COVID cases are spiking…” to “The NY Department of Health released data showing an X% increase in reported COVID cases statewide” makes a lot of difference in how I perceive the potential bias or truthiness of the content I’m reading.
[+] [-] tiahura|4 years ago|reply
One issue driving it is the abandonment of personal responsibility for any aspect of our lives. Americans have it constantly drilled into them to expect authority figures to take the lead on providing our basic necessities, handling workplace disputes, obtaining medical care, etc., why should we be surprised that they’ve lost the ability to think for themselves?
[+] [-] Ansil849|4 years ago|reply
This is an absurd and false statement, and is a perfect summation of why so much mis/disinformation floats around and is so popular in today's online world.
Experts do indeed have their own inherent biases. This part is a glib truism because experts are people, and all people have biases which both consciously and unconsciously influence their decision making.
But that is not "just" what experts are. Experts are people who have, by definition, expertise in a given subject matter. Unless you too are an equal expert in a given topic, experts--once again by definition--know more than you do in that field.
It doesn't mean you need to take what they say as gospel, so to speak, but it does mean that when the choice is to listen to 'random person on the internet' versus 'someone who has studied something for years and has made valued contributions to the field', the two-despite both having biases-are not on equal footing.
[+] [-] xtracto|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kypro|4 years ago|reply
As you say, most of the time these aren't "facts", but usually opinions or hypotheses based on a subject interruption of some data. The truth is even if 99% of the evidence we have today suggests masks work, this doesn't mean masks work, just that it's very likely they do assuming there isn't some bias in the research. The reason I mention bias is because it's simply true that in the past research on things like contentious subjects like climate change, smoking and various diets have been biased by corporate interest.
I think the problem we have with misinformation today is less that people sometimes believe the wrong things, but they believe the wrong things with high levels of conviction and passion. The first step in the solution to misinformation in my opinion should be to promote an attitude similar to yours -- one of general scepticism and an openness to new information and beliefs.
[+] [-] steelstraw|4 years ago|reply
Who fact checks the fact checkers?
[+] [-] moksly|4 years ago|reply
There has also never really been a period in western civilisation where the news media wasn’t heavily controlled and fact checked by powerful editors.
The real issue isn’t fact checkers, it’s that Facebook isn’t held accountable.
If we want a functioning democracy, we need to stop giving major corporations a pass because the manipulation that happens on their platforms is created and run by users. That’s not how we treated News Papers and it’s not how we should treat Social Networks. If Facebook has really been a knowing participant in genocides, then Mark Zuckerberg belongs in the Haag as far as I am concerned.
[+] [-] cblconfederate|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 5etho|4 years ago|reply
I'm not native english speaker, but calling fact checkers more damaging to society then: fox news, qanon, american nazism, evangelical believes, mormons, all christianity, school schootings, obama being war criminal for drone bombing iraqis, climate catastrphy and propping up islam regimes in saudi arabia etc, war on public transport by motor-lobby, end of democracy in us
I could go for hours, I smell right wing bullshit from miles, or OP is autistic
[+] [-] persona|4 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/truth-market-fit-unbundling-t...
[+] [-] briffle|4 years ago|reply
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0ASAxY0Roo
[+] [-] huitzitziltzin|4 years ago|reply
What’s important is that the fact checkers accept corrections and recognize that they are fallible too.
[+] [-] rgrieselhuber|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] criddell|4 years ago|reply
Do you think the fact checkers have ever taken down anything that was total bullshit and potentially harmful? Probably, right?
So some things could go wrong, but hopefully many more things go right. I also hope the process isn't static and evolves after failures like this one.
[+] [-] baq|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VikingCoder|4 years ago|reply
"A Study That the CDC Used To Support Mask Mandates in Schools Is Junk Science."
"The Study That Convinced the CDC To Support Mask Mandates in Schools Is Junk Science."
Which one makes it seem like some evidence used should be discarded?
And which one makes it seem like Mask Mandates have been proven to be a Junk Science?
See that word "The" in the headline the author used? That sure makes it sound like the single source of evidence was wrong, and so therefore the conclusion is wrong.
If you want to be really safe, and not clickbaity, you could even go for,
"Mask Mandates May Be Effective, But One Study the CDC Used Had Deeply Flawed Methodology."
That's only four characters longer than the original one:
"The Study That Convinced the CDC To Support Mask Mandates in Schools Is Junk Science."
[+] [-] rapind|4 years ago|reply
1. Fact checking is usually biased. 2. The more sensational the headline, the higher the chance of garbage journalism and bias. 3. The more boring nuance the better the chance of accuracy.
If I was building a news ranking engine I would use these principles. It would probably be at least somewhat useful in filtering out the garbage, except no one would use it because the articles near the top wouldn’t get people to click, and the only possible revenue stream would need to be paid since it can’t be optimized for engagement and still function.
[+] [-] 323|4 years ago|reply
So fact checkers were invented.
Now fact-checkers are exposed as being partisan, and sometimes outright lying (see BMJ vs FB fact-checking fiasco).
So we need to go deeper, we need to invent something new, above fact checkers, which will be trusted again.
What could such a thing be?
[+] [-] kyleblarson|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] polote|4 years ago|reply
For example if you say "There is no evidence that mask has helped reduce the spread of covid". You will probably be fact checked as false, because they think people will understand "Masks don't work".
[+] [-] snowwrestler|4 years ago|reply
So, it’s arguable that this should be taken into account by fact checking. A title that is misleading is a problem even if the article body itself is scrupulously accurate, since way more people will see the headline than read the article.
This is known and weaponized. A site will intentionally publish an accurate article with an inaccurate or misleading headline. If it is flagged by fact-checking, they get several more cycles of engagement out of complaining about the “unfair” or “biased” fact check, and especially if they get it reversed, as in this case.
In this case the original headline was “The Study That Convinced the CDC To Support Mask Mandates in Schools Is Junk Science.” That is misleading because a) the CDC considered far more than one study, b) which study “convinced” them is impossible to prove and a matter of opinion, and c) “junk science” is an uninformative pejorative.
If the headline had been “One Study the CDC Referenced When Considering Mask Recommendations Had Problems,” it would have been more accurate and less likely to be flagged. But also less useful to Reason in attracting attention and advancing a narrative.
[+] [-] djoldman|4 years ago|reply
> "This case presents a simple question: do Facebook and its vendors defame a user who posts factually accurate content, when they publicly announce that the content failed a 'fact-check' and is 'partly false,' and by attributing to the user a false claim that he never made?" wrote Stossel's attorneys in the lawsuit. "The answer, of course, is yes."
I hope there is no settlement if it proceeds.
[+] [-] foverzar|4 years ago|reply
And yet for some reason people demand more and more censorship and blame Facebook for "not doing enough". How come?
[+] [-] paul7986|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pharke|4 years ago|reply
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/jonathan-swift/gullivers-t...
[+] [-] mr_tristan|4 years ago|reply
This points to why there needs to be a clearer mechanism of rights for an individual's content. Meta owns a free license to not only repost your work, but also to modify and generate derivative works from it. What I don't understand is what they own when it comes to public content shared via links. Given the success of AMP, I suspect the answer is "you don't own much of anything on the internet".
DRM so far has been successful at allowing content generators to counteract the control of content providers. I sometimes wonder if we need easier personal DRM. Then, if some provider decides to misrepresent you, you can just yank the license. Or at least, there should be some kind of contract between the license holder and the provider.
Maybe web3 helps here? I'm still leery of putting all your eggs in a centralized blockchain system. But other than PDFs, I can't think of other approaches you can take.
[+] [-] MarkLowenstein|4 years ago|reply
I'd support a licensing system for this, at the individual and company level. If Facebook fact checks are ever wrong, even once, they lose the ability to call anything they do a "fact check". Same reason certain ice creams are now "frozen dairy desserts".