[outime]

I'm not commenting on US fact checkers but the concept made its way to my country of origin some time ago. As I suspected, it turned out to be completely biased, often ignoring or softening the controversial topics that affect their side. It's the same old journalism trick where they claim to be neutral and dedicated to the truth but in reality they all have their own agendas, which seems unavoidable (nowadays or since forever?). The main issue is people believing that their favorite fact checker is the most neutral and thus using their content as absolute truths.

Glad to see that the concept is now completely unpopular in my country and we're back to the usual terrible journalism where there's no controversy in stating that.

[littlecranky67]

Similar observations here in Germany. Those fact checkers pick the facts that supports their agenda and leave out others. Framing is in place just the same. And it does not matter if you look at left or right journalists or left or right fact checkers, it is all the same.

[throwawayqqq11]

What agenda?

Correcting desinfo is a legitimate goal and if you think there were errors made, well, fact check them.

I dont like this 'agenda' labeling because its the exact opposite of a factual discourse, it implies malicious intent.

[vinni2]

Do you have any proof of this?May be it’s just the matter of they don’t have resources to fact-check everything?

[duxup]

Outside specific examples, I can never tell what anyone thinks when they're concerned about journalism and bias. As far as I can tell random citizens are no better at spotting it and their own pov drives what is or isn't bias.

Plenty of times I've seen valid fact checking folks complain about bias, not because of the fact, but because they think the fact should inevitably involve a far different persuasive type discussion. Rather the fact checker isn't there to push or not push someone's policy, they're there to tell you the story that leads up to someone's argument did or didn't happen or something in-between ...

[vorpalhex]

And frequently they are simply contradicted by broadly available evidence.

Do the following exercise.

In whatever your main field of work is, the thing you are qualified in, go look up and track "fact checked" things. Keep a little tally in your notes of whether the fact checker is entirely correct, somewhat correct, or wrong.

Even on cybersecurity stories, and it's not as if there is a major journalist group pushing for the hackers and scammers, the fact checked stories are simply frequently incorrect. You can confirm this through legal filings or post-analysis in older stories.

It is, as far as I can tell, just a job done badly. The fact checkers aren't evil or malicious, just not good and confused about basic things.

[nutjob2]

This is not new. I can call myself Bearer of the Unassailable Truth Who Is Beyond All Doubt or Criticism but that doesn't make me any more accurate than the next guy.

The "Fact Checker" title is is meant to describe the task the person seeks to undertake. The evidence and argument they provide gives their opinion weight.

The real problem here is that people read a title, or look at how confident someone is, or how well dressed, neat, polite, white, young, old, nerdy, worldly, good looking, well spoken or enthusiastic and think that is means anything at all as to the validity of what they say.

[vintermann]

I had some contact with an evangelical congregation many years ago, and I remember a woman saying something like, "Everyone has their different spiritual gifts, mine is just that I know if a message is from God." That creeped me out, obviously. She was basically claiming exclusive veto on anything anyone might say.

But people who claim similar authority in political matters, the experts on expertise, or those who have the "spiritual gift" (intellectual gift, maybe?) of telling with certainty if a message is foreign propaganda, somehow don't set of as many alarm bells.

[mrtksn]

Since "truth" is more of a philosophical concept than anything else, IMHO the problem with "fact-checking" is largely rooted in the framing of it.

Instead of acting like there's some objective truth that some people know for sure, it should have been framed simply as argumentation and exposition so people can follow the logic.

I.e. let's say someone claims that mRNA vaccines are causing widespread heart attacks, the people who push these claims are almost always misrepresenting data through statistical tricks. Instead of just doing "fact checking" in form of "our data says it doesn't" its much more effective to address the original claim and expose the tricks used to give the impression that people are dying of heart attack after vaccination. It not only builds trust and reason but also makes people smart for understanding what's going on instead of feeling dumber than the "experts" who tell them the "truth".

During the pandemic, I recall some conspiracy theorists using official data in such a way that I swear it obviously shoved that vaccinated are about to die off. I spent hours multiple times to dig out and understand what the data actually says. Every single time, it was due to some technicality like the times the data is collected or processed(data entered in batches giving the impression of people dying from something that happens periodically) or something that from a laymans meant one thing but it was actually exactly the opposite when you know it(i.e. some response from the immune systems that looks bad but actually it means that the vaccine is working as expected). Oh and my favorite, change in methodology presented as change in outcomes.

[croon]

> Instead of just doing "fact checking" in form of "our data says it doesn't" its much more effective to address the original claim and expose the tricks used to give the impression that people are dying of heart attack after vaccination. It not only builds trust and reason but also makes people smart for understanding what's going on instead of feeling dumber than the "experts" who tell them the "truth".

This is in fact (no pun) what every fact checker I've ever consulted actually does. I assume a lot of people just read the conclusive "Lie"/"Truth", and don't bother with the paragraphs of reasoning and sources they're basing the conclusion on. If there are faults with sourcing evidence, logic, or anything in between, that's where the issue is, but the concept is fine.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

Maybe instead of "fact-checking", they are instead called "rebuttal" or 'counter-point'. This framing may be more accurate most of the time. But for the instances where the initial point is objectively provably false, like 'the earth is flat'.

[refurb]

Mike Benz does a nice job of covering the US State department using this for political purposes in other countries.

Instead of directly addressing dissenting opinion, you accuse people of “disinformation” and “misinformation” (my favorite - true but interpreted in a bad light). This includes passing laws in countries either punishing it (through online censorship) all the way to making such speech illegal.

And before anyone claims it’s false, Mike Benz does a nice job of sourcing evidence from US State department documents on this technique.