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Snopes pulls out of its fact-checking partnership with Facebook

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Re: Snopes pulls out of its fact-checking partnership with Facebook

#81

Post by fitpolar »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #79
fitpolar wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why this would get downvoted. Seems reasonable, whether it's Snopes or anyone. Similar to Apple claiming "it just works", you better make sure it works. Or Google proclaiming "don't be evil". Etc.

> Similar to Apple claiming "it just works", you better make sure it works. My Mac got a kernel panic yesterday. My response was not to swear off Apple products forever.

> My Mac got a kernel panic yesterday. My response is not to swear off Apple products forever.

Yet your response is to downvote everything you disagree with?

Not swearing off Apple products forever is your personal choice. Personally I agree with that. But I know plenty of people who DO choose to swear off Apple products when something doesn't work. That's also their choice, and I don't have a problem with that.

Re: Snopes pulls out of its fact-checking partnership with Facebook

#82

Post by mikeash »

paulddraper wrote: post #47
deogeo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Examples of false or misleading fact-checks by Snopes would be far more persuasive. That article only calls into question the neutrality of the people behind Snopes, but for all I know they could still put their biases behind them when at work.

Example 1: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mass-shootings-in-2018/ Q: Were None of 154 Mass Shootings in 2018 Committed by a Black Man, Illegal Alien, or Woman? A: Mixture. The answer should be entirely false. If you measure by suspects, two-thirds of shooters in the 154 shootings were black men. If you measure by convictions, there were zero mass shootings in 2018. By any measure you choose, the claim is incorrect…

I’m pretty sure the first one is “mixture” because the claim names three groups and only one of those groups is actually present. If I say that there are no yellow, purple, or blue apples, the fact that there are yellow apples shouldn’t just result in a rating of “false.” By pure logic that would be correct, but it won’t convey what it should.

Re: Snopes pulls out of its fact-checking partnership with Facebook

#83

Post by jtbayly »

elxx wrote: post #20
jtbayly wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part that says a satire article is "false." The part labelling the following sentence a "claim": "CNN invested in an industrial-sized washing machine to help their journalists and news anchors spin the news before publication." The part where they instructed FB to stop allowing people to see this satire piece because it would spread misinformation. The part where they knew their actions would go a long ways to po…

I don't see how this is on Snopes at all. Facebook users (and even some news organizations) fall for The Onion articles all the time and report them as fact. Snopes debunks them - that's their job, that's what they have always done. Facebook failed to accommodate for satirical publications when they introduced their "fake news" flagging. This is entirely their fault.

Nobody was being fooled by this headline. The only reason to “fact check” something like this is to punish the satire site.

And Snopes knew exactly what the consequences were on FB based on their “fact checking” work.

So a satire site making fun of how badly the mainstream news spins things got punished for “lying” because Snopes told Facebook they were lying.

If you read the original linked article, it is clear that they had to manually go in and select the articles that they believed were false and people shouldn’t be allowed to see anymore. They could have simply put up their article, without calling down FB’s wrath on the satire site, but they didn’t.

Re: Snopes pulls out of its fact-checking partnership with Facebook

#84

Post by jtbayly »

jsgo wrote: post #40
jtbayly wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part that says a satire article is "false." The part labelling the following sentence a "claim": "CNN invested in an industrial-sized washing machine to help their journalists and news anchors spin the news before publication." The part where they instructed FB to stop allowing people to see this satire piece because it would spread misinformation. The part where they knew their actions would go a long ways to po…

I can kind of see where you're attempting to go with this, but even then, it seems more like the fault is on Facebook and not Snopes. At best, maybe create a "false-by-means-of-satire" (to differentiate true or true-ish ones that are satire) flag so that if a site is going to just scrape the result ("false"), it doesn't screw with perception, but again, that's on Facebook. > The part that says a satire article is "fa…

Snopes manually reported the article to FB as fake news that shouldn’t be spread. That’s clear from the original article announcing the breakup. It wasn’t a machine problem. It was a decision to punish this site and Snopes made that decision, not FB. FB just let their algorithms run and trusted Snopes to do their job without prejudice—a trust that was obviously misplaced.

Re: Snopes pulls out of its fact-checking partnership with Facebook

#85

Post by hypochondria »

paulddraper wrote: post #47
deogeo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Examples of false or misleading fact-checks by Snopes would be far more persuasive. That article only calls into question the neutrality of the people behind Snopes, but for all I know they could still put their biases behind them when at work.

Example 1: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mass-shootings-in-2018/ Q: Were None of 154 Mass Shootings in 2018 Committed by a Black Man, Illegal Alien, or Woman? A: Mixture. The answer should be entirely false. If you measure by suspects, two-thirds of shooters in the 154 shootings were black men. If you measure by convictions, there were zero mass shootings in 2018. By any measure you choose, the claim is incorrect…

> If you measure by suspects, two-thirds of shooters in the 154 shootings were black men. If you measure by convictions, there were zero mass shootings in 2018.

But they literally say exactly this. Do you immediately stop reading after just the one word next to the graphic? Do the rest of the words mean nothing?

Re: Snopes pulls out of its fact-checking partnership with Facebook

#86

Post by jtbayly »

gpvos wrote: post #21
jtbayly wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, I don't have any idea what you're talking about when you talk about "comparing." I'm not comparing any two things. Secondly, partisan or not, the Federalist was not the one Snopes was unfairly attacking. They simply reported on the effects of the Snopes attack on a satire site.

In what way was Snopes attacking that site? It's just a short, factual note that it's a satire article and website. Now, what Facebook did with that was not good, and I can see why Snopes would want to get out of such a system.

Snopes manually reported the article to FB as fake news that shouldn’t be allowed to spread. FB trusted Snopes. That’s the opposite of what you imply, but it’s clearly the case if you read the original article at the top of the page.

Re: Snopes pulls out of its fact-checking partnership with Facebook

#87

Post by fdavison »

zaksoup wrote: post #39

it is wild to me how many people are in this thread saying "Snopes is partisan" or "Snopes is biased" or "Snopes is not a real fact checker" and who are also entirely unable to provide any actual evidence. A link to an article on the Federalist (laughably partisan) is not "evidence" any more than pointing out that they have fact-checked satirical sites is. https://reddit.com/r/atetheonion is a thing for a reason, and…

This site on ethics routinely deconstructs the problems at Snopes: https://ethicsalarms.com/?s=snopes

Re: Snopes pulls out of its fact-checking partnership with Facebook

#88

Post by hannasanarion »

jtbayly wrote: post #83
elxx wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how this is on Snopes at all. Facebook users (and even some news organizations) fall for The Onion articles all the time and report them as fact. Snopes debunks them - that's their job, that's what they have always done. Facebook failed to accommodate for satirical publications when they introduced their "fake news" flagging. This is entirely their fault.

Nobody was being fooled by this headline. The only reason to “fact check” something like this is to punish the satire site. And Snopes knew exactly what the consequences were on FB based on their “fact checking” work. So a satire site making fun of how badly the mainstream news spins things got punished for “lying” because Snopes told Facebook they were lying. If you read the original linked article, it is clear that…

No, the reason for fact checking something is to check whether it is true. Whether it is intended as a joke is irrelevant to its truth.

Are you saying you've never, ever seen anyone mistake an Onion piece for real news? I see it all the time, usually from uneducated people, racists, and new-age moonbats.

Re: Snopes pulls out of its fact-checking partnership with Facebook

#89

Post by Steko »

fitpolar wrote: post #49
0x262d wrote: post #46

fact checking has always been a silly, hopeless attempt to find a technocratic solution to fundamentally political problems.

It's a hopeless quest until AI reaches a certain level of objective interpretation. Regarding humans, most people who are capable of researching truth without any bias, don't have a voice. Human history is riddled with partisan extremists presenting biased information as neutral and factual. Snopes is no exception.

> partisan extremists presenting biased information as neutral and factual. Snopes is no exception.

Please cite some of these "partisan extremist" examples from Snopes.

Re: Snopes pulls out of its fact-checking partnership with Facebook

#90

Post by hannasanarion »

fdavison wrote: post #87
zaksoup wrote: post #39

it is wild to me how many people are in this thread saying "Snopes is partisan" or "Snopes is biased" or "Snopes is not a real fact checker" and who are also entirely unable to provide any actual evidence. A link to an article on the Federalist (laughably partisan) is not "evidence" any more than pointing out that they have fact-checked satirical sites is. https://reddit.com/r/atetheonion is a thing for a reason, and…

This site on ethics routinely deconstructs the problems at Snopes: https://ethicsalarms.com/?s=snopes

How surprising, a site with a banner that says "it's okay to be white" and currently has a front-page article about how black people are too stupid to talk in court makes a bunch of nitpicks of snopes' prose.

Presumably so that they can later say "snopes is always wrong and biased" when Snopes contradicts Breitbart's claims that Obama and the UN and Black Lives Matter are planning to burn down Central Park next weekend.

(actual thing a relative told me, actual breitbart story from summer 2015,for those HN users fortunate enough not to be exposed to the worst of the fake news epidemic)

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