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Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire from Fact-Checking

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Re: Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire from Fact-Checking

#91

Post by [deleted] »

notacoward wrote: post #87
chrisseaton wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Scott Adams claims that about 30% of people in a society just do not get humour / satire Satire, snark, and sarcasm have to be least effective way you could possibly choose to communicate. You are absolutely begging to be misunderstood and misquoted, either genuinely or maliciously, and then it's nigh on impossible to explain yourself as all your excuses just sound like like it-was-a-prank-bro . Another huge proble…

Were you intending to demonstrate self-satire, or was it an accident? _A Modest Proposal_ alone should make the case for the effectiveness of satire, which is closely related to the even more time-honored reductio ad absurdum. The problem is that there's a lot of bad satire, and false satire, but that's a problem with almost every form of speech/writing that's not completely dry, flat, and colorless. It's true of ana…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire from Fact-Checking

#92

Post by charwalker »

ummonk wrote: post #89
Communitivity wrote: post #68

And here we go.. Funfortunately, most of the misinformation I hear is presented as entertainment. I am fine with it, if like SNL it is clearly labelled as satire, and not done as if it was news (as one network it seems to me often does). Sadly, there are many who watch that network, and shows like its shows, who believe what they are hearing to be the gospel truth. This is to the point of a man arming himself with an…

I assume the "one network" you're referring to is Fox News and not MSNBC? Because both seem to be guilty of this.

One was created to prevent a second Nixon and birthed and covers for the Trump presidency, now under impeachment on many many counts of clearly illegal and unethical behavior. The other has a series of awarded reporters and does not run baseless opinion shows half the day.

There may be some overlap, but the comparison is mountain vs molehill level unfair.

Re: Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire from Fact-Checking

#93

Post by charwalker »

forgottenpass wrote: post #85
metalliqaz wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe you pulled a "both sides" line comparing The Daily Show and The Rush Limbaugh Show. This is not apples to apples. Perhaps Rush's (or to use a more current example, Tucker Carlson's) viewers are so twisted that they no longer recognize what a comedy show is. That doesn't mean we become just as unreasonable as they are. It's not The Onion's fault when someone "eats the onion".

Aren't people who watch the Daily Show under the false impression that the setups for punchlines are real news? Why would anyone knowingly watch them butcher the news just to make the punchlines work? Watching the Daily Show when you follow the news is like watching an observational stand-up focus on weird contradictions in everyday life when you already know the un-intuitive aspects of the matter that cause the disc…

Fun part is the Daily Show still runs segments that get next to zero airtime on Fox or are put out with enough lies and disinformation to question my own sanity.

Re: Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire from Fact-Checking

#94

Post by chrisseaton »

notacoward wrote: post #87
chrisseaton wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Scott Adams claims that about 30% of people in a society just do not get humour / satire Satire, snark, and sarcasm have to be least effective way you could possibly choose to communicate. You are absolutely begging to be misunderstood and misquoted, either genuinely or maliciously, and then it's nigh on impossible to explain yourself as all your excuses just sound like like it-was-a-prank-bro . Another huge proble…

Were you intending to demonstrate self-satire, or was it an accident? _A Modest Proposal_ alone should make the case for the effectiveness of satire, which is closely related to the even more time-honored reductio ad absurdum. The problem is that there's a lot of bad satire, and false satire, but that's a problem with almost every form of speech/writing that's not completely dry, flat, and colorless. It's true of ana…

I think satire is different from just being ineffective, in that it actively opens yourself up to malicious mis-interpretation. Its failure mode isn't just your audience being confused or missing the point.

Like the comedian in the UK who said she wanted to throw battery acid at politicians. It was (probably 90%) satire. But when challenged if she said she thought you should throw battery acid all she can say is yes with a weak-sounding defence of 'but it was just a prank.'

Re: Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire from Fact-Checking

#95

Post by losvedir »

catacombs wrote: post #77
AmericanChopper wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most reporting is based on opinions, or is at least misleading in the sense that it tends to be reported from well defined perspective. The editorial decisions about what to report, what to not report, what to report as important or credible, and what to report as irrelevant or non-credible, can all be used to mislead the audience and misrepresent events. I can’t think of one mainstream news outlet that doesn’t do th…

> Most reporting is based on opinions, or is at least misleading in the sense that it tends to be reported from well defined perspective. What do you mean by this? Most new organizations have a separate, opinion section. Does your statement include the news department, too?

> What do you mean by this?

Presumably the sentence that followed your quoted one:

> The editorial decisions about what to report, what to not report, what to report as important or credible, and what to report as irrelevant or non-credible, can all be used to mislead the audience and misrepresent events.

An amusing example of that phenomenon is the so-called "Summer of the Shark"[0], where a particularly shocking attack followed by a slow news season led to disproportionate reporting on shark attacks. There wasn't actually any more shark attacks than any other year, but try surveying people around then and they might think otherwise, even if all the reporting was only non-opinion, true statements.

It's related to the Chinese Robber fallacy. Here's a great blog post[1] which demonstrates the fallacy using news stories about cardiologists.

These are fun examples, but I'm sure you can think of it with a partisan bent about your favorite topic and news source.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_the_Shark

[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/16/cardiologists-and-chin...

Re: Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire from Fact-Checking

#96

Post by leftyted »

chrisseaton wrote: post #9
cm2187 wrote: post #2

Scott Adams claims that about 30% of people in a society just do not get humour / satire and take things at the first degree, particularly if it reinforces their convictions. If it is true, and I think he may have a point, there would be some value in labelling humour or satire as such. It sounds ridiculous, but like it is ridiculous to have a label “not suitable for your pets” on a microwave!

> Scott Adams claims that about 30% of people in a society just do not get humour / satire Satire, snark, and sarcasm have to be least effective way you could possibly choose to communicate. You are absolutely begging to be misunderstood and misquoted, either genuinely or maliciously, and then it's nigh on impossible to explain yourself as all your excuses just sound like like it-was-a-prank-bro . Another huge proble…

Aren't you proving his point?

Scott Adams became world famous writing a cartoon full of snark and satire. These are perfectly valid ways of communicating and in fact they make up a significant chunk of human communication.

Reading comments like yours is somewhat bewildering to me. It seems like you're pushing philistinism as a virtue.

Re: Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire from Fact-Checking

#97

Post by username90 »

pfisch wrote: post #12
AmericanChopper wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most reporting is based on opinions, or is at least misleading in the sense that it tends to be reported from well defined perspective. The editorial decisions about what to report, what to not report, what to report as important or credible, and what to report as irrelevant or non-credible, can all be used to mislead the audience and misrepresent events. I can’t think of one mainstream news outlet that doesn’t do th…

There is a pretty big difference between a lie by omission and just spreading false information. By your definition any news would always be false because they didn't include the entire history of the world in their story. You aren't being realistic. There are people and organizations that are just spreading completely false information with the intent of deceiving people.

Lets say a publication only reports violent crime and rape committed by black people with vivid descriptions of the acts. All reports are 100% factual. Would you say that it is legitimate news?

Re: Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire from Fact-Checking

#98

Post by bko »

catacombs wrote: post #77
AmericanChopper wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most reporting is based on opinions, or is at least misleading in the sense that it tends to be reported from well defined perspective. The editorial decisions about what to report, what to not report, what to report as important or credible, and what to report as irrelevant or non-credible, can all be used to mislead the audience and misrepresent events. I can’t think of one mainstream news outlet that doesn’t do th…

> Most reporting is based on opinions, or is at least misleading in the sense that it tends to be reported from well defined perspective. What do you mean by this? Most new organizations have a separate, opinion section. Does your statement include the news department, too?

Not OP, but I think I think I see what he means. I get headlines from NYT and WSJ on my phone and sometimes you see the same news story with a different headline.

For instance recently I saw these headlines (paraphrasing):

(WSJ) Unemployment Drops to Lowest Level in 60 Years

(NYT) Unemployment Drops, Continuing the Trend of the Last 8 Years

Are these headlines necessarily editorialized? No, but I do notice this trend somewhat regularly in major publications

Re: Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire from Fact-Checking

#100

Post by [deleted] »

efa wrote: post #78
stareatgoats wrote: post #29

Interesting times, and a slippery slope. These fairly square rules will surely cause other uproars as it invites back the alt-right with their tongue-in-cheek fascism. And the Facebook algorithms seem embarrassingly incapable of nuance, like this Tommy Robinson debacle: the mere mention of the name "Tommy Robinson" in a post (in Sweden) renders your profile inactive for several days or indefinitely. In other countrie…

What is tongue-in-cheek fascism? Example.

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