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Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

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Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#111

Post by temp8964 »

switchbak wrote: post #72
temp8964 wrote: post #35

Quoted post unavailable.

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'…

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.

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#112

Post by Enginerrrd »

ninkendo wrote: post #79
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe my preferred endgame is just a world without global social media, then.

I'd MUCH prefer that to the alternative mentioned above.

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#113

Post by throwaway_2009 »

threatofrain wrote: post #97
throwaway_2009 wrote: post #40

"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".

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 t…

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.

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#114

Post by throwaway_2009 »

Capira wrote: post #95
throwaway_2009 wrote: post #40

"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".

fact.

[citation needed]

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#115

Post by colinmhayes »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #34
nojito wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

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.

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#116

Post by jmeister »

moolcool wrote: post #98
nradov wrote: post #33

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

It'd be easier to identify Babylon Bee content as satire if they were actually funny

To be fair to them, their targets make their job so easy that they’ve stopped trying.

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#117

Post by bastardoperator »

webdoodle wrote: post #38

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.

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.

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#118

Post by escaper »

dionian wrote: post #89
teachrdan wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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 a…

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.

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#119

Post by simonh »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #45

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 b…

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.

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#120

Post by Mezzie »

endisneigh wrote: post #87
Closi wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 fact…

> 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.

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.

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