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All Twitter users in the US will start to see crowdsourced fact checks on tweets

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Re: All Twitter users in the US will start to see crowdsourced fact checks on tweets

#61

Post by akira2501 »

protomyth wrote: post #31

I've learned the mob, no matter their political beliefs, doesn't know a damn thing as a group. If there is a technical answer, it used to be possible to get a correct answer, but that is almost always through the view of some political leaning. Frankly, given the utter sh?t-show of YouTube content warnings[0], I have no faith in this crud. This just seems like a bots paradise to influence opinion and ban people. 0) t…

I have never in my entire life expected the truth from the crowd. Why on earth would you do that if truth was truly your concern?

These proposals seem to ignore this basic reality. They also presume that peoples primary desire in communication with one another is truth. Our entire system of language belies that idea entirely.

The condescension of it all gets to me as well, as if you give everyone the unvarnished truth that they would all make the same decisions based upon that information. It's a parochial desire that could only be held by government agents or embarrassed billionaires. It has no true purpose for society as a whole.

Re: All Twitter users in the US will start to see crowdsourced fact checks on tweets

#64

Post by ThatGeoGuy »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #47
krapp wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This "feature" I see it in the same way as warning labels - "Caution: Hot" - treats people as if they can't practice critical thinking and common sense. History demonstrates that, for the most part, people can't. Even Hacker News - a community of people who should "know better" - is infested with conspiracy theories, disinformation and bullshit. And the general public trusts Facebook memes more than the mainstream…

Growing up I knew a kid who's leg had been run over by a lawn mower. He still had it, but half his calf was missing and he had horrific scaring. I never saw the lawn mower that chewed his leg up, but I'd bet it had warning stickers on it like all mowers do. Don't stick your fingers in the blades, and certainly don't run over your younger brother with it.. The warning stickers won't fix stupid, but everything dangerou…

This points to a larger discussion about systems thinking. Specifically that warning labels put responsibility on the individual to correctly read, interpret, and act on information in the label. Alternatively, consider not using a label and fixing the underlying systemic problem so that there is no danger in the first place. In the case of a lawn mower, this is designing it such that it doesn't require a human to operate it correctly. It fails to operate if used incorrectly.

Given this is HN, the equivalent in software is: fix the code on your side; don't try to train your users. We don't add warning labels telling users to not do SQL injection, we solve it systematically by making sure our backend isn't using untrusted user inputs directly in queries!

You're right in that warning stickers won't fix stupid, and that we need more systemic action in order to treat the cause and not the symptom. I'll be honest: I don't even know what that systemic action would be in the case of misinformation on Twitter, but I know that warning labels are just a way to shunt responsibility away from Twitter and onto individual users.

Re: All Twitter users in the US will start to see crowdsourced fact checks on tweets

#65

Post by MichaelCollins »

krapp wrote: post #55
MichaelCollins wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growing up I knew a kid who's leg had been run over by a lawn mower. He still had it, but half his calf was missing and he had horrific scaring. I never saw the lawn mower that chewed his leg up, but I'd bet it had warning stickers on it like all mowers do. Don't stick your fingers in the blades, and certainly don't run over your younger brother with it.. The warning stickers won't fix stupid, but everything dangerou…

These fact checks and warning labels are semantically different enough that arguments from equivalence only work to a point. We know that people can be influenced by what they read on social media, and social media platforms aren't (currently) legally liable for misinformation spread by their users.

> social media platforms aren't (currently) legally liable for misinformation spread by their users.

They're politically liable for it. The misinformation warnings on social media aren't there to protect dumb people from misinformation; those people won't heed the warnings. The misinformation warnings are there to keep political heat off the company.

Do you think any would-be flat earther has ever been saved by a warning "Fact check: the earth is actually round"? If somebody was going to fall for a flat earther video, a content warning from youtube won't change their mind. I don't believe that.

Re: All Twitter users in the US will start to see crowdsourced fact checks on tweets

#66

Post by bombcar »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #26
bombcar wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slashdot had moderation and metamoderation and it worked ... for awhile. Part of the reason was you could still browse at -1 if you wanted to, so there were chances for things that got "attacked" to bubble back up. Not sure if it helped kill it or if that was incidental. The "rules" always have interpretations and most people don't steelman posts that disagree with them.

Slashdot's moderation/metamoderation worked fairly well at policing the tone of the conversation, but was worthless for factual accuracy. Troll, flamebait and funny moderations were accurately applied, but the insightful moderation was given mostly given to comments which confirmed the biases of the community. Past tense because I mostly stopped going to slashdot when cmdrtaco left. I don't really know how the modera…

Most moderation ends that way but yeah, it’s a hollowed out shell of itself now.

Re: All Twitter users in the US will start to see crowdsourced fact checks on tweets

#67

Post by phailhaus »

Alupis wrote: post #59
phailhaus wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is very much an unfinished story. And the story about Hunter's laptop isn't? Do you see how you're giving yourself a pass but you want to "wait for the whole story" when the DOJ successfully executed a search warrant for top secret documents on the former president ?

No, not at all. We have all of the content from Hunter's Laptop at this time, and there is no investigation that will happen. We know for a fact the story was buried deliberately, we even have the likes of Mark Zuckerberg corroborating as much, indicating the FBI directed Facebook to suppress "misinformation" about the Biden campaign. We do not have all the content from the Classified Documents story - in fact it's i…

Given that you have been complaining about cherrypicking facts/narratives by the other side, you need to acknowledge the fact that you are doing that at this very moment. You are handwaving away one of the biggest stories in the DOJ's history, a search warrant executed against a former president. We know he has top secret documents, we know they were not declassified, and we know they were held negligently while mixed up with magazines in a comically insecure facility.

You have to admit that this is as big if not bigger than "Hunter's laptop", because otherwise all you're really saying is "I want them to talk about MY stories and not THEIRS!"

Re: All Twitter users in the US will start to see crowdsourced fact checks on tweets

#68

Post by seibelj »

noahtallen wrote: post #19
seibelj wrote: post #4

How will this work when reality is partisan? The Hunter Biden laptop story was a debunked conspiracy by the “experts” until it wasn’t, and the recent Chinese election data stolen “conspiracy” (as declared by the NYT) turned out to be true. Yet day after day the stories about Trump and Russia were blasted by major media… until that was totally debunked. It’s like one side decides what is true and the other side is con…

Some of the conspiracies didn’t conclude the way you say they do, or at least not completely. As far as I can tell, the current “consensus” is that the Hunter Biden laptop, while real, can’t prove any unethical behavior on the part of the president. And the Russian stuff — while Muller couldn’t prove that Trump asked Russia for help (beyond the video of him asking for it in camera, perhaps as a joke), it is still tru…

I think if it was Donald Jr's laptop rather than Hunter Biden's the mainstream media would be going bananas over it.

Re: All Twitter users in the US will start to see crowdsourced fact checks on tweets

#69

Post by MichaelCollins »

ThatGeoGuy wrote: post #64
MichaelCollins wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growing up I knew a kid who's leg had been run over by a lawn mower. He still had it, but half his calf was missing and he had horrific scaring. I never saw the lawn mower that chewed his leg up, but I'd bet it had warning stickers on it like all mowers do. Don't stick your fingers in the blades, and certainly don't run over your younger brother with it.. The warning stickers won't fix stupid, but everything dangerou…

This points to a larger discussion about systems thinking. Specifically that warning labels put responsibility on the individual to correctly read, interpret, and act on information in the label. Alternatively, consider not using a label and fixing the underlying systemic problem so that there is no danger in the first place. In the case of a lawn mower, this is designing it such that it doesn't require a human to op…

> I don't even know what that systemic action would be in the case of misinformation on Twitter

The whole premise of twitter is rotten, to fix it you would need to cut out vitality and the dopamine reward mechanisms. As long as twitter exists in the present form, it will have these problems.

Trying to fix twitter is like trying to fix a lawn mower; the machine is fundamentally dangerous to fools and you can't fix that without radically changing what the machine is. Deadman switch? They'll ziptie it. Warning labels? Unheeded. Paternalistic AI watching everything you do/read and trying to intervene when it thinks you're doing something stupid? Equal parts pipe dream and dystopian nightmare. Crowdsourcing fact checks? Proven a farce years ago.

Re: All Twitter users in the US will start to see crowdsourced fact checks on tweets

#70

Post by Alupis »

phailhaus wrote: post #67
Alupis wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not at all. We have all of the content from Hunter's Laptop at this time, and there is no investigation that will happen. We know for a fact the story was buried deliberately, we even have the likes of Mark Zuckerberg corroborating as much, indicating the FBI directed Facebook to suppress "misinformation" about the Biden campaign. We do not have all the content from the Classified Documents story - in fact it's i…

Given that you have been complaining about cherrypicking facts/narratives by the other side, you need to acknowledge the fact that you are doing that at this very moment. You are handwaving away one of the biggest stories in the DOJ's history, a search warrant executed against a former president . We know he has top secret documents, we know they were not declassified, and we know they were held negligently while mix…

> We know he has top secret documents

We do.

> we know they were not declassified

We do not know this, actually. That is literally what is being litigated at this very moment.

> and we know they were held negligently while mixed up with magazines in a comically insecure facility

We do not know yet if this even matters...

> a search warrant executed against a former president

Which is extremely shocking and unusual - actually unprecedented. So far the follow-up investigation has been much more lackluster and much less iron-clad as we were initially led to believe.

Political hit job? Perhaps. Malfeasance on part of the former President? Perhaps.

We don't yet know. Yet, if you've made up your mind already then you've stepped on the land mine set for you by the GP of this particular thread.

> You have to admit that this is as big if not bigger than "Hunter's laptop

Not even remotely. Hunter's laptop revealed Hunter sold access and influence to the current president, particularly to nations hostile to this country. We also know Joe Biden not only discussed these business dealings with Hunter, but also received a cut of the payments. He is "The Big Guy".

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