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Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

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Re: Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

#441

Post by HappMacDonald »

mhh__ wrote: post #379
aimazon wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fact checkers are the technocratic solution, they're a panel of experts to Community Note's jury of our peers. Fact checkers are a much better product feature than community notes if we want a feature that best serves people who care about facts. That's not our world, though. People don't care about facts, we are humans, our lives are lived based on vibes. The average person would rather listen to their idiot friend'…

"People don't care about facts" is such an asinine reactionary way of thinking about macro dynamics in the world. It has no predictive power at all.

Well first you've got to define what is meant by "facts". Most people presume the word refers to some kind of community consensus, and then they immediately gatekeep what counts as the "community" among which the consensus is shared.

However the basis for fact is precisely predictive power, so it's actually more like the battle between science and superstition. Information that can directly empower a person is not necessarily information that will help them to feel more comfortable or confirm their biases.

Re: Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

#442

Post by philjohn »

crindy wrote: post #319
philjohn wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind expanding on that please, what are the ethically problematic things you are trying to balance against this?

Freedom of expression comes to mind. If someone had a friend commit suicide, should they not be able to discuss their experience in public?

Absolutely they should, and when I worked there that was known as "protecting voice", that content has always been explicitly allowed because it is free expression, even if reading it can be difficult for some people. The same with someone posting images of healed scars because they've been overcoming their self harm.

The content I'm talking about is graphic photos of suicide and self injury, fresh, blood soaked cuts, bodies hanging, graphic depictions of eating disorder (that goes beyond "thinspo", which is more borderline, and so downranked and not recommended rather than removed).

It's the latter that we believed (based on the advice of experts who we relied on for guidance) is harmful when consumed in large quantities.

Re: Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

#443

Post by sneak »

jjulius wrote: post #369
linuxhansl wrote: post #338

Regardless of what you think about this step I find it disconcerting that we can now disagree on facts. For example: - whether crime is up or down - whether the earth is warming or not - how many people live in poverty - what the rate of inflation is - how much social security or healthcare costs - etc These are all verifiable, measurable facts, and yet, we somehow manage to disagree. We always used to disagree and t…

Because social media has virtually eliminated peoples general ability to have constructive, level-headed conversations that take nuance into account.

I think the idea that a) people lack nuance now or b) that it’s simply social media’s fault is the exact same kind of lack of nuance that you seem to be objecting to.

Nothing I’ve seen suggests that mass media or mass propaganda contains less nuance now versus any other time. Propaganda of all forms (regardless of whether delivered by newspaper, radio, tv, or facebook) has always been a blunt instrument.

Re: Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

#444

Post by flavius29663 »

gruez wrote: post #410
kiney wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most of those things are actually not verifiable measurable facts within any useful definition

??? Aside from maybe "whether crime is up or down" (because of under-reporting), everything else can be objectively measured. The measurements might not fit with everyone's specific circumstance (eg. earth is warming as a whole but it's unseasonably cold where you live), but that's not a reason to throw up our hands and say "those things are actually not verifiable measurable facts within any useful definition".

> - whether the earth is warming or not

The Earth is warming, but how much of it is caused by humans is under debate. The Earth is still coming out of an ice age, so it would be warming even without humans.

Also, the more important question is: how much will it accelerate based on our emissions? If there are no positive feedback loops, it would only warm up 1C maximum, no matter how much more CO2 we will emit. But because of the positive feedback loops (warmer earth -> more water evaporating -> more warming), this warming can trigger a 4-5C further warming. The feedback loops are just theoretical(you can't measure them empirically) and the quality of the estimations is based on our understanding and modelling of the climate.

Re: Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

#445

Post by netbioserror »

ternnoburn wrote: post #406
philwelch wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Austin is much closer to the center of mainstream American sentiment than the SF Bay Area, but it’s still to the left of center.

[flagged]

This is a statement about yourself, not the US.

Re: Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

#446

Post by LtWorf »

dijit wrote: post #169
LtWorf wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What tools? The ones I use are done from people all over the world, certainly not predominantly in USA. https://map.debian.net/

I know of exactly 0 European businesses they use free open source software for their office suites. Z-E-R-O. I don’t even think companies have their own mailservers anymore, its mostly gsuite and microsoft office 365; people aren’t even hosting business critical applications in Europe unless compliance forces them- let alone using European made tools to do it.

I'm sure there is more to life than using "open source office suite"

Re: Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

#447

Post by miramba »

linuxhansl wrote: post #338

Regardless of what you think about this step I find it disconcerting that we can now disagree on facts. For example: - whether crime is up or down - whether the earth is warming or not - how many people live in poverty - what the rate of inflation is - how much social security or healthcare costs - etc These are all verifiable, measurable facts, and yet, we somehow manage to disagree. We always used to disagree and t…

Every single one of your points is not boolean and depends on the definition and the data you include and exclude. For each you could easily find studies and statistics in either direction. The fact that this is apparently not obvious to you proves the point that all fact-checking is inherently biased and depends on the subjective opinions of the checking person.

Re: Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

#448

Post by pintxo »

linuxhansl wrote: post #338

Regardless of what you think about this step I find it disconcerting that we can now disagree on facts. For example: - whether crime is up or down - whether the earth is warming or not - how many people live in poverty - what the rate of inflation is - how much social security or healthcare costs - etc These are all verifiable, measurable facts, and yet, we somehow manage to disagree. We always used to disagree and t…

Could it be that nowadays we have so much more access to information that where we maybe agreed on facts in the past, they where really coarse and we did not really have much details on them, so it was maybe easier to agree?

Re: Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

#449

Post by wat10000 »

stronglikedan wrote: post #309
tshaddox wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because the word for delay in French is offensive in English It's also the word for delay in English.

It's also not offensive in English, even though some virtue signalers insist on taking offense to it.

Offense is all about context. It is objectively quite offensive when used as a term for a person. (“Objectively” works here because a word being offensive is determined by how people view it. The views are subjective but the prevalence of those view is not.)

Re: Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

#450

Post by intended »

davidw wrote: post #267
philwelch wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Austin is much closer to the center of mainstream American sentiment than the SF Bay Area, but it’s still to the left of center.

And Redding, California is far to the right of it. It's just coded language for who they're going to favor, otherwise it makes no sense at all, as it's possible to find people of all political stripes in both states, as well as employees who would take their duty to stick to the facts very seriously.

It’s a Cost reduction garbed in PR.

They have teams in Austin already.

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