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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

#101

Post by sublupo »

hannasanarion wrote: post #90
fdavison wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 weeke…

Here is an example of a false Snopes article https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gop-obamacare-repeal-elect...

Snopes claims that a meme (showing a picture of people, many of whom have red x over their faces, writing that everyone with a red x has been voted out of office) is true even though they admit

> Although memes are frequently grossly inaccurate, this one got the general idea and numbers correct (even if the persons actually pictured in the accompanying photograph are difficult or impossible to identify).

Some of the people with an x were not elected people and some did not get voted out. This meme is clearly false, yet Snopes calls it true.

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

#102

Post by TheOperator »

0x262d wrote: post #46

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

Fact checking is a great development. Don't get hung up on fact checkers bogus claims of neutrality and objectivity. Instead realise that "fact check" articles are basically like regular news articles but with easy to track down references and sources.

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

#103

Post by hannasanarion »

sublupo wrote: post #101
hannasanarion wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 weeke…

Here is an example of a false Snopes article https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gop-obamacare-repeal-elect... Snopes claims that a meme (showing a picture of people, many of whom have red x over their faces, writing that everyone with a red x has been voted out of office) is true even though they admit > Although memes are frequently grossly inaccurate, this one got the general idea and numbers correct (even if the pe…

Is the information on the snopes page false or incorrect? No, it isn't.

There's a reason that they write more about each topic than merely the headline.

"snopes occasionally makes editorial decisions I disagree with" is not the same as "snopes is fake and unreliable".

Sorry, I must have missed it the first time, tell me again why you continue to rely on an overtly racist blog to be your arbiter of "ethics"?

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

#104

Post by sublupo »

hannasanarion wrote: post #103
sublupo wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is an example of a false Snopes article https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gop-obamacare-repeal-elect... Snopes claims that a meme (showing a picture of people, many of whom have red x over their faces, writing that everyone with a red x has been voted out of office) is true even though they admit > Although memes are frequently grossly inaccurate, this one got the general idea and numbers correct (even if the pe…

Is the information on the snopes page false or incorrect? No, it isn't. There's a reason that they write more about each topic than merely the headline. "snopes occasionally makes editorial decisions I disagree with" is not the same as "snopes is fake and unreliable". Sorry, I must have missed it the first time, tell me again why you continue to rely on an overtly racist blog to be your arbiter of "ethics"?

> Is the information on the snopes page false or incorrect? No, it isn't.

It is both false and incorrect. Saying that "every one with an x has since been voted out of congress" When not every one with an x has since been voted out of congress is false. I mean even the article quotes a tweet listing 10 people who were incorrectly marked. You should see what Snopes does every time a right wing person says something not 100% correct.

> "snopes occasionally makes editorial decisions I disagree with" is not the same as "snopes is fake and unreliable".

Again, the Snopes article is blatantly false.

> Sorry, I must have missed it the first time, tell me again why you continue to rely on an overtly racist blog to be your arbiter of "ethics"?

Sorry, I missed why you think that I continue to rely on a racist blog to be my arbiter of ethics.

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

#105

Post by archagon »

Fauntleroy wrote: post #50

I can't believe the massive number of HN users here who are willingly throwing critical thinking under the bus just because of political bias. It's maddening that people are making the jump from "Snopes posted something possibly incorrect about soda cans" and "Snopes one time fact checked shitty satire" directly to "Snopes is untrustworthy". Everything is imperfect, even fact checking groups. If you're going to throw…

It never ceases to amaze me how dumb smart people can be. Without a hint of self-awareness, they get locked into the same partisan boxes as anyone else, yet swear hand-over-heart that they're rationally examining society from an impartial outside perspective.

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

#106

Post by 0x262d »

TheOperator wrote: post #102
0x262d wrote: post #46

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

Fact checking is a great development. Don't get hung up on fact checkers bogus claims of neutrality and objectivity. Instead realise that "fact check" articles are basically like regular news articles but with easy to track down references and sources.

but that isn't "fact checking" - it's a very limited promise (of being well-sourced). and even then it is debatable. objectively true and as-good-as-neutral is exactly the claim being made, at least implicitly, by the fact checking hype.

the ultimate effect of fact-checking will be to reinforce the power of mainstream, well-established news sources, which is all well and good unless you think they consciously choose which facts they share and how they frame them in a way that goes against your interests, which I believe is often true (and plenty of people agree with me). then it falls back to being a failed technocratic solution to a political problem very suddenly.

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

#107

Post by 0x262d »

sgc wrote: post #72
0x262d wrote: post #46

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

I disagree completely. That's the equivalent of saying property restitution is stupid because the real problem is why thieves steal.

no it isn't

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

#108

Post by rhizome »

incongruity wrote: post #70
rhizome wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...or the value of the work.

That’s not really a new MO for them - remember, this is a site that uses unpaid content creators to attract other unpaid content creators and then sells access to us and knowledge about us to businesses and political interests among others. Figuring out how to pay very little and suck out a lot of value is what their business is built on.

The mere definition of profit does not excuse Snopes' having got a bad deal.

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

#109

Post by SEJeff »

rhizome wrote: post #69
nitwit005 wrote: post #59

If Facebook was only willing to devote $100,000 to it, it seems like they basically spent the minimum amount possible so that they could claim they were doing something. The expense doesn't remotely match up to the scale of the problem.

...or the value of the work.

Valuable to whom? Those false narratives gets lots of likes, shares, and comments. It almost seems that facebook is financially motivated to encourage things that are viral. These things make them more money.
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