Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong

#181

Post by wang_li » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 2:49 PM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #167

andrew_ wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But this kind of thing gets seized on to promote a broad anti-vax narrative. This sort of "greater good" proclivity for squelching information is a terribly harmful thing to the free flow of information.

Cool, but what does that have to do with the present case, where they (claim they) just add context? That's not "squelching" the information.

When fact checkers “add context” to a statement it exposes that the fact checking isn’t about correctness or truth, but rather about narrative control. Which means it’s biased and one begins to wonder what context they’re leaving out of all the statements they rate as true. In the end calling it fact checking is bullshit, it’s just propaganda. This is also demonstrated by the fact that fact checkers almost always have a range of rulings, some number of pinocchios, pants on fire to mostly false to half true to mostly true. Truth is binary. Contextual addition is trying to control how the reader feels about the truth. I.e. propaganda.

Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong

#182

Post by rajin444 » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 2:51 PM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #95

wolframhempel wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true, there are fundamental problems with the concept of "fact-checking". Often the "fact" is just the majority consent, as e.g., demonstrated by the banning of the Wuhan lab leak theory prior to it becoming mainstream. But more broadly, there is a stark imbalance between the resources of the fact-checker (a few minutes or hours to decide) and the author who (e.g. in this case) conducted a month-long, in-depth i…

Be careful not to jump the gun here. The vast majority of fact checking exists to call out stuff that's demonstrably false, and it's to their credit that social media platforms link a refutation. But when you have a huge number of stories, there are going to be edge cases, and BMJ got snared by one here. As I understand it: BMJ found legit problems with one vaccine's clinical trial. But this kind of thing gets seized…

> But then they apply that label to all postings of the story, even ones who were sharing it with the subtext of "Pfizer is corrupt" rather than "don't get vaxxed".

Not getting a vaccine because the producer is corrupt seems logical to me. What am I missing? The average person has almost no power in evaluating these vaccines and relies almost entirely on trust.

Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong

#183

Post by secondaryacct » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 2:52 PM UTC

bobcostas55 wrote: post #22

The entire idea of "fact checking" on social media is premised on the notion that fact checkers have some kind of superior epistemic merit compared to the checkees. When you're fact checking random people or journalists that may or may not be true, but why does Zucc think facebook's checkers are superior to the BMJ? What are the fact checker's credentials, and most importantly what is their track record? The extreme…

It's like if you were bemoaning children were taught by teachers rather than figure it out on their own.

A bad teacher is better than no teacher, a bad censor is better than your grandma telling my kid virii dont exist :p

Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong

#184

Post by intended » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 2:54 PM UTC

Every time these conversations come up on HN - there’s a number of comments saying that fact checkers have to decide things in a rush - contrasted against authors who spend time on an article.

Am I missing something about American fact checkers ?

The sites I know have limited resources so they spend their time on quality work in the few places they can.

How does fact checking work in the states ? Is there something non obvious about fact checking groups?

Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong

#185

Post by CWuestefeld » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 2:56 PM UTC

treis wrote: post #157

SilasX wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful not to jump the gun here. The vast majority of fact checking exists to call out stuff that's demonstrably false, and it's to their credit that social media platforms link a refutation. But when you have a huge number of stories, there are going to be edge cases, and BMJ got snared by one here. As I understand it: BMJ found legit problems with one vaccine's clinical trial. But this kind of thing gets seized…

Having read the original article and BMJ's follow up I think Facebook is right here. The original article does lack context and is not a measured response to the problems found. Especially so considering it was published in November 2021 after hundreds of millions of doses were given and the vaccine was obviously safe and effective. They should have known better than to give fodder to the anti-vax movement.

You seem to be making a normative statement, that journalism should be making editorial decisions in order to nudge toward the outcome they believe is correct (or that some societal watchdog believes is correct?) rather than what's normally considered the goal of detached and dispassionate reporting.

Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong

#186

Post by madeofpalk » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 2:56 PM UTC

d35007 wrote: post #153

rdtsc wrote: post #64

> Facebook’s ‘independent fact-checker’ doesn’t like the wording of the article by the BMJ. And if I don’t delete my post, they are threatening to make my posts less visible. Obviously, I will not delete my post . . . If it seems like I’ve disappeared for a while, you’ll know why.” Just treat them as ideological censors, not unlike those employed by authoritarian regimes. You want to publish an article criticizing th…

> No, they won’t send you to a labor camp or come after your family. And, yes it’s a private company and if anyone doesn’t like it they can leave, but the mechanics of censorship are exactly the same. If you have to ignore 2 mechanisms by which authoritarian regimes enforce censorship in order to say that "the mechanics of censorship are exactly the same", then they're not _exactly_ the same.

Reminds me of John Mulaney

> If we're comparing the badness of two words and you won't even say one of them... That's the worst word.

Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong

#187

Post by jrd79 » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 2:56 PM UTC

pdpi wrote: post #100

kryogen1c wrote: post #76

the idea of "fact checking" has a false premise - its begging the question[0]. we need to disabuse ourselves of this notion that we can know the Truth or the "facts" if we just checked enough. there is no such thing as contextless infromation. is the sky blue? depends. maybe it emits a certain spectrum based on gas content on our planet, but color is a perceptual experience. did trump\biden say X? maybe; is that the…

You don’t need to have a nuanced perspective on the truth to be able to spot outright lies and nonsense. E.g. Bill Gates is most certainly not using the vaccines to inject tracking chips on the whole of the world population. I’m perfectly OK with fact checkers getting rid of that level of nonsense while letting most of everything else true.

The problem with your reasoning--and it is exhausting that society seems to need to relearn this every generation--is that this is not about what standard you think is reasonable. It is about the granting and exercise of power. Once the power has been granted to determine what is true or false, and to suppress the latter, then absent a carefully constructed system of checks and balances, that power will be abused, as all unchecked power is.

It doesn't even take long. When they took out Infowars a few years back, people kept saying it was ok because they are so terrible, etc. A couple years later and they are brazenly censoring the New York Post, the oldest newspaper in the US, and one with a very large readership, because it posted a completely and obviously true, newsworthy, and timely story about Hunter Biden during a presidential election.

That anybody defends this paradigm of social media censorship shows how deeply rooted tribalism is in human nature, and how it degrades the capacity in otherwise smart people for critical thinking.

If an article has false assertions, is missing context, or is being used by third parties to promote related falsehoods, then the remedy is for critics to write other pieces that correct the record and let the public sort out truth from falsehood. If the critics can't make their case, then that is on them, not an excuse to set up an unaccountable power structure to quash unfavored ideas.

Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong

#188

Post by madeofpalk » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 2:59 PM UTC

robmccoll wrote: post #141

evancoop wrote: post #135

On some level, this is the strongest argument in favor of Facebook's original position - that they oughtn't be responsible for distinguishing fact from fiction. Ask any entity to discern truth at scale and there will be errors and vociferous debates. So, what's preferable? Unfettered venom and lies mixed with the best attempts at rationality or the discourse moderated by unseen arbiters and algorithms? Ideally, there…

Neither. Change the law to make platforms like Facebook accountable for the content published on them. Here's how you do that without damaging speech or making platform companies impossible: make platform protections dependent on revenue stream. If you are paid by the author to publish their work, you are a protected platform and it isn't your content. If you make money by selling advertising alongside the content or…

Wait...

> If you make money by selling advertising alongside the content [...] you are exposed to libel lawsuits [...] The rest will sort itself out.

By "sort itself out" you mean Facebook would moderate and remove 100x more content? I cannot see how that is not the only outcome if you make platforms liable for the content its users post.

Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong

#189

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 3:02 PM UTC

bobcostas55 wrote: post #22

The entire idea of "fact checking" on social media is premised on the notion that fact checkers have some kind of superior epistemic merit compared to the checkees. When you're fact checking random people or journalists that may or may not be true, but why does Zucc think facebook's checkers are superior to the BMJ? What are the fact checker's credentials, and most importantly what is their track record? The extreme…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong

#190

Post by causalmodels » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 3:03 PM UTC

secondaryacct wrote: post #183

bobcostas55 wrote: post #22

The entire idea of "fact checking" on social media is premised on the notion that fact checkers have some kind of superior epistemic merit compared to the checkees. When you're fact checking random people or journalists that may or may not be true, but why does Zucc think facebook's checkers are superior to the BMJ? What are the fact checker's credentials, and most importantly what is their track record? The extreme…

It's like if you were bemoaning children were taught by teachers rather than figure it out on their own. A bad teacher is better than no teacher, a bad censor is better than your grandma telling my kid virii dont exist :p

Is a bad teacher better than no teacher? My parents had to pull my brother out of third grade because his teacher routinely picked on and harassed him, even going so far as to give him an in school suspension for talking back because they refused to believe "sphere" was a word even after being shown numerous dictionary entries.