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Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong

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261–270 of 307 posts

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

#261

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…

I love how people think fact checking is censorship, but banning nipples and other "not advertiser friendly" content is A-O-K. One thing which annoys me about this is that internet corps have gotten with avoiding the framing of "editorial control". Facebook (and others) would like to pick and choose out of the following 1. We have things like the internet, which are utilities and only exist to convey their users inte…

Yup - this is the real problem with Section 230. Originally it was intended to shelter ISPs that just carried Internet traffic from being responsible for the contents of that traffic. We've allowed sites, especially the big tech sites, to pervert that into some sort of carte blanche excuse to exert editorial control disguised as moderation.

With zero transparency into supposed content moderation decisions and blatantly obvious unequal application of their "rules", anyone who thinks big tech isn't exercising editorial control is either naïve or just blind because the "moderation" happens to align with their personal and political beliefs.

Personally I think before you get any of the Section 230 safe harbor provisions you should be required to post your content moderation rules, and for any content moderation document the decision on how you got there - and show how the decision is supported by rules that existed at the time you made the content moderation decision. No more hiding biases behind opaque "content moderation" decisions that are far often flat out censorship of opposing views.

Want to be able to exercise editorial control and don't want to play it straight? Then fine - open yourself up to get sued like any other sites that have editorial control.

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

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "The vast majority of fact checking exists to call out stuff that's demonstrably false," > Prove it, I mean, isn't it obvious from recent history that social media fact checking emerged as a band aid , because of demonstrably false blatant lies like Pizzagate, Q Anon, Stop the Steal, and all kinds of Anti-vax crankery were spreading like wildfire on social media? And at every step of the way the social media compa…

> blatant lies Not the specific issues you mention, but the problem with this approach is that just occasionally "blatant lies" turn out to be true. Powerful people have acted to suppress dissenting opinions; whether it's whether Covid leaked from a lab or Galileo Galilei's 'Eppur si muove' way back in 1633[0], and most likely this has been going on long before that. When I look at social media I can't help thinking…

>Not the specific issues you mention, but the problem with this approach is that just occasionally "blatant lies" turn out to be true.

More often than not. Just look at the politicization of COVID. In the last couple of months we have seen a complete 180 on messaging around the lab leak theory, the vaccines don't prevent infection after all, vaccines don't prevent spread by the vaccinated after all, CDC director admitting that at least 40% of COVID hospitalizations weren't because of COVID but because people went to the hospital with something else why also happening to have COVID...

I could go on. All things that would get you "fact checked" just a few months ago (and hell probably still will get this post flagged). It's nuts.

If you really want to get angry just do some searching on Japan and the much maligned horse dewormer. Millions of people sentenced to hospitalization when there are multiple treatments that we know (now and then!) that could have prevented them? Many of these "fact checkers" were (and still are) in the middle of peddling politically motivated BS instead of actual science.

People are literally dying because of it - and still folks here are advocating for better fact checking. Simply amazing...

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

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't help those "dissenting opinions" if they're drowned out in a sea of lies or if the lies (collectively) do far more damage. It's a fairly central part of the scientific method to be able to construct falsifiable hypotheses and then to attempt to test them. > Social media fact checking isn't some kind of hard block that can suppress any idea from being seen [..] Except it just did: discussion on the origin…

>> Social media fact checking isn't some kind of hard block that can suppress any idea from being seen by anyone (in fact, this case it was little more than a caution sign), and IMHO it's probably better for the truth if it has to pass some hurdles and gets slowed down a bit, just as long as those hurdles increase the single-to-noise ratio > Except it just did: discussion on the origins of Covid was almost completely…

>So? The idea made it out, though it's far from proven.

It only "made it out" because (thankfully) not all communication has yet to be fully gatekept through "fact checkers".

In the world you are advocating for it would have never made it out.

If that doesn't scare the utter crap out of you I would strongly advocate you are GROSSLY ignorant of history and need to do some serious learning - especially about how a certain party in Europe happened to come to power before world war II. And if you don't think what we are going through right now isn't a precursor on that level - again do some serious reading (preferably from books with copyrights before the 1990s and not online) about the rise of said party. The parallelism going on right now is pretty breathtaking when you stop and really look around.

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

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It is only logical if you assume that the producer is the only source of information that can or can not be trusted. That is not reality. There are many sources of information supporting the same claim even if an important one of them (the manufacturer) can not be trusted. An untrustworthy manufacturer can still make a good product.

You don't think "The public safety problem of supporting this corrupt company" can be a bigger problem than "The health risk of not taking a vaccine"? I don't believe that's true in this case, but I also don't believe I get to make that decision for everyone.

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

#265
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m really uncomfortable with Fact Checking on the Internet, particularly because we don’t know who we are anointing as the checkers. But I have yet to see a better alternative. The status quo of just giving everyone in the world a megaphone is clearly worse and not working. It would be better if, instead of trying to claim that they were some kind of authority on what is a fact and what isn’t, they just said “this c…

"But I have yet to see a better alternative." Sure you have - openness! Sunlight is the best disinfectant. I'd much rather not see ANY censorship and instead have the tools to make my own decision and filter out content I don't want to see. The downside is that takes work; many people seem content to be spoon fed as to what to believe/not believe or can't be bothered to get informed on their own so I get why some peo…

>> I’m really uncomfortable with Fact Checking on the Internet, particularly because we don’t know who we are anointing as the checkers. But I have yet to see a better alternative. The status quo of just giving everyone in the world a megaphone is clearly worse and not working.

> "But I have yet to see a better alternative."

> Sure you have - openness! Sunlight is the best disinfectant. I'd much rather not see ANY censorship and instead have the tools to make my own decision and filter out content I don't want to see.

Except that is literally the kind of thing the GP described as "clearly worse and not working." I think the error you're making is applying individualist thinking to social problems, which has led you to come up with a "solution" that's actually fuel for the problem (e.g. someone getting exposed to QAnon, making their own decision to believe, then filtering out the content that contradicts the lie).

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant," is a slogan. It's pretty clear it's not a very good general purpose solution, at least.

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

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://gizmodo.com/facebook-will-stop-labeling-posts-questi... Arguable whether adding a ‘fake news’ label is censorship.

This is an important distinction. Claiming someone else's statements are false in fact is not censorship. What it is though is confirmation that Facebook is a publisher which publishes editorial opinions about things. (It's incidental that they claim their opinions are facts, publishers have been doing that since the beginning of time.) The only real question is why the government exempts this particular corporation…

>Claiming someone else's statements are false in fact is not censorship.

It's worse - it's poisoning the well, which can be far more effective than outright censorship.

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

#267
post #176
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “lab leak” theory, “gain-of-function” and “manufactured virus” theory were deliberately conflated by mainstream media to suppress the former two.

In their defense, most members of the mainstream media are so scientifically ignorant that they probably don't even understand the difference between those theories.

lol - you think the mainstream media cares one whit about reporting facts? I guess you are in the 20% that still trust them?

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

#268
post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Social media fact checking isn't some kind of hard block that can suppress any idea from being seen by anyone (in fact, this case it was little more than a caution sign), and IMHO it's probably better for the truth if it has to pass some hurdles and gets slowed down a bit, just as long as those hurdles increase the single-to-noise ratio > Except it just did: discussion on the origins of Covid was almost completely…

>So? The idea made it out, though it's far from proven. It only "made it out" because (thankfully) not all communication has yet to be fully gatekept through "fact checkers". In the world you are advocating for it would have never made it out. If that doesn't scare the utter crap out of you I would strongly advocate you are GROSSLY ignorant of history and need to do some serious learning - especially about how a cert…

> do some serious reading [...]

We've been watching (and really "enjoying" - although the shows are really well-made it's depressing knowing what actually happened):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_Berlin

Currently half-way through Series 3...

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

#269
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By this logic no claims can ever be proven because in the end everything is subjective. To quote Bill Clinton, it depends on your definition of “is”. Terrorism has a pretty well accepted definition - violent acts against civilians to gain political power. That’s exactly what she was doing when caught with hundreds of pounds of explosives. But again, it’s a distinction without worth - the claim implies she is a violen…

> no claims can ever be proven because in the end everything is subjective. That's not true, because Rosenberg was convicted of crimes. It's a fact to state what those convictions were. There's no arguing with that. - Rosenberg was convicted of weapons and explosive possession: 100% true statement - Rosenberg was convicted of fraudulent document possession: 100% true statement - Rosenberg was convicted of terrorism:…

Bin laden is a terrorist but he is not a convicted terrorist. Just like Susan Rosenberg who sits on the board of BLM.

Does that work better for you?

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

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook can do what it likes - but it needs to be honest and say something like: - We think the BMJ is too complicated for you to properly understand. as opposed to - We had some group independently check and the BMJ is objectively wrong. The first one seems a little un-pc, so I would say that people sharing stuff online and a loud minority going off on some mad conspiracy is the [acceptable] cost of being open with…

False binary. The BMJ article might not be wrong on pure facts, but it omits critical context. That is not the same as "too complicated to properly understand". Just because we have sort of supposed that medical professionals likely bring enough context on their own doesn't mean the publishing of that article is still not reckless.

I’m afraid I disagree. I haven’t ‘sort of supposed’ - I’ve fully expected medical professionals to bring their own context. It’s a medical journal, one of the most historical and leading ones in the world. There is nothing reckless in what they’ve done.
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