Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire from Fact-Checking

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 119 posts

Re: Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire from Fact-Checking

#31

Post by [deleted] »

andybak wrote: post #18
chrisseaton wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Scott Adams claims that about 30% of people in a society just do not get humour / satire Satire, snark, and sarcasm have to be least effective way you could possibly choose to communicate. You are absolutely begging to be misunderstood and misquoted, either genuinely or maliciously, and then it's nigh on impossible to explain yourself as all your excuses just sound like like it-was-a-prank-bro . Another huge proble…

Aren't all the reasons you state, reasons why satire, snark, and sarcasm are actually incredibly effective ways to communicate? Not many people have the fortitude to resist their charms or the self-awareness to police themselves indefinitely. I know I don't.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire from Fact-Checking

#32

Post by apatters »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #19
pfisch wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a pretty big difference between a lie by omission and just spreading false information. By your definition any news would always be false because they didn't include the entire history of the world in their story. You aren't being realistic. There are people and organizations that are just spreading completely false information with the intent of deceiving people.

By my definition it is generally not possible for an entity to be an effective authority on what is or is not false or misleading. You could think of contrived examples which you could get nearly everybody to agree to as false, like claiming the sun revolved around the earth. But that’s not what’s being discussed. What’s being discussed is establishing Facebook (or other entities) as the ministry of truth. > There is…

What do you think of the Media Bias Chart? https://www.adfontesmedia.com/static-mbc/

This project assesses the factual accuracy and political bias of a large number of articles (and by extension, the publishers of those articles).

It seems to me that we have always had the ability to verify whether a given statement is factual or counterfactual, and that's a big part of what good journalism is.

A verifiable fact is a verifiable fact and no matter how many people believe otherwise, it's still a fact.

Certainly this is not the whole issue and publications may introduce bias through selection, presentation and opinion, which is why it's important to scrutinize the publications.

I don't think Facebook is the right place for any of this to happen, but it's where the eyeballs are, so it's impossible for it to _not_ happen on Facebook in some form. I think Facebook will fail because there is no way to do this algorithmically. At Facebook scale you can only do things algorithmically.

We should dismantle Facebook and get our news from a federated set of relays which syndicate content from a diverse set of publishers whose objectivity is audited by independent third parties who publish clear and transparent guidelines and findings.

A web browser in which you've bookmarked the Associated Press, NPR, the WSJ, and the BBC is a decent start for the average person, as long as you don't also bookmark Wonkette or InfoWars.

Re: Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire from Fact-Checking

#33

Post by MaysonL »

jerrre wrote: post #4
cm2187 wrote: post #2

Scott Adams claims that about 30% of people in a society just do not get humour / satire and take things at the first degree, particularly if it reinforces their convictions. If it is true, and I think he may have a point, there would be some value in labelling humour or satire as such. It sounds ridiculous, but like it is ridiculous to have a label “not suitable for your pets” on a microwave!

I'm already looking forward to serious articles that are going to be ironically labeled as satire (obviously again misunderstood by some percentage of the population)

As opposed to the Onion articles which are confusingly close to actual news. [or are merely prescient]

Re: Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire from Fact-Checking

#34

Post by nosianu2 »

ForHackernews wrote: post #28
nosianu2 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you ignore what I actually wrote? Wouldn't discussions be much better if you actually responded to what other people actually say? Given that you want truth, it's quite ironic that you yourself don't seem to be quite flexible.

"If X, then Y" "X seems pretty bogus." "Who cares if X is true? Anyway, Y Y Y"

That is a malicious and twisted misrepresentation of what I wrote. I actually wrote something about that right in that comment. That is quite the evil discussion style you got there - I'll leave you to it then.

Re: Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire from Fact-Checking

#35

Post by MaysonL »

richardwhiuk wrote: post #17
probably_wrong wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad you brought this specific quote from this specific author, because to me it presents some very interesting questions. On one hand, I used to follow Scott Adams' blog when he made that assertion and a couple other ones. His point, if I remember correctly, boiled down to "I'm going to present an obviously wrong idea, argue in favor of it, and see where it takes us". In this context, his assertion about people…

If you want to hold an opinion which is viewed by society as dangerous, presenting as just a hypothetical, might allow you to reduce your criticism, while still openly stating it. Given all opinions are based around what you would do in a hypothetical circumstance, the limits should be pretty low. Also, there's a strong difference between satire and hypothetically asserting that rape is innate.

Or as Lord Buckley always said "If you must tell the truth, be sure to leave them laughing!".

Re: Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire from Fact-Checking

#37

Post by cm2187 »

probably_wrong wrote: post #15
cm2187 wrote: post #2

Scott Adams claims that about 30% of people in a society just do not get humour / satire and take things at the first degree, particularly if it reinforces their convictions. If it is true, and I think he may have a point, there would be some value in labelling humour or satire as such. It sounds ridiculous, but like it is ridiculous to have a label “not suitable for your pets” on a microwave!

I'm glad you brought this specific quote from this specific author, because to me it presents some very interesting questions. On one hand, I used to follow Scott Adams' blog when he made that assertion and a couple other ones. His point, if I remember correctly, boiled down to "I'm going to present an obviously wrong idea, argue in favor of it, and see where it takes us". In this context, his assertion about people…

I can't help thinking that his support for Trump is more like an intellectual challenge than any personal convictions. He is quite open on the fact that he disagrees with much of his policy. But his view on the persuasion aspect is interesting.

Re: Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire from Fact-Checking

#40

Post by makomk »

pfisch wrote: post #12
AmericanChopper wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most reporting is based on opinions, or is at least misleading in the sense that it tends to be reported from well defined perspective. The editorial decisions about what to report, what to not report, what to report as important or credible, and what to report as irrelevant or non-credible, can all be used to mislead the audience and misrepresent events. I can’t think of one mainstream news outlet that doesn’t do th…

There is a pretty big difference between a lie by omission and just spreading false information. By your definition any news would always be false because they didn't include the entire history of the world in their story. You aren't being realistic. There are people and organizations that are just spreading completely false information with the intent of deceiving people.

A lie by omission can be used to convince the public of things that aren't true just the same as more direct methods of spreading false information.
Post reply on HN