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I Was a Facebook Fact-Checker (2019)

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Re: I Was a Facebook Fact-Checker (2019)

#31

Post by adrianN »

MrPatan wrote: post #29
adrianN wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem fact checkers are trying to solve is that most people don't have the resources to do the fact checking themselves, so that malicious actors can sway public opinion with wrong or misleading information. That is extremely dangerous in democracies.

Wouldn't it be extremely dangerous to democracy if malicious actors were to take over fact-checkers? How would you know they already haven't?

You reduced the problem of keeping an eye of everything posted to keeping an eye on the fact checkers. That seems easier to me.

Re: I Was a Facebook Fact-Checker (2019)

#32

Post by [deleted] »

MrPatan wrote: post #29
adrianN wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem fact checkers are trying to solve is that most people don't have the resources to do the fact checking themselves, so that malicious actors can sway public opinion with wrong or misleading information. That is extremely dangerous in democracies.

Wouldn't it be extremely dangerous to democracy if malicious actors were to take over fact-checkers? How would you know they already haven't?

[deleted]

Re: I Was a Facebook Fact-Checker (2019)

#33

Post by raziel2p »

jdthedisciple wrote: post #22
Hermitian909 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everbody just wants the information and judge it for themselves People may say they want this, but manifestly do not. There is too much information. To illustrate: many people I know cared a great deal about whether the country was lied to about WMDs when we went to Iraq. As far as I know, zero of them have read the report by the Senate Intelligence Committee[0] but all were very glad to have the report summarized…

> That act of summarizing, of picking out which information is and is not important, is itself an act of journalism. Exactly, I'm totally with you. That is the essence of journalism I would even say. But that is where the job of the journalist ends, no sprinkling in of their own presuppositions.

It's not as clear-cut as you make it out to be. Sometimes, summarizing will change the whole meaning of the text. Journalists are not always equipped to determine what is important and what isn't (because they're not always subject matter experts, and don't have the budget to consult with one every time), and sometimes what's important to summarize will change based on your pre-disposed opinion.

It's impossible for presuppositions not to seep into journalism, especially in a capitalist system where clickbait, outrage news etc. sells better than plain retelling of facts.

Re: I Was a Facebook Fact-Checker (2019)

#34

Post by raziel2p »

roenxi wrote: post #7

> We’d be asked to check if a story about a woman who was arrested for leaving her children in the car for hours while she ate at a buffet was true; meanwhile a flood of anti-semitic false George Soros stories never showed up on the list. This is an interesting take. Doubly interesting to me because this is evidence for something that was always likely - Facebook fact checkers aren't particularly qualified in the are…

You do not always have to be a subject matter expert to do fact-checking.

Furthermore, doctors and nurses can (and have) also spread COVID misinformation, it's not a bad thing to have journalists check them.

Re: I Was a Facebook Fact-Checker (2019)

#35

Post by raziel2p »

anonnyj wrote: post #6
colordrops wrote: post #4

The main problem with many of these "fact checking" organizations and processes is that they often overstep their bounds. They work fine when they can source exact data and facts, e.g. a date, a number, the conclusion of a scientific study, the name of a person, and exact phrase that was said. But more often than not, they delve into opinion or judgement of vague or complex situations. This intermingling is not much…

You often see this thing where they debunk a claim that no one makes, and then in the body of the text admit that people's real concern is in fact true. I can't help but feel that people who have their bias confirmed by the title rarely bother to read past it + the big red "False!"

Do you have an example of this?

Re: I Was a Facebook Fact-Checker (2019)

#36

Post by jdthedisciple »

There was a video on YouTube titled "Who fact-checks the fact-checkers?".

Of course that one has by now been "fact-checked" off YouTube.

So even if I wanted to, I couldn't refer you to what was a very neat presentation of some of the issues with fact-checkers with clear evidence showing where these in fact present misinformation and demonstrate clear political bias.

And that is the problem with fact-checkers. (In this case, the "fact-checker" called YouTube that decided it didn't like the facts presented in said video).

Re: I Was a Facebook Fact-Checker (2019)

#37

Post by laumars »

colordrops wrote: post #4

The main problem with many of these "fact checking" organizations and processes is that they often overstep their bounds. They work fine when they can source exact data and facts, e.g. a date, a number, the conclusion of a scientific study, the name of a person, and exact phrase that was said. But more often than not, they delve into opinion or judgement of vague or complex situations. This intermingling is not much…

The problem is misinformation is usually published as vague data or opinions in a complex situations. Misinformation seldom comes in the form of easily refuted statistical data.

I’ve grown to realise that this is not only intentional because it is harder to disprove, but also people tend to be more emotional than statistical so having an emotional argument tends to resonate and get shared on social media with far greater prevalence than statistical memes.

Re: I Was a Facebook Fact-Checker (2019)

#39

Post by kortilla »

ajkjk wrote: post #28
teddyh wrote: post #13

Any “fact-checker” which is mandatory, is a censor in all but name.

Certainly not. Censorship is suppressing views. Fact-checking is identifying false information. They are only the same if you are only putting out false information. Then the fact-checking looks like censorship. You will say, well, the fact-checkers tend to get political. Nevertheless, they're still fundamentally different than censors.

> Fact-checking is identifying false information.

Right, identifying information as “false” is censoring it on Facebook because it suppresses it.

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