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Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire from Fact-Checking

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

#61

Post by yucca_plant »

apatters wrote: post #56
AmericanChopper wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you don’t believe that you can use facts to mislead people, nor that you can mislead people without presenting anything as fact? If you report a story, using only the facts that support your narrative, and omitting only the facts that don’t support it, have you lied? Have you reported propaganda? What if you report a story, without reporting anything as a fact? What if you report “anonymous sources claim ___”, or…

I counted at least six questions in your response -- I appreciate the response, but do you really expect a rational person who seeks to make the best use of their time to respond to six questions in one comment? This makes it hard to continue the discussion IMO. I don't know where to start and it'd take me an hour to finish.

You are aware of rhetorical questions, no?

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

#62

Post by yucca_plant »

stareatgoats wrote: post #29

Interesting times, and a slippery slope. These fairly square rules will surely cause other uproars as it invites back the alt-right with their tongue-in-cheek fascism. And the Facebook algorithms seem embarrassingly incapable of nuance, like this Tommy Robinson debacle: the mere mention of the name "Tommy Robinson" in a post (in Sweden) renders your profile inactive for several days or indefinitely. In other countrie…

>"These fairly square rules will surely cause other uproars as it invites back the alt-right with their tongue-in-cheek fascism."

And what about the extreme left and their own brand of totalitarianism?

Those on the Right get almost all the focus in mainstream media because almost all mainstream media is on the Left, but the rise of urgency and activism among those on the Right is simply a response to the growing extremism of the Left that many well meaning people fail to recognize because those extremists are on their "side"

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

#63

Post by kypro »

raxxorrax wrote: post #51

Fact checkers would have me believe that we are constantly victims of Russian disinformation campaigns. I think the worth of fact checkers has already been concluded. The truth is that you should be aware of the general bias a publication has. Also how they can be linked together via parent companies. If you have multiple sources with different bias, you should be fine. The WSJ for example belongs to the Murdoch cong…

I agree. The concept of a fact checker seems extremely flawed to me. Beyond just reporting the news the media is suppose to also fact check it. And to be fair they claim to do just that, but it turns out they have biases... So the solution to that problem is add another layer? What do we do when it turns out they also have biases? Add another layer? A fact fact checker?

I rather have no fact checkers at all personally. I'd prefer to live in a world where everyone distrusts the media than a world in which everyone trusts a few bias reports claim to be the arbiters of reality.

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

#64

Post by ravenstine »

chapium wrote: post #60
ravenstine wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scott Adams is a commentator and humorist, not a researcher or academic. Most reasonable people don't expect others in such a position to cite statistics and evidence, just as we don't shout "citation needed" every time a comedian makes a joke and doesn't mention a study proving their punchline is indeed funny because it's true. Even if Scott Adams wrote something legitimately offensive, that article, like everything…

Then maybe he shouldn't be using made up statistics to reinforce his arguments. He can't just spout bullshit and be immune to criticism because he's not a true "x".

I'm not saying that he's immune to criticism or that he's even right. I'm saying that I don't find Adams using "unsourced statistics" to be a compelling reason to believe that he's wrong, and it's generally lazy argumentation when people criticize non-academic public figures for not providing statistics for the things that they say. It's really better to just argue for exactly why Scott Adams is wrong. Sure, proving a falsehood is more difficult than making falsehoods and people shouldn't be making false statements in the first place, but that's the way of the world.

In the case of Scott Adams, it's especially not fair to say that he's wrong without actually providing a reason why because, as a person who has been writing humorous comic strips for decades, he's in a position to provide his intuition as to how many people don't understand humor. Whether his belief is actually correct is a matter for discussion. It might be one thing if Joe Dirt off the street was shouting that 30% of people don't understand humor, but it's not unreasonable for someone who writes humor for a living to provide his judgment on how people respond to humor. Scott Adams doesn't write the funniest stuff in the world, but at least give the guy some credit for his experience instead of just pointing out that he doesn't have proof.

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

#65

Post by repolfx »

Angostura wrote: post #30
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…

So how do you feel about Ofcom's rules in the UK that regulate fairness and bias in broadcast channels? They seem to work fairly well.

The rules you mention are completely non-functional.

What would it mean to prevent bias in TV broadcast? Bias can show up in all sorts of subtle ways. You can't really demand people don't have opinions. You also can't ask people to be totally free of bias given limited broadcast minutes, and so many news stories to cover.

Given this starting point, you might begin by expecting people who make TV news to not publicly tell everyone about their own extreme political opinions. You might expect TV journalists not to belittle and insult major political parties.

You might expect these things, but you'd be disappointed because the Ofcom fails to enforce even this most basic of standards.

https://www.nme.com/news/channel-4-jon-snow-respond-claims-c...

What was also reported was that during one Glastonbury’s many, many chants, Jon Snow joined in to bellow “Fuck the Tories” before noting that he was “supposed to be neutral”.

You might expect supposedly neutral journalists not to openly compare political decisions to drug epidemics:

https://order-order.com/2019/09/24/bbc-compare-brexit-drugs-...

Presenter: "At times there can be a perception that most of the headlines surrounding Stoke-on-Trent have a negative connotation, whether it be Brexit or the drug monkey dust"

You might expect broadcasters not to hire political candidates to referee complaints about political bias:

https://order-order.com/2010/04/19/labour-candidate-is-bbc-b...

Ever wondered why your complaint of left-wing bias against the BBC wasn’t upheld? It could be because you were speaking to one Chris Summers on the phone. Via his Facebook we learn that Mr Summer’s isn’t too keen on his “dull, boring, grey, miserable, crap job – dealing with election complaints!” Would this be the same Chris Summers who is the Labour coucil candidate in Ealing?

You might expect that government enforcement would reduce allegations of bias to the status of supposition - they may not appear biased in public, but who knows how they are in private? But the UK doesn't even begin to approach this standard of enforced neutrality. All you have to do to prove it is read the Twitter feeds of the journalists themselves.

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

#66

Post by pjc50 »

Angostura wrote: post #30
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…

So how do you feel about Ofcom's rules in the UK that regulate fairness and bias in broadcast channels? They seem to work fairly well.

It's completely failed to cope with the present crisis. And it doesn't stop the BBC having Andrew Neil, formerly of the Murdoch Times, Daily Mail and Tory house magazine Spectator as a leading political interviewer.

Worse, I don't think "fairness" is the correct standard - that leads to bringing in AGW deniers and anti-vaxers as "balance". The standard has to be Reithian: has this discussion contributed to the viewer's understanding of the situation? Repeating two opposing sets of talking points doesn't achieve that.

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

#67

Post by program_whiz »

Add this to the disclaimers:

I'm not a doctor, this is not medical advice, just my opinion. Now onto how to heal cancer with a crystal.

I'm not a financial advisor, this is not investment advice, just my opinion. Now onto how to make millions with this one simple chart pattern.

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

#68

Post by Communitivity »

And here we go.. Funfortunately, most of the misinformation I hear is presented as entertainment. I am fine with it, if like SNL it is clearly labelled as satire, and not done as if it was news (as one network it seems to me often does). Sadly, there are many who watch that network, and shows like its shows, who believe what they are hearing to be the gospel truth. This is to the point of a man arming himself with an assault rifle (another problem, but I won't digress more than that) and shooting up an innocent pizza parlor that the entertainment show in question accused of some of the most heinous crimes in our judicial system.

We put labels at the bottom of cigarettes to warn people. Why can't we put a header at the bottom of such programs: "Satire, Not News, Not Factual".

Btw, I would love to see that banner on the bottom of The Daily Show as much as I would on The Rush Limbaugh Show, as both sides of the Red/Blue divide are guilty of this to some extent.

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

#70

Post by ilikehurdles »

Communitivity wrote: post #68

And here we go.. Funfortunately, most of the misinformation I hear is presented as entertainment. I am fine with it, if like SNL it is clearly labelled as satire, and not done as if it was news (as one network it seems to me often does). Sadly, there are many who watch that network, and shows like its shows, who believe what they are hearing to be the gospel truth. This is to the point of a man arming himself with an…

There has been an explosion in "the onion"-like fake news sources that say they're satire somewhere on the site, yet by reading the article without that context one would have no way of knowing unless they fact-check. The articles have very little, if any, of the kind of humor that defines satire. They usually publish fictional pro-GOP headlines that are often shared on social media with strong reactions from uninformed commenters.

Not flagging these articles with an appropriate label pretty much ensures that this whole facebook-based fact checking feature is nothing more than a vaporware PR campaign.

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