Facebook should be banned from allowing any content about COVID in its network, for public health reasons. They are a shit company that leeches on the free content of their users, who would expect any kind of good to come out of this. No need to sue them , investigate them etc, just ban anything that mentions covid on their network
Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong
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Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong
#72The 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…
The idea behind "fact checking" is that facebook wants to push the burden for the crap they broadcast to someone else, and it works, lawmakers go along with it.
Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
"If you mix science and politics, you get politics"
In the same vein: "If you mix art and politics, you get propaganda"
May I ask where this quote came from? It seems utterly nonsensical to me.
Edit: maybe it’s Politics with an uppercase P rather than politics with a lowercase p? That would make more sense.
Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong
#74Did the people who pushed the “Fact Checking” system ever consider what the people reading the misinformation the fact check would appear under would think when they saw the fact check? Because I really doubt the thing going through their head is “wow this might be wrong”. Trust in any government, media or institution has already been completely burned for those people and things like “Fact Checks” to them only makes…
Very good point. That’s exactly what was happening in the Soviet Union. People craved banned things. Books, ideas, articles, authors, items from the West, etc. Being banned automatically increased their appeal.
Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong
#75The 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 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…
Did Facebook really censor the lab leak idea? Last I checked, Facebook only censored the idea that the virus was manufactured, not that it merely leaked - and that theory is still fringe.
Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong
#76the 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 whole question - that their mouth made a set of sounds? did they say it, or did they mean it? could they have changed their mind? did they mean it but only tried halfheartedly?
this can be true of hard sciences too. aspects of newtonian physics were known to be true, verifiably by all experimental data, until one day they were proven false. not that physics are so dogmatic, but if facebook can factcheck the bmj, im sure theyd fact check some patent clerk.
i have been pondering the words of the history enthusiast dan carlin[1]. he thinks the most important person in history was JFK because he chose peace and didnt deploy nukes when everyone around him was forcefully recommending WWIII due to the known motives, the "facts" of russia and cuba. i wonder what the fact checkers would have been saying about that.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
[1] https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-series/
EDIT: the due dilligence required to learn about a topic and have the gall to report about its "truth" is called journalism, not fact checking. its not called facebook journalism because that would too obviously be a steaming pile of shit.
Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong
#77"Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong" Where has it gone wrong? “We did not call into question the integrity of The BMJ’s story, only the comprehensiveness of it. That’s the point of a ‘Missing Context’ rating. The BMJ article is being used as evidence of Vaccine Conspiracy theories, it's not like the warning is on the Article, it's where it's shared on Facebook and the missing context label is rele…
1. The screenshot shows Facebook is telling owners groups of group that the information is "partly false." "Partly false" is obviously a distinct claim, and one that does not appear to be supported.
2. Quality reporting is being censored by selectively applying a label that belittles its objectiveness.
Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong
#78Earlier 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…
Did Facebook really censor the lab leak idea? Last I checked, Facebook only censored the idea that the virus was manufactured, not that it merely leaked - and that theory is still fringe.
When Peter Daszak drafted the Lancet letter which was published in February 2020 it pretty much shut down any open discussion of origins. "It's of natural origin, or you're a conspiracy theorist".
It took the Lancet 16 months(!) to publish a conflict of interest statement revealing that Daszak was linked to the Wuhan Institute of Virology via EcoHealth Alliance.
Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong
#79The 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…
I think they are mostly journalists that couldn't get hired on at a major newspaper.
We could use more reporters and fewer journalists.
Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong
#80Earlier 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…
Did Facebook really censor the lab leak idea? Last I checked, Facebook only censored the idea that the virus was manufactured, not that it merely leaked - and that theory is still fringe.
https://gizmodo.com/facebook-will-stop-labeling-posts-questi...
Arguable whether adding a ‘fake news’ label is censorship.