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

Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

bmj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 702 posts

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#81

Post by zekica »

teachrdan wrote: post #55
j_m_b wrote: post #23

> We are aware that The BMJ is not the only high quality information provider to have been affected by the incompetence of Meta’s fact checking regime. It is not an acceptable tradeoff that some high quality information is censored in order that bad information is policed.

I'd normally agree with you. But in the case of Covid, some political actors are launching coordinated efforts to deliberately misinform millions of Americans in regards to a virus that has, so far, killed over 800,000 people here. How do we deal with this challenge without censoring some information that ought not be censored?

Why don't the mainstream actually inform people of all important facts? Them being trustworthy, will make people less inclined to believe misinformation. If you skip over important questions, these gaps will be filled with bull**ters.

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#82

Post by oh_sigh »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #45

This one is much trickier than it looks. Reposting user nojito's post ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29596111 ), but here in a top level comment: > The fact check was correct in this instance though? > https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/11/fact-check-britis... > The conclusions in the original BMJ article make zero sense when actually scrutinized. > https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2635 Please read b…

Article makes claim X. Readers of article say it makes claims X, Y, and Z. Independent fact check puts a stamp on article saying "This doesn't say Y and Z", but to most people, who will for the same reason share an article after only reading a title or a little blurb their friend wrote, will write off the article as flawed or fake news because of the fact check stamp.

Not really sure what a good solution to this is, other than to "fact check" people's posts on facebook, as well as the links they share. So maybe this link can be shared without the fact checked stamp among epidemiologists on facebook, but Bob's anti-vaxx group may get fact check labels when they try to summarize what is in the article.

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#83

Post by DrHilarius »

teachrdan wrote: post #55
j_m_b wrote: post #23

> We are aware that The BMJ is not the only high quality information provider to have been affected by the incompetence of Meta’s fact checking regime. It is not an acceptable tradeoff that some high quality information is censored in order that bad information is policed.

I'd normally agree with you. But in the case of Covid, some political actors are launching coordinated efforts to deliberately misinform millions of Americans in regards to a virus that has, so far, killed over 800,000 people here. How do we deal with this challenge without censoring some information that ought not be censored?

If misinformation cannot reliably be distinguished from truth, how can you so confidently assert that there are "coordinated efforts to deliberately misinform"?

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#85

Post by Mezzie »

periheli0n wrote: post #6

Turns out fact checking is hard and costs money. What's surprising is that Meta, which has capable staff and lots of money, can't seem to be bothered to do it properly.

My bet would be they're not willing to pay for the actual expertise they need. I bet the fact-checkers FB employs don't have the qualifications those of us who fact-check academic publications have; the sheer amount of information FB has to wade through tells me that they need a lot of people, and I have an inkling that they would really resist paying for non-tech expertise that doesn't immediately lead to $$$$.

I also wouldn't be surprised if there were perverse incentives for the fact-checkers: Some claims take longer than others to evaluate, but I bet they're on some sort of metric based system. Or that 'I don't know' or 'it's unverifiable' aren't good enough answers even though that happens.

I also don't know if FB could GET that expertise at this point: I view big tech more kindly than most information specialists I know and I wouldn't work for FB even for six-figures.

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#86

Post by mensetmanusman »

chrisseaton wrote: post #69
nradov wrote: post #33

In 2018 Facebook "fact checked" a Babylon Bee article with this headline: “CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine to Spin News Before Publication”. (Babylon Bee is a humor site and clearly labeled as such.) https://twitter.com/Adam4d/status/969405110324523008

Well... that seems to be working? The story isn't a fact. Got marked as not a fact. What's the problem?

When they are wasting time fact checking satire and also censoring facts from renowned medical journals, it points to some failure in the system occurring.

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#87

Post by endisneigh »

Closi wrote: post #75
Mezzie wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wouldn't work, at least not outside of places like HN with a strong technical bent and a strong assumed knowledge base of the people. I've done fact-checking work professionally; it's not that fact-checking itself is difficult, it's that fact-checking can only work as intended in certain information environments, and mass media is NOT one. I've also studied filter bubbles, algorithmic influences on political POV…

> 2.) What counts as a claim? Is 'the sky is blue' a claim, or is that common knowledge? We clearly wouldn't flag common knowledge because using the flag when it's not necessary deprecates the usefulness of the flag, but then who decides what counts as common knowledge, particularly across different cultures and countries? As a further point, what if a blog says "not a single cloud was in the sky" and subsequent fact…

> As a further point, what if a blog says "not a single cloud was in the sky" and subsequent facts show there was in fact one cloud in the sky - does that count as fake news?

I wouldn't say it's "fake news", but it would be a claim that would be deleted, yes.

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#88

Post by AlexTWithBeard »

goopthink wrote: post #46

In addition to the points raised by BMJ and in the comments below, there is a limit to what independent fact checking can accomplish. For example, are their fact checkers conducting their own scientific experiments validating claims and outcomes of a scientific paper? Are fact checkers reaching out to sources from a news article and verifying quoted information? When “breaking news” or “scoops” are reported presentin…

I wonder how much more expensive would it be to have "explainers" instead of "fact-checkers".

We all have heard about "the same lies being repeat over and over". Well, if these lies are indeed all kinda the same, then it should be relatively easy to (1) gather a proper, extensive set of facts that disprove the lies and then (2) hire an army of war hamsters to introduce these facts into discussion - following the guidelines from (1).

Right now this approach doesn't work very well, because as soon as you start attacking anyone with facts and logic, you simply get banned from the community. But I'm sure changing this is within the power of the social media.

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#89

Post by dionian »

teachrdan wrote: post #55
j_m_b wrote: post #23

> We are aware that The BMJ is not the only high quality information provider to have been affected by the incompetence of Meta’s fact checking regime. It is not an acceptable tradeoff that some high quality information is censored in order that bad information is policed.

I'd normally agree with you. But in the case of Covid, some political actors are launching coordinated efforts to deliberately misinform millions of Americans in regards to a virus that has, so far, killed over 800,000 people here. How do we deal with this challenge without censoring some information that ought not be censored?

How do we know the misinformation from the authorities is not similarly a problem? CDC and FDA flip flopped so many times over the last few years. WHO and CDC were telling us not to worry about pandemics, and instead worry about "stigma" instead as late as March 2020.

https://twitter.com/DrTedros/status/1229137314074505216?s=20 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1224734993966096387?s=20

Censorship is not the answer. It actually gives more credence to the persecuted/wrong and lets them gain more supporters. Just like we dont ban KKK or Nazi stuff, we openly destroy their arguments with facts, not fascism.

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#90

Post by natded »

OldManAndTheCpp wrote: post #12

"Fact checking" serves only to ossify the current view on any emerging discussion. Vatican "fact checkers" kept Galileo under house arrest for spreading "fake news", in a sense. This is an unwinnable fight, the only reasonable response is to abandon the pretense that opinions are facts, and that most people can't distinguish truth from falsehood.

Fact checking is censorship taken on behalf of protected opinions. This is what Facebook itself has asserted in a lawsuit[1]. It is an political act, taken against political enemies. Schmitt would have a field day in 21st century.

> [1] https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1469331084550852615/ph...

Post reply on HN