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The real world is vastly more complex than "true or fake". The Trump tweet you mentioned is a perfect example. His tweet was not a simple statement of fact:
by Merad 10y ago
The real world is vastly more complex than "true or fake". The Trump tweet you mentioned is a perfect example. His tweet was not a simple statement of fact:
> The media has not reported that the National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion vs a $200 billion increase in Obama first mo.
That's a claim: "I have lowered the debt in my first month while Obama raised it". While the facts are true (the debt did go down), the claim is false. Trump has taken no action that would cause the debt to be lowered; it's not unusual for the debt level to fluctuate in the short term.
The real problem we have is that most people aren't interested in this kind of nuance at all. A statement that makes your team look like the winners, or the other team look like the losers, is easy to accept without much thought or analysis.
- pharrington 10y agoThe next level of nuance, of course, is separating Trump's propensity of associating everything positive he sees with himself and the completely true words of that tweet. The fact stated is a legitimate starting point for a policy discussion that is easily and cleanly distinct for the implied claim you referred to.
- memmcgee 10y agoThat's why it was "mostly false" instead of "false". Technically, he told the truth. But the way he wants to spin it is false.
- pharrington 10y agoThis is a good illustration of the problem of purported fact checking organizations using the supposed fact check actually as a headline for political/social commentary. If the product you're selling is commentary, don't claim you are a fact checking service.
- empressplay 10y agoThis is not fact-checking, this is opining.
- smhost 10y agoNo, it's neither. It's analyzing the consistency between the different levels of narrative. Meaning and understanding don't happen merely at the level of denotation. This is why we need to listen to the advice of poets.
- rdtsc 10y ago> Technically, he told the truth. Isn't that the problem at hand? Layering this seemingly objective "fact" checking on top of a political statements ("the way he wants to spin it"). Then picking a side. If they don't like the side then "technically" true is not enough, now the fact checker has to agree with the politics and the intent to mark it as "true". I am pretty sure if Clinton or Obama made that statement there would be very little discussion in marking it as "true" and claiming "yeah it is technically true, what she/he might have implied is up to interpretation, but statement on its own is a fact".
- wilg 10y agoHere's a list of Obama's "Mostly Falses": http://www.politifact.com/personalities/barack-obama/statements/byruling/barely-true/ http://www.politifact.com/personalities/barack-obama/stateme... They seem right in line tonally with this one from Trump.
- dredmorbius 10y agoYes. Isolated facts in and of themselves, without considering either the narrative into which they are embedded, or the world-views they invoke in recipients of those messages, are at best only a part of the much larger picture. This is why fact-checking, at the very least alone, is not a total solution.
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- jnordwick 10y agoNot saying it's true but an argument can be made (and I assume this is the one he's thinking) that growth was higher with his winning the election because the market is anticipating his policies. It is perfectly reasonable and a matter of opinion. You simply cannot write it off as factually incorrect.
- pharrington 10y agoTo clarify, the national debt is the money the federal government owes varies entities. It has nothing to do with the market.
- danjoc 10y ago>national debt >nothing to do with the market You're not familiar with the Treasury Bond market, are you?
- pharrington 10y agoMaybe I mistakenly assumed the poster wasn't referring to that one specific thing.
- jnordwick 10y agoVarious monies come into the federal government continuously, such as taxes, fees, tariffs, bonds, etc.
- empressplay 10y agoBut if you read the actual tweet he simply says debt when down in his first month vs. up in Obama's. Which is true. He doesn't say it was because of his policies. Politifact just found a way to try to spin it (which is what it is) as "false" so they could add it to the "Trump's a compulsive liar" column. To paraphrase someone else: I didn't leave the liberals, the liberals left me.
- pimlottc 10y ago