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By "agree with the content", the author clearly doesn't means "believe that the content is factually incorrect", rather that they disagree with the viewpoint ex

By "agree with the content", the author clearly doesn't means "believe that the content is factually incorrect", rather that they disagree with the viewpoint expressed in the story.

ithilglin909 8y ago
And I'm certain a story that touches on any controversial issue would be more likely to get flagged as false, regardless of whether the content is factual.
- MichaelKSpencer 8y ago
  I was just thinking the same thing.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> By "agree with the content", the author clearly doesn't means "believe that the content is factually incorrect" I disagree that that is obvious, and, moreover, I would disagree with the idea that the author would have any way of telling whether someone flagging merely disagreed with some aspect of the viewpoint/presentation outside of the base facts or disagreed with both the viewpoint and the fact claims, seeing the latter as misrepresented to serve the former. Further, it's virtually impossible to cleanly separate disagreement on viewpoint from disagreement over facts, because the two mutually interact (particularly viewpoints not only shape perception of facts but also perceptions of the; relative importance of facts.) For instance, there is a story right now circulating in even fairly mainstream, especially conservative, media (notably including Fox News) and being widely shared on social media alleging that a proposed California law would ban restaurants from serving children any drinks except the two choices of milk and water. This story is invariably couches in a lot of viewpoint around crazy nanny state liberals and other conservative stereotypes of California. It is very likely that lots of people would disagree strongly with the viewpoint of the story. But the actual proposal, as one discovers with a few minutes of research, (1) doesn't limit what restaurants can offer to children (it limits “default drink options” for children's meal combos) and the limitation it proposes isn't to just milk and water (it includes milk, water, flavored water, and nondairy milk alternatives). It is, in other words, factually false in several dimensions. Now, if one agrees with the viewpoint, one may be more likely to dismiss those factual errors, even if you are aware of them, as minor and tangential. If one disagrees with the viewpoint, one is likely more inclined to see them as significant and central and indicative of a deliberate distortion to push an agenda.
- ithilglin909 8y ago
  Maybe I’m overly pessimistic about how people collectively behave. But seriously, imagine an article posted on Facebook stating that Planned Parenthood sells body parts of aborted fetuses (or something similarly likely to elicit reactions). Obviously, that's either factual or it’s not. Yet I'm certain that if Facebook users had the ability to vote on whether the story is true of false, they would vote based on personal beliefs, not on what they would find by fact-checking the story. Likewise, for anything else that in any way touched on an inflammatory issue. Do you actually think otherwise?
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Obviously, that's either factual or it’s not. Sure, but unless people actually work at PP or carry out their own individual on-site investigation, their knowledge of the fact is going to be based on what third-party sources they trust (including those acting as fact checkers), which is tightly correlated with viewpoint. > Facebook users had the ability to vote on whether the story is true of false, they would vote based on personal beliefs, not on what they would find by fact-checking the story. They'd probably vote based on their beliefs about the facts, which would often include checking with sources they trust on facts. Of course, those beliefs—and where fact checking is involved, the set of trusted sources—will be strongly correlated with their beliefs about abortion. The ivory tower ideal of a clean separation between how people address fact claims and the value system in which they give significance to facts, where you could then isolate which process was involved in a decision excluding the other, is, while convenient, not at all a reflection of reality.
    - ithilglin909 8y ago
      > their knowledge of the fact is going to be based on what third-party sources they trust (including those acting as fact checkers), which is tightly correlated with viewpoint. But that's true of nearly everything. On anything controversial, users will generally vote based on what they like to believe, and such a system of ranking news stories or posters of news stories would never be reliable.

By "agree with the content", the author clearly doesn't means "believe that the content is factually incorrect", rather that they disagree with the viewpoint expressed in the story.

ithilglin909 8y ago

And I'm certain a story that touches on any controversial issue would be more likely to get flagged as false, regardless of whether the content is factual.

MichaelKSpencer 8y ago
I was just thinking the same thing.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> By "agree with the content", the author clearly doesn't means "believe that the content is factually incorrect" I disagree that that is obvious, and, moreover, I would disagree with the idea that the author would have any way of telling whether someone flagging merely disagreed with some aspect of the viewpoint/presentation outside of the base facts or disagreed with both the viewpoint and the fact claims, seeing the latter as misrepresented to serve the former. Further, it's virtually impossible to cleanly separate disagreement on viewpoint from disagreement over facts, because the two mutually interact (particularly viewpoints not only shape perception of facts but also perceptions of the; relative importance of facts.) For instance, there is a story right now circulating in even fairly mainstream, especially conservative, media (notably including Fox News) and being widely shared on social media alleging that a proposed California law would ban restaurants from serving children any drinks except the two choices of milk and water. This story is invariably couches in a lot of viewpoint around crazy nanny state liberals and other conservative stereotypes of California. It is very likely that lots of people would disagree strongly with the viewpoint of the story. But the actual proposal, as one discovers with a few minutes of research, (1) doesn't limit what restaurants can offer to children (it limits “default drink options” for children's meal combos) and the limitation it proposes isn't to just milk and water (it includes milk, water, flavored water, and nondairy milk alternatives). It is, in other words, factually false in several dimensions. Now, if one agrees with the viewpoint, one may be more likely to dismiss those factual errors, even if you are aware of them, as minor and tangential. If one disagrees with the viewpoint, one is likely more inclined to see them as significant and central and indicative of a deliberate distortion to push an agenda.

ithilglin909 8y ago
Maybe I’m overly pessimistic about how people collectively behave. But seriously, imagine an article posted on Facebook stating that Planned Parenthood sells body parts of aborted fetuses (or something similarly likely to elicit reactions). Obviously, that's either factual or it’s not. Yet I'm certain that if Facebook users had the ability to vote on whether the story is true of false, they would vote based on personal beliefs, not on what they would find by fact-checking the story. Likewise, for anything else that in any way touched on an inflammatory issue. Do you actually think otherwise?
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Obviously, that's either factual or it’s not. Sure, but unless people actually work at PP or carry out their own individual on-site investigation, their knowledge of the fact is going to be based on what third-party sources they trust (including those acting as fact checkers), which is tightly correlated with viewpoint. > Facebook users had the ability to vote on whether the story is true of false, they would vote based on personal beliefs, not on what they would find by fact-checking the story. They'd probably vote based on their beliefs about the facts, which would often include checking with sources they trust on facts. Of course, those beliefs—and where fact checking is involved, the set of trusted sources—will be strongly correlated with their beliefs about abortion. The ivory tower ideal of a clean separation between how people address fact claims and the value system in which they give significance to facts, where you could then isolate which process was involved in a decision excluding the other, is, while convenient, not at all a reflection of reality.
  - ithilglin909 8y ago
    > their knowledge of the fact is going to be based on what third-party sources they trust (including those acting as fact checkers), which is tightly correlated with viewpoint. But that's true of nearly everything. On anything controversial, users will generally vote based on what they like to believe, and such a system of ranking news stories or posters of news stories would never be reliable.