5 ms·

Many conservatives consider CNN as left wing and disreputable as many liberals consider Breitbart. Your same reasoning would also apply to Wikipedia banning CNN

by pattrn 8y ago

Many conservatives consider CNN as left wing and disreputable as many liberals consider Breitbart. Your same reasoning would also apply to Wikipedia banning CNN. Would you consider that a pragmatic move? If not, then for what reasons would they differ?

lolc 8y ago
Does Breitbart even publicly retract or correct stories at all?
- masonic 8y ago
  I've seen it a couple of times. More relevant: can you identify any examples of Breitbart content that is, and remains, factually incorrect?
  - lolc 8y ago
    Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitbart_News#False_report_of_Muslim_mob_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitbart_News#False_report_of...
    - repolfx 8y ago
      Great, some meat, let's meta-check the first fact check. This is useful because your citatation is a good example of misleading commentary that tries to make Breitbart look worse than it actually is (again, do not mistake this argument for claiming it's actually super reliable). The story described on that page isn't false and the fact checks contradict themselves or end up agreeing. Wikipedia is writing about a story headlined "Revealed: 1,000-Man Mob Attack Police, Set Germany’s Oldest Church Alight on New Year’s Eve". It states "the story was later shown to be false". This seems pretty categorical. The story was false, entirely false, and nothing but false. The citation for this statement is citation 189, a story in TheLocal.de So let's read this takedown. Wiki says: St. Reinold's Church is neither the oldest church in Germany nor was the church set on fire. But the article Wikipedia cites says: St. Reinold is not Germany's oldest church - that would be the Cathedral of Trier - and a small fire had started on some netting on scaffolding around the church, not the roof, due to one firework. Wikipedia states St Reinold is the oldest church in Dortmund, Germany. So the claim of falsity here hinges on a dispute over whether churches are the same thing as cathedrals, or maybe there is an older church somewhere else in Germany, I was unable to establish that within a few minutes. However it makes no actual difference to the story, is the sort of mistake that is easily made, and in fact Breitbart has published a correction at the bottom of the story: "Correction: This article states St. Reinold’s Church is the oldest in Germany. We are happy to clarify that accolade belongs to the Trier Cathedral. Breitbart News stands by all other substantive facts in this article." This sort of minor correction occurs frequently across all news organisations, and is not worth labelling a story as entirely false. Let's continue. The second part of the claim that Breitbart is lying hinges on a dispute over whether the fire was on the roof of the church, or whether it was on some scaffolding around the church. This again does not seem very important, especially as scaffolding typically reaches the roof. The third part of the claim is this: video footage from the scene does not show a "mob", and no policemen were targeted but again, citation 189 contradicts Wikipedia. It says: The original report by the local news site from that night describes how some individuals did start launching fireworks from within the crowd towards police, who told them to stop but were ignored. So local non-Breitbart news sources reported that policemen were targeted and I suppose, whether you describe a crowd of 1000 people deliberately launching fireworks at police as a "mob" is dependent more on your viewpoint than facts - any crowd can be described that way and Breitbart makes no claim to be neutral. However they were just re-reporting what local German news itself claimed here. Final inspection. One of the stories central claims is that a group of men unfurled the flag of the "Free Syrian Army", which Breitbart describes as a group of "al-Queda and ISIS collaborators". The video is included in the Breitbart story so you can check this claim for yourself. It's actually kind of hard to see because the man unfurling the flag is facing away from the camera and we only get to see small parts of it, but it does look somewhat like the FSA flag, and again, TheLocal.de (the primary citation for the claim "the story is false") does not disagree with what happened. Instead they describe it like this: "In fact, the video shows a man holding a flag widely flown by those opposing the current government." - this is not a refutation. The FSA did indeed oppose the Syrian government. Breitbart's claim that they're "ISIS and al-Qaeda" collaborators relies on another story I won't bother to fact check, but I note nobody is disputing that claim specifically. As fact checks go this is one of the weaker ones I've seen. Most of the claims Breitbart made came from local German press to begin with, and the claims that the story is "false" turn out to be quibbles over trivial details that Breitbart itself happily corrected because they were irrelevant to the story. The other claims are all things that those disputing them actually agree with, they just have a preferred spin. Do you have other stories you believe demonstrates this problem better? I'm sure they have published entirely false stories because it's such a common thing. But this case doesn't seem to be one of those times.
      - lolc 8y ago
        They have not corrected their reporting even after everybody who was there disagreed with them. The very first sentence still reads: "At New Year’s Eve celebrations in Dortmund a mob of more than 1,000 men chanted ‘Allahu Akhbar’, launched fireworks at police, and set fire to a historic church." Their reporting constructs from disparate events a mob that fought police and attacked a church while shouting "Allahu Akhbar". The source they themselves refer to (Ruhr Nachrichten) is very clear on how events cannot be connected in that way. https://www.ruhrnachrichten.de/Nachrichten/Dortmund/Breitbart-bezeichnet-Berichte-ueber-gefaelschte-Nachrichten-als-falsch-60196.html https://www.ruhrnachrichten.de/Nachrichten/Dortmund/Breitbar...
- masonic 8y ago
  Here's an example from just today: "This article has been updated to indicate that the 1,500 people who were errantly registered included non-citizens, but that did not mean all 1,500 were non-citizens." [0] https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/10/08/california-dmv-registered-1500-non-citizens-to-vote-in-2018 https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/10/08/californ...
  - lolc 8y ago
    Thanks. Still looking for a retraction. But those are notoriously hard to find. Everybody likes to report on the retractions of others, but not on their own.
rubyfan 8y ago
I’m not sure if this deserves the downvotes or not. I get the point that right leaning and left leaning people look at these sources differently. I imagine there are differences with respect to their publishing standards and that is perhaps what is attracting the downvotes. I get the point though, the partisan divide makes it such that any programmatic banning of a source comes across looking partisan. I think this is why Twitter and others took so long to ban some publishers.
- pattrn 8y ago
  Programmatic banning of sources takes power away from editors to determine legitimacy. It censors the conversation that would have otherwise taken place. Wikipedia cannot claim impartiality once it picks and chooses sources at an organizational level. Due to having little interest in keeping up to date with Wikipedia's ban list, I certainly will no longer see it as impartial from this point onward. I'm not concerned about the downvotes when I don't see a clear reason for them. As far as I can tell, I raised a legitimate point. I'm assuming that it's legitimate because none of the downvoters commented to explain why they disagreed with my point. (I shouldn't have to say this, since it neither aids nor harms my arguments, but I don't read Breitbart.)

by pattrn 8y ago

lolc 8y ago

Does Breitbart even publicly retract or correct stories at all?

masonic 8y ago
I've seen it a couple of times. More relevant: can you identify any examples of Breitbart content that is, and remains, factually incorrect?
- lolc 8y ago
  Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitbart_News#False_report_of_Muslim_mob_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitbart_News#False_report_of...
  - repolfx 8y ago
    Great, some meat, let's meta-check the first fact check. This is useful because your citatation is a good example of misleading commentary that tries to make Breitbart look worse than it actually is (again, do not mistake this argument for claiming it's actually super reliable). The story described on that page isn't false and the fact checks contradict themselves or end up agreeing. Wikipedia is writing about a story headlined "Revealed: 1,000-Man Mob Attack Police, Set Germany’s Oldest Church Alight on New Year’s Eve". It states "the story was later shown to be false". This seems pretty categorical. The story was false, entirely false, and nothing but false. The citation for this statement is citation 189, a story in TheLocal.de So let's read this takedown. Wiki says: St. Reinold's Church is neither the oldest church in Germany nor was the church set on fire. But the article Wikipedia cites says: St. Reinold is not Germany's oldest church - that would be the Cathedral of Trier - and a small fire had started on some netting on scaffolding around the church, not the roof, due to one firework. Wikipedia states St Reinold is the oldest church in Dortmund, Germany. So the claim of falsity here hinges on a dispute over whether churches are the same thing as cathedrals, or maybe there is an older church somewhere else in Germany, I was unable to establish that within a few minutes. However it makes no actual difference to the story, is the sort of mistake that is easily made, and in fact Breitbart has published a correction at the bottom of the story: "Correction: This article states St. Reinold’s Church is the oldest in Germany. We are happy to clarify that accolade belongs to the Trier Cathedral. Breitbart News stands by all other substantive facts in this article." This sort of minor correction occurs frequently across all news organisations, and is not worth labelling a story as entirely false. Let's continue. The second part of the claim that Breitbart is lying hinges on a dispute over whether the fire was on the roof of the church, or whether it was on some scaffolding around the church. This again does not seem very important, especially as scaffolding typically reaches the roof. The third part of the claim is this: video footage from the scene does not show a "mob", and no policemen were targeted but again, citation 189 contradicts Wikipedia. It says: The original report by the local news site from that night describes how some individuals did start launching fireworks from within the crowd towards police, who told them to stop but were ignored. So local non-Breitbart news sources reported that policemen were targeted and I suppose, whether you describe a crowd of 1000 people deliberately launching fireworks at police as a "mob" is dependent more on your viewpoint than facts - any crowd can be described that way and Breitbart makes no claim to be neutral. However they were just re-reporting what local German news itself claimed here. Final inspection. One of the stories central claims is that a group of men unfurled the flag of the "Free Syrian Army", which Breitbart describes as a group of "al-Queda and ISIS collaborators". The video is included in the Breitbart story so you can check this claim for yourself. It's actually kind of hard to see because the man unfurling the flag is facing away from the camera and we only get to see small parts of it, but it does look somewhat like the FSA flag, and again, TheLocal.de (the primary citation for the claim "the story is false") does not disagree with what happened. Instead they describe it like this: "In fact, the video shows a man holding a flag widely flown by those opposing the current government." - this is not a refutation. The FSA did indeed oppose the Syrian government. Breitbart's claim that they're "ISIS and al-Qaeda" collaborators relies on another story I won't bother to fact check, but I note nobody is disputing that claim specifically. As fact checks go this is one of the weaker ones I've seen. Most of the claims Breitbart made came from local German press to begin with, and the claims that the story is "false" turn out to be quibbles over trivial details that Breitbart itself happily corrected because they were irrelevant to the story. The other claims are all things that those disputing them actually agree with, they just have a preferred spin. Do you have other stories you believe demonstrates this problem better? I'm sure they have published entirely false stories because it's such a common thing. But this case doesn't seem to be one of those times.
    - lolc 8y ago
      They have not corrected their reporting even after everybody who was there disagreed with them. The very first sentence still reads: "At New Year’s Eve celebrations in Dortmund a mob of more than 1,000 men chanted ‘Allahu Akhbar’, launched fireworks at police, and set fire to a historic church." Their reporting constructs from disparate events a mob that fought police and attacked a church while shouting "Allahu Akhbar". The source they themselves refer to (Ruhr Nachrichten) is very clear on how events cannot be connected in that way. https://www.ruhrnachrichten.de/Nachrichten/Dortmund/Breitbart-bezeichnet-Berichte-ueber-gefaelschte-Nachrichten-als-falsch-60196.html https://www.ruhrnachrichten.de/Nachrichten/Dortmund/Breitbar...
masonic 8y ago
Here's an example from just today: "This article has been updated to indicate that the 1,500 people who were errantly registered included non-citizens, but that did not mean all 1,500 were non-citizens." [0] https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/10/08/california-dmv-registered-1500-non-citizens-to-vote-in-2018 https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/10/08/californ...
- lolc 8y ago
  Thanks. Still looking for a retraction. But those are notoriously hard to find. Everybody likes to report on the retractions of others, but not on their own.

rubyfan 8y ago

I’m not sure if this deserves the downvotes or not. I get the point that right leaning and left leaning people look at these sources differently. I imagine there are differences with respect to their publishing standards and that is perhaps what is attracting the downvotes. I get the point though, the partisan divide makes it such that any programmatic banning of a source comes across looking partisan. I think this is why Twitter and others took so long to ban some publishers.

pattrn 8y ago
Programmatic banning of sources takes power away from editors to determine legitimacy. It censors the conversation that would have otherwise taken place. Wikipedia cannot claim impartiality once it picks and chooses sources at an organizational level. Due to having little interest in keeping up to date with Wikipedia's ban list, I certainly will no longer see it as impartial from this point onward. I'm not concerned about the downvotes when I don't see a clear reason for them. As far as I can tell, I raised a legitimate point. I'm assuming that it's legitimate because none of the downvoters commented to explain why they disagreed with my point. (I shouldn't have to say this, since it neither aids nor harms my arguments, but I don't read Breitbart.)