5 ms·

Trying to overcompensate for bias is how we got into this mess in the first place. Rather than picking a set of biases and viewpoints and presenting that, news

by cbhl 8y ago

Trying to overcompensate for bias is how we got into this mess in the first place. Rather than picking a set of biases and viewpoints and presenting that, news orgs and silicon valley have decided that $thing_i_agree_with and $the_opposite_view deserve equal reach/airtime.

cbhl 8y ago
I totally expect that Facebook will just pick biased "fact-checkers" on both sides of the aisle and call it done. Google has over 150 organizations that are allowed to "fact check" through their API: https://www.blog.google/products/search/fact-check-now-available-google-search-and-news-around-world/ https://www.blog.google/products/search/fact-check-now-avail...
- dymk 8y ago
  Feel free to look at the list of fact-checkers that Facebook uses for any particular country, if you're so inclined: https://www.facebook.com/help/publisher/182222309230722 https://www.facebook.com/help/publisher/182222309230722
  - 08-15 8y ago
    I just looked at the entries for Germany. There is one: "Correctiv", funded by the Open Society Foundation, which is George Soros' marxist agitprop organisation. But I've heard they are the good guys, so we can probably assume they'll just check the facts and not put on spin on it, right?
    - and1or2 8y ago
      The ministry of truth funded by a global oligarch who is famous for breaking the Bank of England. Wake up people!
    - matt4077 8y ago
      It's a journalism startup much like ProPublica, i. e. taking on long-term projects with in-depth reporting. And take your anti-semitism elsewhere.
      - vageli 8y ago
        > And take your anti-semitism elsewhere. Which part of 08-15's comment are you referring to with this statement?
        gdhbcc 8y ago
        The part he disagreed with
        AnarchoYeasty 8y ago
        The use of George Soros and Marxist as scary words. First off, Soros is not a Marxist. In the least bit. However using Soros as a dirty word is the practice of neo Nazis and antisemites for a long time. And anyone remotely familiar with German history knows that when people talk about Marxist owned shit, they really mean Jewish owned.
x220 8y ago
>Rather than picking a set of biases and viewpoints and presenting that, news orgs and silicon valley have decided that $thing_i_agree_with and $the_opposite_view deserve equal reach/airtime No, we do that because a marketplace of subjective ideas is a good thing.
- hug 8y ago
  Except a lot of the "ideas" aren't subjective. The most obvious case would be climate change. Regularly, climate skeptics are given the same amount of airtime as climate scientists, despite the fact that the evidence and opinion is overwhelmingly in support of climate change being a real problem. A realistic panel would be 98 climate scientists on one side, and two climate skeptics on the other. By giving someone with far less evidence equal airtime and respect, it lends credence to that point of view despite it being so poorly supported by facts. This is most definitely not a good thing.
  - x220 8y ago
    I had a wonderful chemistry teacher once. Someone asked him what he thought about climate change, and he gave a fantastic response. "The atmosphere is a lot like a fish tank full of water. If you put food coloring in that fish tank, it turns slightly red. The more food coloring you put in that tank, the more red it gets. If you take a flashlight and try and shine light through one side of the fishtank and out the other side, the food coloring blocks some of the light. The more food coloring you put in, the more light it blocks... and turns to heat. Try it. You'll make the water warmer. "That water is like our atmosphere. That food coloring is like CO2. And that flashlight is like our sun." It's not difficult to convincingly and simply explain the evidence for man-made climate change. Evenly matched debaters would predictably win and lose if they were told to argue for or against climate change. The reason why climate scientists fail to convince TV viewers about climate change is that they are scientists: they spend more time practicing science than practicing persuading laypeople in terms that they will understand. Going up against demagogues, they have zero chance. The game isn't bad. It works incredibly well most of the time for most of the problems we have encountered. It doesn't work so well when one side is incredibly bad at convincing common people and is not willing to change argument tactics, or when both sides are making completely subjective arguments.
claudiawerner 8y ago
Herbert Marcuse picked up on this idea that mass media broadcasts any opinion no matter how stupid and misinformed in 1965, and it's only gotten worse: >Within the affluent democracy, the affluent discussion prevails, and within the established framework, it is tolerant to a large extent. All points of view can be heard: the Communist and the Fascist, the Left and the Right, the white and the Negro, the crusaders for armament and for disarmament. Moreover, in endlessly dragging debates over the media, the stupid opinion is treated with the same respect as the intelligent one, the misinformed may talk as long as the informed, and propaganda rides along with education, truth with falsehood. This pure toleration of sense and nonsense is justified by the democratic argument that nobody, neither group nor individual, is in possession of the truth and capable of defining what is right and wrong, good and bad. Therefore, all contesting opinions must be submitted to 'the people' for its deliberation and choice. But I have already suggested that the democratic argument implies a necessary condition, namely, that the people must be capable of deliberating and choosing on the basis of knowledge, that they must have access to authentic information, and that, on this. basis, their evaluation must be the result of autonomous thought. (From Repressive Tolerance, 1965)
- bobthepanda 8y ago
  At the same time, sometimes the informed are wrong because of fundamentally flawed assumptions. Most of science at one point thought the world was flat. More recently, the mainstream experts have been wrong on: - the superiority of American mass motorization - the environment - the drug epidemic - the economic sustainability of a housing-investment-centered economy So on and so forth. Democracy is great because it allows some level of correction if elites are horribly misguided, even if it can be too late. But you don't see misguided policies rapidly killing millions of domestic innocents because of a lack of feedback: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign And we certainly have not come up with workable alternatives that work better.
  - masonic 8y ago
    Most of science at one point thought the world was flat. Generally, none of science thought the Earth flat. Prehistoric creation stories lacked science altogether. The flatness that some in Abrahamic traditions clung to was partially motivated by apparent conflict with scripture, such as explaining the stoppage of the sun miracle.

by cbhl 8y ago

cbhl 8y ago

I totally expect that Facebook will just pick biased "fact-checkers" on both sides of the aisle and call it done. Google has over 150 organizations that are allowed to "fact check" through their API: https://www.blog.google/products/search/fact-check-now-available-google-search-and-news-around-world/ https://www.blog.google/products/search/fact-check-now-avail...

dymk 8y ago
Feel free to look at the list of fact-checkers that Facebook uses for any particular country, if you're so inclined: https://www.facebook.com/help/publisher/182222309230722 https://www.facebook.com/help/publisher/182222309230722
- 08-15 8y ago
  I just looked at the entries for Germany. There is one: "Correctiv", funded by the Open Society Foundation, which is George Soros' marxist agitprop organisation. But I've heard they are the good guys, so we can probably assume they'll just check the facts and not put on spin on it, right?
  - and1or2 8y ago
    The ministry of truth funded by a global oligarch who is famous for breaking the Bank of England. Wake up people!
  - matt4077 8y ago
    It's a journalism startup much like ProPublica, i. e. taking on long-term projects with in-depth reporting. And take your anti-semitism elsewhere.
    - vageli 8y ago
      > And take your anti-semitism elsewhere. Which part of 08-15's comment are you referring to with this statement?
      - gdhbcc 8y ago
        The part he disagreed with
      - AnarchoYeasty 8y ago
        The use of George Soros and Marxist as scary words. First off, Soros is not a Marxist. In the least bit. However using Soros as a dirty word is the practice of neo Nazis and antisemites for a long time. And anyone remotely familiar with German history knows that when people talk about Marxist owned shit, they really mean Jewish owned.

x220 8y ago

>Rather than picking a set of biases and viewpoints and presenting that, news orgs and silicon valley have decided that $thing_i_agree_with and $the_opposite_view deserve equal reach/airtime No, we do that because a marketplace of subjective ideas is a good thing.

hug 8y ago
Except a lot of the "ideas" aren't subjective. The most obvious case would be climate change. Regularly, climate skeptics are given the same amount of airtime as climate scientists, despite the fact that the evidence and opinion is overwhelmingly in support of climate change being a real problem. A realistic panel would be 98 climate scientists on one side, and two climate skeptics on the other. By giving someone with far less evidence equal airtime and respect, it lends credence to that point of view despite it being so poorly supported by facts. This is most definitely not a good thing.
- x220 8y ago
  I had a wonderful chemistry teacher once. Someone asked him what he thought about climate change, and he gave a fantastic response. "The atmosphere is a lot like a fish tank full of water. If you put food coloring in that fish tank, it turns slightly red. The more food coloring you put in that tank, the more red it gets. If you take a flashlight and try and shine light through one side of the fishtank and out the other side, the food coloring blocks some of the light. The more food coloring you put in, the more light it blocks... and turns to heat. Try it. You'll make the water warmer. "That water is like our atmosphere. That food coloring is like CO2. And that flashlight is like our sun." It's not difficult to convincingly and simply explain the evidence for man-made climate change. Evenly matched debaters would predictably win and lose if they were told to argue for or against climate change. The reason why climate scientists fail to convince TV viewers about climate change is that they are scientists: they spend more time practicing science than practicing persuading laypeople in terms that they will understand. Going up against demagogues, they have zero chance. The game isn't bad. It works incredibly well most of the time for most of the problems we have encountered. It doesn't work so well when one side is incredibly bad at convincing common people and is not willing to change argument tactics, or when both sides are making completely subjective arguments.

claudiawerner 8y ago

Herbert Marcuse picked up on this idea that mass media broadcasts any opinion no matter how stupid and misinformed in 1965, and it's only gotten worse: >Within the affluent democracy, the affluent discussion prevails, and within the established framework, it is tolerant to a large extent. All points of view can be heard: the Communist and the Fascist, the Left and the Right, the white and the Negro, the crusaders for armament and for disarmament. Moreover, in endlessly dragging debates over the media, the stupid opinion is treated with the same respect as the intelligent one, the misinformed may talk as long as the informed, and propaganda rides along with education, truth with falsehood. This pure toleration of sense and nonsense is justified by the democratic argument that nobody, neither group nor individual, is in possession of the truth and capable of defining what is right and wrong, good and bad. Therefore, all contesting opinions must be submitted to 'the people' for its deliberation and choice. But I have already suggested that the democratic argument implies a necessary condition, namely, that the people must be capable of deliberating and choosing on the basis of knowledge, that they must have access to authentic information, and that, on this. basis, their evaluation must be the result of autonomous thought. (From Repressive Tolerance, 1965)

bobthepanda 8y ago
At the same time, sometimes the informed are wrong because of fundamentally flawed assumptions. Most of science at one point thought the world was flat. More recently, the mainstream experts have been wrong on: - the superiority of American mass motorization - the environment - the drug epidemic - the economic sustainability of a housing-investment-centered economy So on and so forth. Democracy is great because it allows some level of correction if elites are horribly misguided, even if it can be too late. But you don't see misguided policies rapidly killing millions of domestic innocents because of a lack of feedback: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign And we certainly have not come up with workable alternatives that work better.
- masonic 8y ago
  Most of science at one point thought the world was flat. Generally, none of science thought the Earth flat. Prehistoric creation stories lacked science altogether. The flatness that some in Abrahamic traditions clung to was partially motivated by apparent conflict with scripture, such as explaining the stoppage of the sun miracle.