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The BBC is without a doubt more trustworthy than the average story that goes viral on Facebook. Since the former is a product established by that government (wi

The BBC is without a doubt more trustworthy than the average story that goes viral on Facebook. Since the former is a product established by that government (with some indirection to remove it at least from day-to-day political influence), it seems not to be quite as impossible to judge the quality of a publishing operation as you make it out to be. Yes, people will invariably point to some instances of the BBC receiving flak for errors in judgement (edit: see below for examples). But if we collectively can no longer agree that there is a difference between the BBC and, say, infowars, then we have lost anyway, and all that’s left is to gleefully watch civilization circling the drain.

chrisseaton 8y ago
> it seems not to be quite as impossible to judge the quality of a publishing operation as you make it out to be I agree the BBC is more trustworthy than other sources. But if we're talking legislation how do we write a rule for that? Do we literally legislate 'the BBC, the Telegraph, ... are trustworthy'? Or do we write a qualitative test? But then what is the test? As I said the best idea at the moment seems to be literally 'you know it when you see it'. Which doesn't work.
- shaki-dora 8y ago
  One tree is not a forest. A million trees is a forest. Nobody can tell you which single tree delineates the difference. That doesn’t stop us from calling a tree a tree and a forest a forest. The tech community has this idea that it’s impossible to make laws affecting such concepts that cannot easily be expressed as an algorithm giving boolean answers. But in reality, that’s exactly what jurisprudence does for a living. Otherwise there would be no need for lawyers and judges and juries. The “I know it when I see it” quote is, obviously, one coined by a judge, and a supreme one at that. It became famous for both being somewhat true, and for leaving us wanting for something better. And even though the definition of pornography has somewhat advanced since then, and become somewhat less relevant, there still is a gray area: some gangbang on pornhub is probably porn. A bag of Doritos is not porn. In between are the image of Kim Phuc, Michelangelo’s David, and many a work of art. But the existence of that gray area does not negate the possibility to definitively say that the bag of Doritos is not porn, as far as the law is concerned.
  - sbmassey 8y ago
    Legislation requires more precise definitions if it is to be useful in court.
    - shaki-dora 8y ago
      There are quite a few laws concerning both pornography and forests, and civilization has steadfastly refused to die.
    - timthorn 8y ago
      The view of the Man on the Clapham Omnibus is useful in court but not very precise...
    - pjc50 8y ago
      You'd be amazed how much legislation just says "reasonable" and leaves the court to the details.
      - C1sc0cat 8y ago
        As some one said to me "as so many MP's are lawyers its a favour (billing opportunity ) for their lawyer friends"
  - RHSeeger 8y ago
    The problem with laws that allow for "I'll know it when I see it" is that - The need to be vague/broad enough to allow anything that could be <thing> to be classified as <thing> under the law - The government actors are well know for acting in bad faith, ruining the lives of people that did nothing wrong because the law allowed for it. A teenage couple tried as adults for child pornography because they sent each other naked pictures of themselves. That is clearly not what the law intended, but the state went after them for it anyways. Vague/overly-broad laws can be abused. Any law that can be abused will be abused.
- Asooka 8y ago
  The solution generally is "we form a department that employs qualified people and scores entities on quality X", then the law says "entities with less than 50% X as determined by the department for X scores shall not appear on the first page of results". As a programmer you should know that all problems can be solved with enough levels of indirection :) .
pjc50 8y ago
Well... while the BBC are clearly not Infowars, they have a longstanding problem with their current affairs coverage optimising for "controversy", by giving undue prominence to far right views. Latest iteration of this: https://twitter.com/cstross/status/1095279763009220609 https://twitter.com/cstross/status/1095279763009220609 / https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/bbc-question-time-investigating-after-13971180 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/bbc-question-time-inv... My personal opinion is that the BBC's political coverage was thoroughly kneecapped after the Hutton Inquiry ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutton_Inquiry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutton_Inquiry ) at which point they decided to surrender to the government line rather than fight suspected falsehoods.
- arethuza 8y ago
  I'm generally a big supporter of the BBC but I really noticed how biased they were in the run up to the Scottish independence referendum - they really are quite conservative (note the small c) about some areas and that came across very strongly in a lot of reporting.
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    I'm also generally a big supporter of the BBC, but I think their left bias is extremely apparent on their radio content. It must be down to internal culture in different offices, because the bias is different in different parts of the Corporation. Might be a diversity problem in hiring?
    - arethuza 8y ago
      Those on the left (e.g. Owen Jones) think it is a pillar of The Establishment and those on the right think it is has a left-liberal bias. I guess it is doing something right! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC#21st_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC#21st_cent...
      - chrisseaton 8y ago

chrisseaton 8y ago

> it seems not to be quite as impossible to judge the quality of a publishing operation as you make it out to be I agree the BBC is more trustworthy than other sources. But if we're talking legislation how do we write a rule for that? Do we literally legislate 'the BBC, the Telegraph, ... are trustworthy'? Or do we write a qualitative test? But then what is the test? As I said the best idea at the moment seems to be literally 'you know it when you see it'. Which doesn't work.

shaki-dora 8y ago
One tree is not a forest. A million trees is a forest. Nobody can tell you which single tree delineates the difference. That doesn’t stop us from calling a tree a tree and a forest a forest. The tech community has this idea that it’s impossible to make laws affecting such concepts that cannot easily be expressed as an algorithm giving boolean answers. But in reality, that’s exactly what jurisprudence does for a living. Otherwise there would be no need for lawyers and judges and juries. The “I know it when I see it” quote is, obviously, one coined by a judge, and a supreme one at that. It became famous for both being somewhat true, and for leaving us wanting for something better. And even though the definition of pornography has somewhat advanced since then, and become somewhat less relevant, there still is a gray area: some gangbang on pornhub is probably porn. A bag of Doritos is not porn. In between are the image of Kim Phuc, Michelangelo’s David, and many a work of art. But the existence of that gray area does not negate the possibility to definitively say that the bag of Doritos is not porn, as far as the law is concerned.
- sbmassey 8y ago
  Legislation requires more precise definitions if it is to be useful in court.
  - shaki-dora 8y ago
    There are quite a few laws concerning both pornography and forests, and civilization has steadfastly refused to die.
  - timthorn 8y ago
    The view of the Man on the Clapham Omnibus is useful in court but not very precise...
  - pjc50 8y ago
    You'd be amazed how much legislation just says "reasonable" and leaves the court to the details.
    - C1sc0cat 8y ago
      As some one said to me "as so many MP's are lawyers its a favour (billing opportunity ) for their lawyer friends"
- RHSeeger 8y ago
  The problem with laws that allow for "I'll know it when I see it" is that - The need to be vague/broad enough to allow anything that could be <thing> to be classified as <thing> under the law - The government actors are well know for acting in bad faith, ruining the lives of people that did nothing wrong because the law allowed for it. A teenage couple tried as adults for child pornography because they sent each other naked pictures of themselves. That is clearly not what the law intended, but the state went after them for it anyways. Vague/overly-broad laws can be abused. Any law that can be abused will be abused.
Asooka 8y ago
The solution generally is "we form a department that employs qualified people and scores entities on quality X", then the law says "entities with less than 50% X as determined by the department for X scores shall not appear on the first page of results". As a programmer you should know that all problems can be solved with enough levels of indirection :) .

pjc50 8y ago

Well... while the BBC are clearly not Infowars, they have a longstanding problem with their current affairs coverage optimising for "controversy", by giving undue prominence to far right views. Latest iteration of this: https://twitter.com/cstross/status/1095279763009220609 https://twitter.com/cstross/status/1095279763009220609 / https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/bbc-question-time-investigating-after-13971180 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/bbc-question-time-inv... My personal opinion is that the BBC's political coverage was thoroughly kneecapped after the Hutton Inquiry ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutton_Inquiry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutton_Inquiry ) at which point they decided to surrender to the government line rather than fight suspected falsehoods.

arethuza 8y ago
I'm generally a big supporter of the BBC but I really noticed how biased they were in the run up to the Scottish independence referendum - they really are quite conservative (note the small c) about some areas and that came across very strongly in a lot of reporting.
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  I'm also generally a big supporter of the BBC, but I think their left bias is extremely apparent on their radio content. It must be down to internal culture in different offices, because the bias is different in different parts of the Corporation. Might be a diversity problem in hiring?
  - arethuza 8y ago
    Those on the left (e.g. Owen Jones) think it is a pillar of The Establishment and those on the right think it is has a left-liberal bias. I guess it is doing something right! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC#21st_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC#21st_cent...
    - chrisseaton 8y ago