4 ms·

They have an archive of "330bn web pages" (quote from article). I'm sure those are not exclusively conservative. One or twenty might even be dictionary entries

They have an archive of "330bn web pages" (quote from article). I'm sure those are not exclusively conservative. One or twenty might even be dictionary entries for "example".

taborj 7y ago
I'm mainly asking the question because the article implies[1] that they're mainly archiving Trump stuff, not in general archiving misinformation. [1] yes, I know it doesn't say it outright, but I don't think it's a stretch to get the gist.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
  So you're criticising the article for making an argument that you realise is happening entirely in your head?
  - taborj 7y ago
    Articles can be written in such a way as to imply meaning that's not specifically stated, and this is one example.
  - TomMckenny 7y ago
    All fact checking is opposed by the far-right worldwide (and is in fact a threat). Justification for opposing it is sought after the opinion has been formed. And since denouncing facts themselves doesn't work in all societies yet, opposition requires quite a bit of mental gymnastics and fallacious reasoning like "all sides lie" or, with no justification, "fact checkers strategically target lies that serve my political preferences"
    - Cuuugi 7y ago
      cough https://www.politifact.com/subjects/corrections-and-updates/ https://www.politifact.com/subjects/corrections-and-updates/
    - weberc2 7y ago
      Be wary of the "the far right does it therefore everyone else who does it is far right" fallacy. In particular, when a fact checker says that they need to do something about <conservative political movements>, _even though I personally dislike those political movements_, I know that they're probably biased.
      - TomMckenny 7y ago
        What one fact checker says (or is rumored to have said) does not invalidate fact checking by everyone everywhere. In fact it does not even alter whether any given statement is true or false. But incredibly there are those who very comfortably dismiss things they acknowledge as true solely because they dislike the politics of the source. That overlooking falsehoods is acceptable in the scope of a larger political cause. That those who point them out too zealously are political enemies.
        weberc2 7y ago
        > What one fact checker says (or is rumored to have said) does not invalidate fact checking by everyone everywhere It doesn't, but we're talking about that very fact checker, not fact checkers generally. And if you'd like to talk about fact checkers generally, then understand that very few people are opposed to fact checking generally, they're opposed to certain fact checkers that they believe are biased. > In fact it does not even alter whether any given statement is true or false. Yes, bias does affect whether certain statements are true or false. It can also be marshalled against one group to make them appear to be disproportionately full of shit. And they might actually _be_ full of shit, but if you are biased against them anyway no one knows whether you're full of shit or they're full of shit or both.
  - afiori 7y ago
    From the article: """ Separately, as part of the effort to document the 45th president’s often-contradictory statements, the organisation is cataloguing Mr Trump’s tweets. """ I would say not entirely in his own head.
makomk 7y ago
They can also choose not to include stuff in their archives, sometimes in ways that assist folks who've been spreading misinformation. For example, they've manually excluded all Snopes' content from the archive, effectively helping them memory-hole old versons of their fact checks. I discovered this after Snopes falsely claimed that an EPA rule tightening asbestos restrictions in the US was actually allowing prevoiusly-banned uses to be approved for sale and convinced a bunch of HN readers of this. A month or so later, the EPA pointed out that the very document Snopes had linked said that only uses which were previously not restricted at all could be approved for use and that the previously banned uses remained unconditionally banned. Rather than correct their error, Snopes deleted the part of the article which claimed the ban was being removed, pretended they'd never said that, kept their original now-unfounded conclusion, and wrote a blog post accusing the EPA of lying for claiming that they'd made an error in the first place. Good luck finding the original article with the error online now. (There should be a copy on archive.is, but they're having uptime issues now.) The Internet Archive basically helped one of the trusted sources we're meant to rely on to spot misinformation rewrite the past to gaslight the US government. The Internet Archive also took the decision not to allow government websites to block content from being archived or removed around about the time Trump took office. So they're very selective about who gets to hide their past errors like this and whose pasts are permanent public record for all to see.
- asiekierka 7y ago
  Did they make the decision, or did Snopes ask them to blacklist their website?
  - makomk 7y ago
    Presumably Snopes asked them, although the notice doesn't say. They don't automatically exclude stuff from the archive for just anyone who asks them though - they're quite happy to refuse if they think it's politically important enough.
    - apostacy 7y ago
      It feels dishonest to me honestly. Snopes has had some fact checking mistakes that they have silently deleted. I wish publications would own up to it when they make a mistake. Retractions are dying, instead stories just get 404ed. This reminds of when Salon published an article which was criticized for being too sympathetic to pedophilia, and when called out on it, simply deleted it and pretended they never published it. Salon has since started actively thwarting archiving services. [1]: https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/833835031328124928 https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/833835031328124928

They have an archive of "330bn web pages" (quote from article). I'm sure those are not exclusively conservative. One or twenty might even be dictionary entries for "example".

taborj 7y ago

I'm mainly asking the question because the article implies[1] that they're mainly archiving Trump stuff, not in general archiving misinformation. [1] yes, I know it doesn't say it outright, but I don't think it's a stretch to get the gist.

IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
So you're criticising the article for making an argument that you realise is happening entirely in your head?
- taborj 7y ago
  Articles can be written in such a way as to imply meaning that's not specifically stated, and this is one example.
- TomMckenny 7y ago
  All fact checking is opposed by the far-right worldwide (and is in fact a threat). Justification for opposing it is sought after the opinion has been formed. And since denouncing facts themselves doesn't work in all societies yet, opposition requires quite a bit of mental gymnastics and fallacious reasoning like "all sides lie" or, with no justification, "fact checkers strategically target lies that serve my political preferences"
  - Cuuugi 7y ago
    cough https://www.politifact.com/subjects/corrections-and-updates/ https://www.politifact.com/subjects/corrections-and-updates/
  - weberc2 7y ago
    Be wary of the "the far right does it therefore everyone else who does it is far right" fallacy. In particular, when a fact checker says that they need to do something about <conservative political movements>, _even though I personally dislike those political movements_, I know that they're probably biased.
    - TomMckenny 7y ago
      What one fact checker says (or is rumored to have said) does not invalidate fact checking by everyone everywhere. In fact it does not even alter whether any given statement is true or false. But incredibly there are those who very comfortably dismiss things they acknowledge as true solely because they dislike the politics of the source. That overlooking falsehoods is acceptable in the scope of a larger political cause. That those who point them out too zealously are political enemies.
      - weberc2 7y ago
        > What one fact checker says (or is rumored to have said) does not invalidate fact checking by everyone everywhere It doesn't, but we're talking about that very fact checker, not fact checkers generally. And if you'd like to talk about fact checkers generally, then understand that very few people are opposed to fact checking generally, they're opposed to certain fact checkers that they believe are biased. > In fact it does not even alter whether any given statement is true or false. Yes, bias does affect whether certain statements are true or false. It can also be marshalled against one group to make them appear to be disproportionately full of shit. And they might actually _be_ full of shit, but if you are biased against them anyway no one knows whether you're full of shit or they're full of shit or both.
- afiori 7y ago
  From the article: """ Separately, as part of the effort to document the 45th president’s often-contradictory statements, the organisation is cataloguing Mr Trump’s tweets. """ I would say not entirely in his own head.

makomk 7y ago

They can also choose not to include stuff in their archives, sometimes in ways that assist folks who've been spreading misinformation. For example, they've manually excluded all Snopes' content from the archive, effectively helping them memory-hole old versons of their fact checks. I discovered this after Snopes falsely claimed that an EPA rule tightening asbestos restrictions in the US was actually allowing prevoiusly-banned uses to be approved for sale and convinced a bunch of HN readers of this. A month or so later, the EPA pointed out that the very document Snopes had linked said that only uses which were previously not restricted at all could be approved for use and that the previously banned uses remained unconditionally banned. Rather than correct their error, Snopes deleted the part of the article which claimed the ban was being removed, pretended they'd never said that, kept their original now-unfounded conclusion, and wrote a blog post accusing the EPA of lying for claiming that they'd made an error in the first place. Good luck finding the original article with the error online now. (There should be a copy on archive.is, but they're having uptime issues now.) The Internet Archive basically helped one of the trusted sources we're meant to rely on to spot misinformation rewrite the past to gaslight the US government. The Internet Archive also took the decision not to allow government websites to block content from being archived or removed around about the time Trump took office. So they're very selective about who gets to hide their past errors like this and whose pasts are permanent public record for all to see.

asiekierka 7y ago
Did they make the decision, or did Snopes ask them to blacklist their website?
- makomk 7y ago
  Presumably Snopes asked them, although the notice doesn't say. They don't automatically exclude stuff from the archive for just anyone who asks them though - they're quite happy to refuse if they think it's politically important enough.
  - apostacy 7y ago
    It feels dishonest to me honestly. Snopes has had some fact checking mistakes that they have silently deleted. I wish publications would own up to it when they make a mistake. Retractions are dying, instead stories just get 404ed. This reminds of when Salon published an article which was criticized for being too sympathetic to pedophilia, and when called out on it, simply deleted it and pretended they never published it. Salon has since started actively thwarting archiving services. [1]: https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/833835031328124928 https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/833835031328124928