7 ms·

Fact-checking is misleading, because it makes some people believe that facts are completely objective and you can verify or disprove them without any bias. In t

Fact-checking is misleading, because it makes some people believe that facts are completely objective and you can verify or disprove them without any bias. In the end, most fact-checking outlets just repeat propaganda of the political parties they align with.

rimliu 7y ago
Can you provide some facts that would be subjective?
- djohnston 7y ago
  i think the issue is that even mainstream fact checking websites like snopes have ratings such as "mostly true", "somewhat true", etc. Lots of political accusations aren't binary, hence the existence of a gradient of "truthiness", to borrow from Colbert.
- benmmurphy 7y ago
  As a fact checker you have a lot of leeway of what is the subject of your fact checking. For example if there is a controversy over the height of a building that seemed to split opinion into two groups the highists and the lowists. If you wanted to write an article 'debunking' the highists claims you could find the most extreme claim about the height of the building then refute that claim and then claim the highists claim had been debunked. If you pay attention to snopes you will see on some of their fact checks of politically controversial topics they will take this line where they will either weak man a position or strong man a position depending on what result they want to produce.
- oefrha 7y ago
  Let’s ignore all the complexity surrounding facts and just assume facts are obtainable and 100% objective. With 100% objective facts, media outlets still wield a huge amount of power through cherry-picking and spinning. Example: You live in a group A (party, country, etc.) echo chamber where every day you’re bombarded with news on evil thing X group B just did, which is a fact. What they don’t tell you is that group A is also doing X, or doing some more egregious thing Y. They didn’t lie to you, they just omitted the full picture. After a while, you’ll inevitably believe group B is the root of all evil, and even if you’re then presented 100% facts about how group A did all the evil things from a group B publication, you’ll probably dismiss those. In short, not necessarily agreeing with gp, but it’s certainly very complicated.
  - benmmurphy 7y ago
    slatestarcodex has a good article discussing this problem which they have labeled the 'chinese robber fallacy'. https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/16/cardiologists-and-chinese-robbers/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/16/cardiologists-and-chin...
  - stronglikedan 7y ago
    That's why I feel that whataboutism is a valid response, since it points out the hypocrisy, which can sway the debate.
- jerf 7y ago
  In the realm of media, there's a lot of equivocation with the word "fact". I believe in the existence of objective facts in the general sense. But when we're using the term in the context of our current media environment, a lot of "facts" are actually conclusions that contain heaping helpings of opinion, if you really dig into them. There's a lot of telling you what to think and not a lot of bare facts, because who wants to read boring bare facts? Assuming the bare facts are even reported accurately between the place where they were collected and the final reporting (see almost all popular science articles, where even when "facts" are being reported they still get screwed up). Here's a common set of "subjective facts": "Policy X will help group Y in manner Z." along with "Politician A voted against X and therefore hates Y." As I've commented before, even the apparent objective fact that "Politician A voted against X" isn't necessarily as factual as it may seem since it's a common tactic to have X bundled in with a whole bunch of other things, and you don't know whether A voted against X, or voted against boondoggle B buried in the bill, or if X was in fact the only thing the politician agreed with in the entire bill and was forced to vote against it because everything else was worse, or if they agreed with X and voted against it as part of some other political deal, or what. Even the "bare fact" "Politician A voted against X" can be treated in a way that turns it into an effective lie, even if it is nominally 100% true. That is the sort of "fact" we deal with in the media environment all the time, and it isn't as objective as we'd like it to be.
  - mtberatwork 7y ago
    > Here's a common set of "subjective facts": "Policy X will help group Y in manner Z." along with "Politician A voted against X and therefore hates Y." That's just a logical fallacy. By definition a fact can only be objective, otherwise it's simply an opinion.
    - mistermann 7y ago
      > That's just a logical fallacy. Which is presented as a fact by the media.....which is consumed by readers and mentally filed under "fact", and subsequently used by subconscious heuristics in future evaluations of reality, producing more "facts" which are transmitted throughout their network of acquaintances, infecting more subconscious heuristics, and round and round we go. It's interesting that many here at HN expect the general public to up their epistemological game, when all of us here have the same infected heuristics as them (if to a lesser degree), and routinely behave in similar ways. The question on my mind lately is: how might this situation be improved, first here at HN, and then maybe later throughout the rest of society? We've got a bunch of bright minds here, it might be interesting if we acknowledged this problem and set our collective minds to finding a solution.
- polski-g 7y ago
  "trans men are men" "Poverty causes crime" "Women are neurotic" "IPv6 is required to be implemented ASAP" All of these are absolute facts To some people. And absolute falsities to others.
- pingyong 7y ago
  "Thousands of babies are killed every year through late-term abortions." The meaning of "babies", "killed" and "late-term abortion" (or even if that term has any meaning) is completely subjective.

rimliu 7y ago

Can you provide some facts that would be subjective?

djohnston 7y ago
i think the issue is that even mainstream fact checking websites like snopes have ratings such as "mostly true", "somewhat true", etc. Lots of political accusations aren't binary, hence the existence of a gradient of "truthiness", to borrow from Colbert.
benmmurphy 7y ago
As a fact checker you have a lot of leeway of what is the subject of your fact checking. For example if there is a controversy over the height of a building that seemed to split opinion into two groups the highists and the lowists. If you wanted to write an article 'debunking' the highists claims you could find the most extreme claim about the height of the building then refute that claim and then claim the highists claim had been debunked. If you pay attention to snopes you will see on some of their fact checks of politically controversial topics they will take this line where they will either weak man a position or strong man a position depending on what result they want to produce.
oefrha 7y ago
Let’s ignore all the complexity surrounding facts and just assume facts are obtainable and 100% objective. With 100% objective facts, media outlets still wield a huge amount of power through cherry-picking and spinning. Example: You live in a group A (party, country, etc.) echo chamber where every day you’re bombarded with news on evil thing X group B just did, which is a fact. What they don’t tell you is that group A is also doing X, or doing some more egregious thing Y. They didn’t lie to you, they just omitted the full picture. After a while, you’ll inevitably believe group B is the root of all evil, and even if you’re then presented 100% facts about how group A did all the evil things from a group B publication, you’ll probably dismiss those. In short, not necessarily agreeing with gp, but it’s certainly very complicated.
- benmmurphy 7y ago
  slatestarcodex has a good article discussing this problem which they have labeled the 'chinese robber fallacy'. https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/16/cardiologists-and-chinese-robbers/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/16/cardiologists-and-chin...
- stronglikedan 7y ago
  That's why I feel that whataboutism is a valid response, since it points out the hypocrisy, which can sway the debate.
jerf 7y ago
In the realm of media, there's a lot of equivocation with the word "fact". I believe in the existence of objective facts in the general sense. But when we're using the term in the context of our current media environment, a lot of "facts" are actually conclusions that contain heaping helpings of opinion, if you really dig into them. There's a lot of telling you what to think and not a lot of bare facts, because who wants to read boring bare facts? Assuming the bare facts are even reported accurately between the place where they were collected and the final reporting (see almost all popular science articles, where even when "facts" are being reported they still get screwed up). Here's a common set of "subjective facts": "Policy X will help group Y in manner Z." along with "Politician A voted against X and therefore hates Y." As I've commented before, even the apparent objective fact that "Politician A voted against X" isn't necessarily as factual as it may seem since it's a common tactic to have X bundled in with a whole bunch of other things, and you don't know whether A voted against X, or voted against boondoggle B buried in the bill, or if X was in fact the only thing the politician agreed with in the entire bill and was forced to vote against it because everything else was worse, or if they agreed with X and voted against it as part of some other political deal, or what. Even the "bare fact" "Politician A voted against X" can be treated in a way that turns it into an effective lie, even if it is nominally 100% true. That is the sort of "fact" we deal with in the media environment all the time, and it isn't as objective as we'd like it to be.
- mtberatwork 7y ago
  > Here's a common set of "subjective facts": "Policy X will help group Y in manner Z." along with "Politician A voted against X and therefore hates Y." That's just a logical fallacy. By definition a fact can only be objective, otherwise it's simply an opinion.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    > That's just a logical fallacy. Which is presented as a fact by the media.....which is consumed by readers and mentally filed under "fact", and subsequently used by subconscious heuristics in future evaluations of reality, producing more "facts" which are transmitted throughout their network of acquaintances, infecting more subconscious heuristics, and round and round we go. It's interesting that many here at HN expect the general public to up their epistemological game, when all of us here have the same infected heuristics as them (if to a lesser degree), and routinely behave in similar ways. The question on my mind lately is: how might this situation be improved, first here at HN, and then maybe later throughout the rest of society? We've got a bunch of bright minds here, it might be interesting if we acknowledged this problem and set our collective minds to finding a solution.
polski-g 7y ago
"trans men are men" "Poverty causes crime" "Women are neurotic" "IPv6 is required to be implemented ASAP" All of these are absolute facts To some people. And absolute falsities to others.
pingyong 7y ago
"Thousands of babies are killed every year through late-term abortions." The meaning of "babies", "killed" and "late-term abortion" (or even if that term has any meaning) is completely subjective.