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> Is there no way to consider social media as unreliable overall and not bother fact checking anything there? The issue is that this is not just a random socia

> Is there no way to consider social media as unreliable overall and not bother fact checking anything there? The issue is that this is not just a random social media post, it's coming from the President of the US, and most people expect that someone in that position will not post clearly false messages, specially when those messages affect something as fundamental as the election process.

jcroll 6y ago
Democratic elections are supposed to be the failsafe for that no?
- orian 6y ago
  Nope, they only provide a peaceful way to replace the man in charge instead bloodbath.
  - asdf21 6y ago
    Yes, that's the failsafe
- noelwelsh 6y ago
  No, it's not.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Democratic elections rely on the demos being informed of the truth. Recent election winners have used social media to present, more effectively than using just the press, a preferred narrative that has - IMO - conned the electorate and won narrow wins for parties/people based primarily on falsehoods. You can't preserve democracy by relying solely on elections. Those who seriously, and serially, abuse the system also attack the ability of people to post/make their vote. Again happening the ability of the demos to choose their candidates. In some countries the system stands markedly against a fuller democracy - by use of things such as electoral colleges, or first-past-the-post voting systems. TL;DR see para.3
- username90 6y ago
  In a direct democracy like Switzerland, yes. In a very indirect democracy like the United States there is basically nothing you can do if your representatives are not doing their job properly except wait for the next election and hope the candidates get better.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    There is the recall option
username90 6y ago
The message isn't clearly false. See this article for example: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-vote-by-mail-faulty-ballots-could-impact-elections.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-vote-... > Yet votes cast by mail are less likely to be counted, more likely to be compromised and more likely to be contested than those cast in a voting booth, statistics show. Election officials reject almost 2 percent of ballots cast by mail, double the rate for in-person voting. You could say that 1% increase in problems is small, but in close elections that could easily be considered huge.
- JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
  Ballots get rejected for all sorts of reasons, as the article mentions, fraud and errors. A double rejection rate can't be 100% attributable to fraud. Here's what the President claimed: > There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone..... ....living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one. That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!
  - whatshisface 6y ago
    What's the line between "we have the best burgers in the world," and actually lying? You'll notice that Mr. POTUS said "less than substantially," whch barely means anything. Maybe he thinks 2% is "more than substantially." You can't lie if you phrase everything in a way that doesn't say anything.
    - JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
      The phrase does indeed say something. "anything less than substantially fraudulent" means near and total fraud. Claiming ~100% of mail-in ballots are fraudulent is baseless and untrue.
giardini 6y ago
Under a doctrine of free speech, politics has no "clearly false messages". There are only "messages". You are, however, allowed to state that a message is "clearly false". Thus if you wish to say that the world is flat, then you are allowed to say so, and others are allowed to state their supporting or opposing arguments on the same topic on the same forum, and everyone is allowed to listen.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  And he wasn’t prevented from saying anything. We got more speech here, not less.
- danbruc 6y ago
  Under a doctrine of free speech, politics has no "clearly false messages". Free speech and the correctness of a message are orthogonal concerns - the Earth is flat is a false claim no matter whether there is free speech or not and neither supporting nor opposing arguments have any bearing on that fact, they may however influence other people accepting or rejecting it.
- beart 6y ago
  > Under a doctrine of free speech, politics has no "clearly false messages". I'm really not following this argument. If something is stated with a political purpose, it cannot be false?
  - gadders 6y ago
    I think the argument is that political arguments are rarely of the "The sky is blue" category, but more along the lines of (and I'm making up an example here). "The economy has never been better" There are several ways you could measure this - is it based on the S&P Index? Rising GDP? Income inequality reducing? Low unemployment? Balance of Payments? Not all of those measures may be true at once, and if they're not true which one is the correct measure? The relative importance could vary from person to person. Somebody with, say, a large pension fund might see the S&P Index as the most important measure. Somebody else might view it as income inequality. You could argue a case for each one, and each voter would have to make up their own mind as to whether they agree with the statement.
supportlocal4h 6y ago
Imagine if a U.S. president were to flagrantly make up a claim that some other country was developing weapons of mass destruction. Imagine that there was no way to verify this claim. Imagine that the president insisted on invading said country on the basis of the unsupported claim. Do most people still expect that someone in that position will not post clearly false messages, specially when those messages affect something as fundamental as the death of thousands of people and the overthrow of a government? Iran contra, Watergate, Vietnam, ... Is there any trust left? It's bewildering that the answer is, "Yes". It's discouraging that so many presidents have so often deceived the people so horribly. It's much much more discouraging that the people don't learn.
- newen 6y ago
  Propaganda machine at work. Americans will always believe it is the best and most moral country in the world even if it the exact opposite.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- czzr 6y ago
  What exactly is your position? That no one should believe any statement from any politician ever and so there is no reason to demand that politicians live up to any standards? How exactly is a society with those principles supposed to function?
  - bzb3 6y ago
    We can do that or we can sit and wait for the electorate to pick a president who never lies. Only one of the two is realistic.
  - supportlocal4h 6y ago
    A: no one should believe any statement from any politician ever B: don't demand that politicians meet standards Your argument (not mine): A -> B Then you argue that B is dysfunctional so A leads to dysfunction. Can you not imagine some C such as C: demand that politicians live up to some standard Wherein A->C makes everything better? The fact that you concocted B to discredit A is a logical fallacy called "strawman". Either you already understood this, but hoped for an audience that did not, or you didn't even realize what you had done. I point it out here for your possible benefit and for the possible benefit of anyone else who doesn't understand this flawed reasoning. I apologize to everyone who recognized it immediately and has then suffered through this response.
Consultant32452 6y ago
I feel like the only people who think Twitter is a credible fact checker of the President are not the people who would believe anything the President says anyways.
- LordDragonfang 6y ago
  While this feels like it's true in the broad strokes, and it is certainly a good quip, it's important to remember that there are always going to be people on the border between one and the other, who can easily be influenced to fall a certain way if they believe a certain exclamation or falsehood.
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    I don't believe those people matter politically. Every election there's a lot of rhetoric about "undecided voters" but in practice the campaigns don't care about those people. I know undecided voters isn't exactly what you're talking about, but I think the concept applies. The real effort is in getting your historic/likely supporters to show up rather than stay home. If someone is a big Biden supporter, there's almost nothing you can say that will get them to vote Trump. And vice versa. So your hope is to get your likely Biden supporter angry/scared/whatever enough to get off their butt and vote. That's what these things are about. That's why Trump says crazy flamboyant things. It's why Twitter never fact checks things like the gender pay gap, perhaps the most debunked concept in all of economics. For me, seeing the world through this lens results in a lot more things making sense. It's especially true now that information/news is so siloed. People in power can say basically anything they want as long as it's emotionally aligned with their team. And their team will never know they've been lied to, because they don't watch the other side's rebuttals. For example, Twitter is fact checking Trump on this mail in ballot fraud issue in the same week that there's multiple examples of mail in ballot fraud in the news. But the people who think Twitter is a reasonable source to fact check Trump will never see that, so they will get away with it.
- georgeecollins 6y ago
  This isn't about who is persuaded by what. It is about what responsibilities the media has to the public.
BurningFrog 6y ago
> most people expect that someone in that position will not post clearly false messages Who the hell actually expects that from any elected politician, let alone Trump? Is the idea that all politicians constantly controversial among other adults? I thought we all knew this?

jcroll 6y ago

Democratic elections are supposed to be the failsafe for that no?

orian 6y ago
Nope, they only provide a peaceful way to replace the man in charge instead bloodbath.
- asdf21 6y ago
  Yes, that's the failsafe
noelwelsh 6y ago
No, it's not.
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
Democratic elections rely on the demos being informed of the truth. Recent election winners have used social media to present, more effectively than using just the press, a preferred narrative that has - IMO - conned the electorate and won narrow wins for parties/people based primarily on falsehoods. You can't preserve democracy by relying solely on elections. Those who seriously, and serially, abuse the system also attack the ability of people to post/make their vote. Again happening the ability of the demos to choose their candidates. In some countries the system stands markedly against a fuller democracy - by use of things such as electoral colleges, or first-past-the-post voting systems. TL;DR see para.3
username90 6y ago
In a direct democracy like Switzerland, yes. In a very indirect democracy like the United States there is basically nothing you can do if your representatives are not doing their job properly except wait for the next election and hope the candidates get better.
- dylan604 6y ago
  There is the recall option

username90 6y ago

The message isn't clearly false. See this article for example: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-vote-by-mail-faulty-ballots-could-impact-elections.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-vote-... > Yet votes cast by mail are less likely to be counted, more likely to be compromised and more likely to be contested than those cast in a voting booth, statistics show. Election officials reject almost 2 percent of ballots cast by mail, double the rate for in-person voting. You could say that 1% increase in problems is small, but in close elections that could easily be considered huge.

JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
Ballots get rejected for all sorts of reasons, as the article mentions, fraud and errors. A double rejection rate can't be 100% attributable to fraud. Here's what the President claimed: > There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone..... ....living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one. That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!
- whatshisface 6y ago
  What's the line between "we have the best burgers in the world," and actually lying? You'll notice that Mr. POTUS said "less than substantially," whch barely means anything. Maybe he thinks 2% is "more than substantially." You can't lie if you phrase everything in a way that doesn't say anything.
  - JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
    The phrase does indeed say something. "anything less than substantially fraudulent" means near and total fraud. Claiming ~100% of mail-in ballots are fraudulent is baseless and untrue.

giardini 6y ago

Under a doctrine of free speech, politics has no "clearly false messages". There are only "messages". You are, however, allowed to state that a message is "clearly false". Thus if you wish to say that the world is flat, then you are allowed to say so, and others are allowed to state their supporting or opposing arguments on the same topic on the same forum, and everyone is allowed to listen.

UncleMeat 6y ago
And he wasn’t prevented from saying anything. We got more speech here, not less.
danbruc 6y ago
Under a doctrine of free speech, politics has no "clearly false messages". Free speech and the correctness of a message are orthogonal concerns - the Earth is flat is a false claim no matter whether there is free speech or not and neither supporting nor opposing arguments have any bearing on that fact, they may however influence other people accepting or rejecting it.
beart 6y ago
> Under a doctrine of free speech, politics has no "clearly false messages". I'm really not following this argument. If something is stated with a political purpose, it cannot be false?
- gadders 6y ago
  I think the argument is that political arguments are rarely of the "The sky is blue" category, but more along the lines of (and I'm making up an example here). "The economy has never been better" There are several ways you could measure this - is it based on the S&P Index? Rising GDP? Income inequality reducing? Low unemployment? Balance of Payments? Not all of those measures may be true at once, and if they're not true which one is the correct measure? The relative importance could vary from person to person. Somebody with, say, a large pension fund might see the S&P Index as the most important measure. Somebody else might view it as income inequality. You could argue a case for each one, and each voter would have to make up their own mind as to whether they agree with the statement.

supportlocal4h 6y ago

Imagine if a U.S. president were to flagrantly make up a claim that some other country was developing weapons of mass destruction. Imagine that there was no way to verify this claim. Imagine that the president insisted on invading said country on the basis of the unsupported claim. Do most people still expect that someone in that position will not post clearly false messages, specially when those messages affect something as fundamental as the death of thousands of people and the overthrow of a government? Iran contra, Watergate, Vietnam, ... Is there any trust left? It's bewildering that the answer is, "Yes". It's discouraging that so many presidents have so often deceived the people so horribly. It's much much more discouraging that the people don't learn.

newen 6y ago
Propaganda machine at work. Americans will always believe it is the best and most moral country in the world even if it the exact opposite.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
czzr 6y ago
What exactly is your position? That no one should believe any statement from any politician ever and so there is no reason to demand that politicians live up to any standards? How exactly is a society with those principles supposed to function?
- bzb3 6y ago
  We can do that or we can sit and wait for the electorate to pick a president who never lies. Only one of the two is realistic.
- supportlocal4h 6y ago
  A: no one should believe any statement from any politician ever B: don't demand that politicians meet standards Your argument (not mine): A -> B Then you argue that B is dysfunctional so A leads to dysfunction. Can you not imagine some C such as C: demand that politicians live up to some standard Wherein A->C makes everything better? The fact that you concocted B to discredit A is a logical fallacy called "strawman". Either you already understood this, but hoped for an audience that did not, or you didn't even realize what you had done. I point it out here for your possible benefit and for the possible benefit of anyone else who doesn't understand this flawed reasoning. I apologize to everyone who recognized it immediately and has then suffered through this response.

Consultant32452 6y ago

I feel like the only people who think Twitter is a credible fact checker of the President are not the people who would believe anything the President says anyways.

LordDragonfang 6y ago
While this feels like it's true in the broad strokes, and it is certainly a good quip, it's important to remember that there are always going to be people on the border between one and the other, who can easily be influenced to fall a certain way if they believe a certain exclamation or falsehood.
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  I don't believe those people matter politically. Every election there's a lot of rhetoric about "undecided voters" but in practice the campaigns don't care about those people. I know undecided voters isn't exactly what you're talking about, but I think the concept applies. The real effort is in getting your historic/likely supporters to show up rather than stay home. If someone is a big Biden supporter, there's almost nothing you can say that will get them to vote Trump. And vice versa. So your hope is to get your likely Biden supporter angry/scared/whatever enough to get off their butt and vote. That's what these things are about. That's why Trump says crazy flamboyant things. It's why Twitter never fact checks things like the gender pay gap, perhaps the most debunked concept in all of economics. For me, seeing the world through this lens results in a lot more things making sense. It's especially true now that information/news is so siloed. People in power can say basically anything they want as long as it's emotionally aligned with their team. And their team will never know they've been lied to, because they don't watch the other side's rebuttals. For example, Twitter is fact checking Trump on this mail in ballot fraud issue in the same week that there's multiple examples of mail in ballot fraud in the news. But the people who think Twitter is a reasonable source to fact check Trump will never see that, so they will get away with it.
georgeecollins 6y ago
This isn't about who is persuaded by what. It is about what responsibilities the media has to the public.

BurningFrog 6y ago

> most people expect that someone in that position will not post clearly false messages Who the hell actually expects that from any elected politician, let alone Trump? Is the idea that all politicians constantly controversial among other adults? I thought we all knew this?