5 ms·

Ironicaly you missed the most important point: who decides what is fake news? You still don't get it that _NO ONE_ can claim they know what is/is not fake news

Ironicaly you missed the most important point: who decides what is fake news? You still don't get it that _NO ONE_ can claim they know what is/is not fake news because everyone has their own incentives.

onion2k 6y ago
You still don't get it that _NO ONE_ can claim they know what is/is not fake news because everyone has their own incentives. This is precisely why it's important that Twitter calls out when things are stated as fact without evidence. Twitter never actually say things are fake; they say things are baseless and without evidence. If you want to post things that are influential you simply need to back that claim up with something that people can verify from a trustworthy source - 'fake news' will still be posted because sometimes even a trusted source gets it wrong, but it'll happen far less often. That's the goal. Suggesting that we should all adopt Nietzsche's perspectivist approach where "there are no facts, only interpretations" is entirely unhelpful. You can't run a functioning society if you have to accept literally every batshit mental theory as "well it might be right, we can't ever know for sure". If there is no evidence, you can say something is fake. You just have to accept that maybe 0.1% of the time you'll be wrong.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  This is the argument for trust in general. Trust is a massive optimization. You just have to accept that maybe 0.1% of the time you'll be wrong, and provide recourse.
- k32 6y ago
  > This is precisely why it's important that Twitter calls out when things are stated as fact without evidence. Twitter is a platform for stating things as fact without evidence. 120 (or whatever it is now) character limit is not suitable for having cogent conversations.
  - onion2k 6y ago
    For what it's worth the limit is 280 characters. Your entire post, including the quote, would fit with room to spare. Tweets aren't that short. As for posting without space to have a cogent conversation, sure I can accept that. The answer is to not post that thing on Twitter. It isn't to just have the conversation anyway and ignore the fact that you're not providing evidence behind what you're saying. Twitter's 'censorship' of their platform doesn't stop anyone posting on different platforms that allow longer posts.
    - Out_of_Characte 6y ago
      "Twitter's 'censorship' of their platform doesn't stop anyone posting on different platforms that allow longer posts." We're talking within the scopes of twitter as a communicative platform. Wether or not other platforms exist and how much more or less censorship and tokens you get is irrelivant to the discussion on wether it is morally right for twitter to flag tweets it deems 'misinformation' Twitter as a platform has no register of what they can and cannot judge. Twitter does not replicate ANY evidence on what they call misinformation. Twitter does not even provide proof on what they call misinformation. Just the label at the bottom. Twitter also categorises criticism on mainstream 'facts' as the same 'misinformation' How would you like HN if ITT everyone disagreed with twitter censorship and you would be labelled on every post ITT as 'misinformation'? would you think that constitutes as a usefull HN guideline?
- xlm1717 6y ago
  That would be fine if they didn't preferentially apply that call out only to certain groups of people.
  - fooey 6y ago
    Applying warning labels to influentials folks prone to lying is exactly the point
    - blackflame7000 6y ago
      So why didnt they label posts about russian collusion with no evidence in 2016,2017,2018, or 2019. And no the possible obstruction from finding evidence which was the “smoking gun” of the mueller report is in fact not evidence. It turns out innocent people have lack of evidence too.
  - onion2k 6y ago
    Who should they be applying it to that they're not?
- NewOrderNow 6y ago
  You are saying this as though we have standards now. For example, I see plenty of people touting the idea that everyone should be nice to one another. This is becoming a meme in society. I see the shittiest people wishing others to be nice to one another. It's become a cognitive dissonance. It is only matter of time till being "nice" becomes state mandated in a country (US) where if I want to be a piece of shit, I can be a piece of shit. A lot of people in the states seem to genuinely not understand this concept. I genuinely suggest burning down twitter.
  - djanogo 6y ago
    I sense hate speech, you will be added to special list whose posts will be verified by group of people from city X which voted 90% for party X. You can either fall in line and align yourself with 9 media outlets or be "fact checked". /s
    - NewOrderNow 6y ago
      This joke is frightening hilarious
- AntiImperialist 6y ago
  Will Twitter employ people to actually verify anything themselves? What will they go by when there are multiple versions of stories based on who you ask? Will they block all the stories where there are anonymous sources? Will they block all opinion pieces? And no, lack of evidence doesn't make things fake. Lack of evidence is just lack of evidence. Even for things that may require evidence, evidence can always be found later or presented later. If Twitter had existed since the 60s, would it be right for them to block everything mentioning Higgs boson until evidence for it was found in 2012?
  - onion2k 6y ago
    And no, lack of evidence doesn't make things fake. That's kind of the point I was making. Lack of evidence doesn't make something fake, but it doesn't make it true either. Twitter is pointing that out and telling people where things don't have evidence so they shouldn't automatically accept it as true (or fake). Where something is incredibly influential and could lead to violence I think Twitter should be wary about publishing it. People's safety is important, so while I don't think Twitter should block speech I do think putting a warning on it is reasonable. If Twitter had existed since the 60s, would it be right for them to block everything mentioning Higgs boson until evidence for it was found in 2012? Anyone with even the tiniest bit of science education talked about the Higgs Boson as a no more than a possibility and definitely not a fact until it was proved experimentally and the evidence was clear for anyone to see. If people had been saying it was definitely real then a skeptical warning that there wasn't any evidence to prove that might not have been a bad idea.
    - AntiImperialist 6y ago
      > If people had been saying it was definitely real then a skeptical warning that there wasn't any evidence to prove that might not have been a bad idea. You're completely wrong on this one. Not only did physicists believe in the existence of Higgs boson, they built upon the premise that it existed for all those years. Sometimes evidence is not always possible to present or just not practical. Also, there are various degrees of what kind of evidence is acceptable. The evidence required to publish a paper in a scientific journal is different from what is required to make a legal case or report in a magazine. So, with a premise of "requiring evidence", you can be very flexible in terms of what you allow and don't... which is what Twitter seems to be doing.
kristiandupont 6y ago
>You still don't get it that [...] Have you been arguing with OP before? Or is this just how you address people in general? It doesn't set a very nice tone.
richardARPANET 6y ago
There's little point trying to explain to the HN crowd. They're majority left leaning so are pro-censorship as long as it's not directed at them. The people who are aware that the "fact checkers" have an agenda either won't accept it through mental gymnastics or simply don't care. Something which will come back to bite them. i.e. > Don't let the Orange man speak. Orange man bad!
- aww_dang 6y ago
  The challenge is discussing these issues without mentioning this explicitly. Hard to get someone to consider your opinion when they read your comment as an accusation.
- rvz 6y ago
  I won't be surprised of this being the case on the orange site but the downvoters will probably gaslight you for not having evidence of this; hence the downvotes. As for Twitter, there's no question of the evidence of this bias. The Twitter CEO previously just admitted to this: 'I fully admit our bias is more left-leaning' [0] Looks like the cool kids want their echo-chambers back. [0] https://thehill.com/policy/technology/402495-twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-i-fully-admit-our-bias-is-more-left-leaning https://thehill.com/policy/technology/402495-twitter-ceo-jac...
  - AnHonestComment 6y ago
    There’s plenty of evidence. You can see this comment, where it was detached to censor me from even talking about censorship. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25017546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25017546
- SaberTail 6y ago
  The HN crowd is by and far away neoliberal leaning. Neoliberalism is a center right ideology, not left. Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden are all solidly neoliberal, so the mistake is understandable.
RickJWagner 6y ago
I agree. Example: The famous photo of Anderson Cooper standing in a ditch, pretending as if there was a catstrophic flood. (Really, the water was only a few inches deep.) Would Twitter flag that one? It's a given they'd flag Trump a bunch. How about Joe Biden saying he would not ban fracking? Would Twitter flag that one? Twitter is going to have a very hard time making anybody happy with this idea.
- tzs 6y ago
  Are you talking about the photo discussed here [1]? [1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/anderson-cooper-hurricane/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/anderson-cooper-hurricane/
iso1631 6y ago
https://metro.co.uk/2020/11/03/fake-robocalls-give-us-voters-wrong-date-for-election-day-13531488/ https://metro.co.uk/2020/11/03/fake-robocalls-give-us-voters... > Officials in Michigan reported on Tuesday that citizens of Flint, a predominantly black city, were receiving calls telling them to vote Wednesday, and not on election day. The calls are now being investigated by the FBI. That is misinformation, no ifs, no buts.
kanox 6y ago
> Ironicaly you missed the most important point: who decides what is fake news? In this case, twitter. And it's fine to disagree with the fact checkers.
entropea 6y ago
I agree with this for the most part. In the early 2000's Americans were lied into the Iraq war, with multiple newspapers practically begging [0] for war, and critics were the ones on the correct side of history. If that happened in 2021, would the critics be silenced, have warnings on all of their tweets, and be told that they're supporting conspiracy theories? Questioning the official narrative of power is becoming wrongthink. Who's deciding what's wrong and right? [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/irrefutable/e598b1be-a78a-4a42-8e1a-c336f7a217f4/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/i...

onion2k 6y ago

You still don't get it that _NO ONE_ can claim they know what is/is not fake news because everyone has their own incentives. This is precisely why it's important that Twitter calls out when things are stated as fact without evidence. Twitter never actually say things are fake; they say things are baseless and without evidence. If you want to post things that are influential you simply need to back that claim up with something that people can verify from a trustworthy source - 'fake news' will still be posted because sometimes even a trusted source gets it wrong, but it'll happen far less often. That's the goal. Suggesting that we should all adopt Nietzsche's perspectivist approach where "there are no facts, only interpretations" is entirely unhelpful. You can't run a functioning society if you have to accept literally every batshit mental theory as "well it might be right, we can't ever know for sure". If there is no evidence, you can say something is fake. You just have to accept that maybe 0.1% of the time you'll be wrong.

arcticbull 6y ago
This is the argument for trust in general. Trust is a massive optimization. You just have to accept that maybe 0.1% of the time you'll be wrong, and provide recourse.
k32 6y ago
> This is precisely why it's important that Twitter calls out when things are stated as fact without evidence. Twitter is a platform for stating things as fact without evidence. 120 (or whatever it is now) character limit is not suitable for having cogent conversations.
- onion2k 6y ago
  For what it's worth the limit is 280 characters. Your entire post, including the quote, would fit with room to spare. Tweets aren't that short. As for posting without space to have a cogent conversation, sure I can accept that. The answer is to not post that thing on Twitter. It isn't to just have the conversation anyway and ignore the fact that you're not providing evidence behind what you're saying. Twitter's 'censorship' of their platform doesn't stop anyone posting on different platforms that allow longer posts.
  - Out_of_Characte 6y ago
    "Twitter's 'censorship' of their platform doesn't stop anyone posting on different platforms that allow longer posts." We're talking within the scopes of twitter as a communicative platform. Wether or not other platforms exist and how much more or less censorship and tokens you get is irrelivant to the discussion on wether it is morally right for twitter to flag tweets it deems 'misinformation' Twitter as a platform has no register of what they can and cannot judge. Twitter does not replicate ANY evidence on what they call misinformation. Twitter does not even provide proof on what they call misinformation. Just the label at the bottom. Twitter also categorises criticism on mainstream 'facts' as the same 'misinformation' How would you like HN if ITT everyone disagreed with twitter censorship and you would be labelled on every post ITT as 'misinformation'? would you think that constitutes as a usefull HN guideline?
xlm1717 6y ago
That would be fine if they didn't preferentially apply that call out only to certain groups of people.
- fooey 6y ago
  Applying warning labels to influentials folks prone to lying is exactly the point
  - blackflame7000 6y ago
    So why didnt they label posts about russian collusion with no evidence in 2016,2017,2018, or 2019. And no the possible obstruction from finding evidence which was the “smoking gun” of the mueller report is in fact not evidence. It turns out innocent people have lack of evidence too.
- onion2k 6y ago
  Who should they be applying it to that they're not?
NewOrderNow 6y ago
You are saying this as though we have standards now. For example, I see plenty of people touting the idea that everyone should be nice to one another. This is becoming a meme in society. I see the shittiest people wishing others to be nice to one another. It's become a cognitive dissonance. It is only matter of time till being "nice" becomes state mandated in a country (US) where if I want to be a piece of shit, I can be a piece of shit. A lot of people in the states seem to genuinely not understand this concept. I genuinely suggest burning down twitter.
- djanogo 6y ago
  I sense hate speech, you will be added to special list whose posts will be verified by group of people from city X which voted 90% for party X. You can either fall in line and align yourself with 9 media outlets or be "fact checked". /s
  - NewOrderNow 6y ago
    This joke is frightening hilarious
AntiImperialist 6y ago
Will Twitter employ people to actually verify anything themselves? What will they go by when there are multiple versions of stories based on who you ask? Will they block all the stories where there are anonymous sources? Will they block all opinion pieces? And no, lack of evidence doesn't make things fake. Lack of evidence is just lack of evidence. Even for things that may require evidence, evidence can always be found later or presented later. If Twitter had existed since the 60s, would it be right for them to block everything mentioning Higgs boson until evidence for it was found in 2012?
- onion2k 6y ago
  And no, lack of evidence doesn't make things fake. That's kind of the point I was making. Lack of evidence doesn't make something fake, but it doesn't make it true either. Twitter is pointing that out and telling people where things don't have evidence so they shouldn't automatically accept it as true (or fake). Where something is incredibly influential and could lead to violence I think Twitter should be wary about publishing it. People's safety is important, so while I don't think Twitter should block speech I do think putting a warning on it is reasonable. If Twitter had existed since the 60s, would it be right for them to block everything mentioning Higgs boson until evidence for it was found in 2012? Anyone with even the tiniest bit of science education talked about the Higgs Boson as a no more than a possibility and definitely not a fact until it was proved experimentally and the evidence was clear for anyone to see. If people had been saying it was definitely real then a skeptical warning that there wasn't any evidence to prove that might not have been a bad idea.
  - AntiImperialist 6y ago
    > If people had been saying it was definitely real then a skeptical warning that there wasn't any evidence to prove that might not have been a bad idea. You're completely wrong on this one. Not only did physicists believe in the existence of Higgs boson, they built upon the premise that it existed for all those years. Sometimes evidence is not always possible to present or just not practical. Also, there are various degrees of what kind of evidence is acceptable. The evidence required to publish a paper in a scientific journal is different from what is required to make a legal case or report in a magazine. So, with a premise of "requiring evidence", you can be very flexible in terms of what you allow and don't... which is what Twitter seems to be doing.

kristiandupont 6y ago

>You still don't get it that [...] Have you been arguing with OP before? Or is this just how you address people in general? It doesn't set a very nice tone.

richardARPANET 6y ago

There's little point trying to explain to the HN crowd. They're majority left leaning so are pro-censorship as long as it's not directed at them. The people who are aware that the "fact checkers" have an agenda either won't accept it through mental gymnastics or simply don't care. Something which will come back to bite them. i.e. > Don't let the Orange man speak. Orange man bad!

aww_dang 6y ago
The challenge is discussing these issues without mentioning this explicitly. Hard to get someone to consider your opinion when they read your comment as an accusation.
rvz 6y ago
I won't be surprised of this being the case on the orange site but the downvoters will probably gaslight you for not having evidence of this; hence the downvotes. As for Twitter, there's no question of the evidence of this bias. The Twitter CEO previously just admitted to this: 'I fully admit our bias is more left-leaning' [0] Looks like the cool kids want their echo-chambers back. [0] https://thehill.com/policy/technology/402495-twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-i-fully-admit-our-bias-is-more-left-leaning https://thehill.com/policy/technology/402495-twitter-ceo-jac...
- AnHonestComment 6y ago
  There’s plenty of evidence. You can see this comment, where it was detached to censor me from even talking about censorship. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25017546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25017546
SaberTail 6y ago
The HN crowd is by and far away neoliberal leaning. Neoliberalism is a center right ideology, not left. Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden are all solidly neoliberal, so the mistake is understandable.

RickJWagner 6y ago

I agree. Example: The famous photo of Anderson Cooper standing in a ditch, pretending as if there was a catstrophic flood. (Really, the water was only a few inches deep.) Would Twitter flag that one? It's a given they'd flag Trump a bunch. How about Joe Biden saying he would not ban fracking? Would Twitter flag that one? Twitter is going to have a very hard time making anybody happy with this idea.

tzs 6y ago
Are you talking about the photo discussed here [1]? [1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/anderson-cooper-hurricane/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/anderson-cooper-hurricane/

iso1631 6y ago

https://metro.co.uk/2020/11/03/fake-robocalls-give-us-voters-wrong-date-for-election-day-13531488/ https://metro.co.uk/2020/11/03/fake-robocalls-give-us-voters... > Officials in Michigan reported on Tuesday that citizens of Flint, a predominantly black city, were receiving calls telling them to vote Wednesday, and not on election day. The calls are now being investigated by the FBI. That is misinformation, no ifs, no buts.

kanox 6y ago

> Ironicaly you missed the most important point: who decides what is fake news? In this case, twitter. And it's fine to disagree with the fact checkers.

entropea 6y ago

I agree with this for the most part. In the early 2000's Americans were lied into the Iraq war, with multiple newspapers practically begging [0] for war, and critics were the ones on the correct side of history. If that happened in 2021, would the critics be silenced, have warnings on all of their tweets, and be told that they're supporting conspiracy theories? Questioning the official narrative of power is becoming wrongthink. Who's deciding what's wrong and right? [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/irrefutable/e598b1be-a78a-4a42-8e1a-c336f7a217f4/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/i...