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> They had to properly fact-check it and educate the viewers. I think this should be the default mode for stupid (counter-factual) opinions. That’s unrealistic

> They had to properly fact-check it and educate the viewers. I think this should be the default mode for stupid (counter-factual) opinions. That’s unrealistic IMO. I can type out a hundred lies faster than you can fact check even one of them. Besides we’ve already seen that facts don’t matter to a lot of people. They don’t care if something is true or not anyways. All they care about is having their world views reaffirmed.

ttt0 6y ago
There is a lot of critique that people don't read anything besides the headlines and sometimes it's suggested that this is one of the causes for the spread of misinformation. I think that Twitter even warns you before you can retweet something to make sure that you read the entire article, so you don't spread whatever they consider to be false. But there is the same problem with fact-checking. People just search for it, see the headline that it was "debunked" and assume it's not true, without reading through the actual article. Here are some of the examples of articles, that suggest the story is not true, but once you get past the headline, it basically says the opposite: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/25/trump-keeps-claiming-that-most-dangerous-cities-america-are-all-run-by-democrats-they-arent/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/25/trump-kee... (https://archive.md/EK0rq https://archive.md/EK0rq) https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-suppressed-haitis-minimum-wage/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-suppressed... (https://archive.md/hhWnv https://archive.md/hhWnv) https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dems-impeach-gop-presidents/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dems-impeach-gop-president... (http://archive.md/HNgc9 http://archive.md/HNgc9) I don't disagree that it doesn't happen, but it's not always that people just "don't care about the facts". Sometimes it's that these so-called fact-checks are - to put it bluntly - complete garbage. When there were claims about the voter fraud circulating throughout the social media and Facebook and Twitter was putting the warnings on such posts, I happened to actually read those fact-checks, and let me tell you - they weren't good. Most of the time it was either a straw man or it had nothing to do with the actual claim that was being made. People laugh at conspiracy theorists, but most of them are not any better.
scotty79 6y ago
> That’s unrealistic IMO. Just ambitious. We shouldn't let Facebook off the hook with just letting them delete inconvenient stuff. We should press them till they pay for their great power by picking up the responsibility of education. > I can type out a hundred lies faster than you can fact check even one of them. Yes, but you can't convince people of so many new different stupid things at this rate. Novel lies are rarely the problem. Most dangerous lies are not new. There's nothing new about antivaxxers for example. Trumpism works by the same rules that nazi propaganda worked. Snake oil. Flat earth. How many new lies of this level of impact can you invent and publish and can you really do it faster than people can correct you if their voices are properly amplified? > Besides we’ve already seen that facts don’t matter to a lot of people. They don’t care if something is true or not anyways. All they care about is having their world views reaffirmed. Facts don't matter to them unless they understand them. Truth matters to them immensely. That's why they hold the (wrong) beliefs they hold. They care about being right. What they lack is education in the form and on the level that could reach them. For some of them, providing them with it might be very hard. But you can't give up and just censor whatever. It doesn't work. It didn't work. What works is education.

ttt0 6y ago

There is a lot of critique that people don't read anything besides the headlines and sometimes it's suggested that this is one of the causes for the spread of misinformation. I think that Twitter even warns you before you can retweet something to make sure that you read the entire article, so you don't spread whatever they consider to be false. But there is the same problem with fact-checking. People just search for it, see the headline that it was "debunked" and assume it's not true, without reading through the actual article. Here are some of the examples of articles, that suggest the story is not true, but once you get past the headline, it basically says the opposite: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/25/trump-keeps-claiming-that-most-dangerous-cities-america-are-all-run-by-democrats-they-arent/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/25/trump-kee... (https://archive.md/EK0rq https://archive.md/EK0rq) https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-suppressed-haitis-minimum-wage/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-suppressed... (https://archive.md/hhWnv https://archive.md/hhWnv) https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dems-impeach-gop-presidents/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dems-impeach-gop-president... (http://archive.md/HNgc9 http://archive.md/HNgc9) I don't disagree that it doesn't happen, but it's not always that people just "don't care about the facts". Sometimes it's that these so-called fact-checks are - to put it bluntly - complete garbage. When there were claims about the voter fraud circulating throughout the social media and Facebook and Twitter was putting the warnings on such posts, I happened to actually read those fact-checks, and let me tell you - they weren't good. Most of the time it was either a straw man or it had nothing to do with the actual claim that was being made. People laugh at conspiracy theorists, but most of them are not any better.

scotty79 6y ago

> That’s unrealistic IMO. Just ambitious. We shouldn't let Facebook off the hook with just letting them delete inconvenient stuff. We should press them till they pay for their great power by picking up the responsibility of education. > I can type out a hundred lies faster than you can fact check even one of them. Yes, but you can't convince people of so many new different stupid things at this rate. Novel lies are rarely the problem. Most dangerous lies are not new. There's nothing new about antivaxxers for example. Trumpism works by the same rules that nazi propaganda worked. Snake oil. Flat earth. How many new lies of this level of impact can you invent and publish and can you really do it faster than people can correct you if their voices are properly amplified? > Besides we’ve already seen that facts don’t matter to a lot of people. They don’t care if something is true or not anyways. All they care about is having their world views reaffirmed. Facts don't matter to them unless they understand them. Truth matters to them immensely. That's why they hold the (wrong) beliefs they hold. They care about being right. What they lack is education in the form and on the level that could reach them. For some of them, providing them with it might be very hard. But you can't give up and just censor whatever. It doesn't work. It didn't work. What works is education.