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"Who fact-checks the fact-checkers?" Nobody - because fact-checking [of the type under discussion] is essentially an infotainment service, and people providing

"Who fact-checks the fact-checkers?" Nobody - because fact-checking [of the type under discussion] is essentially an infotainment service, and people providing those services don't wish to draw attention to their competitors.

epgui 5y ago
This does not really match my perception of reality... Genuine ask: do you have a specific example of a respected fact-checking organization that you think does a poor job, or perhaps an academic paper which supports this position?
- teachingassist 5y ago
  I've never looked at academic papers before, but they mostly seem concerned with automated fact-checking, under an assumption that this is desirable. Papers looking at whether or not this is desirable tend not to come to that conclusion, e.g. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08913811.2013.843872 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08913811.2013.84... https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10584609.2019.1668894 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10584609.2019.16... (2020 meta-analysis) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15205436.2020.1733613 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15205436.2020.17... I personally hold a belief that a fact-checking publisher has the same biases and profit-motives as any news publisher (or, as motive, political influence of the wealthy). I don't find it useful to distinguish fact-checking as special and call for specific research on this, as if existing academic research can always be invalidated by a simple re-branding.
  - epgui 5y ago
    My personal view on automated fact-checking is actually quite different than on what I consider to be real fact-checking (ie.: the product of professional human labour), for much the same reason that I wouldn't buy a newspaper written by a bot, but that I see a lot of value in articles written by humans. I don't know how well this will age, but for now, I think any company claiming to be able to automate fact-checking should be met with a high degree of skepticism. Just for context, what I imagine in my head when I think of a "fact check" is something like this, basically a specialized or somewhat standardized / formulaic form of journalism: - https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/england-banned-fox-news/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/england-banned-fox-news/ - https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/feb/18/joe-biden/joe-bidens-town-hall-mistake-about-inflation-index/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/feb/18/joe-biden/... - https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jan/05/donald-trump/does-mike-pence-have-power-reject-electoral-colleg/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jan/05/donald-tru... I deliberately picked a couple of less obvious fact-checks than "is the earth round", because I wanted to highlight how even in politics, on questions where there is high potential for bias, there are cut and dry things which can be fact-checked, or at the very least 'contextualized'. I'm sure none of this is perfect, but I am not super optimistic that automated content would be of this level of quality.
croon 5y ago
The ones I'm referring to always provide both their rationale and their sources for their verdict. It's trivial to verify in most cases. > Nobody - because fact-checking [of the type under discussion] is essentially an infotainment service, and people providing those services don't wish to draw attention to their competitors. You are basically suggesting that no one has an interest in disproving something on the internet, which is probably the second thing people engaged with after porn.
- teachingassist 5y ago
  > You are basically suggesting that no one has an interest in disproving something on the internet No. I'm saying it's an internet standard commercial practice to not provide links sending people to your competitors, no matter what space you are in.
  - croon 5y ago
    https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Afoxnews.com+cnn https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Afoxnews.com+cnn https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Acnn.com+foxnews https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Acnn.com+foxnews I refute your supposition with extremely clear evidence that competitors have no problem mentioning each other, especially when it's in an attempt to refute something they said. So that solves the commercial aspect. The fact (no pun intended) still stands that fact-checking services are even easier to falsify since their claims are generally binary. The fact that we're having this discussion should prove that there's an abundance of interest in doing just that on the internet since we both likely have better things to do.
    - teachingassist 5y ago
      You disproved my point with occasional articles showing CNN trashing Fox News (and vice versa; one still doesn't appear to link to the other, which is what I actually said): is that an example of them fact-checking each other, or is it high school-level drama? Neither of us are making any money; and, by now, nobody else is reading it.

epgui 5y ago

This does not really match my perception of reality... Genuine ask: do you have a specific example of a respected fact-checking organization that you think does a poor job, or perhaps an academic paper which supports this position?

teachingassist 5y ago
I've never looked at academic papers before, but they mostly seem concerned with automated fact-checking, under an assumption that this is desirable. Papers looking at whether or not this is desirable tend not to come to that conclusion, e.g. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08913811.2013.843872 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08913811.2013.84... https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10584609.2019.1668894 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10584609.2019.16... (2020 meta-analysis) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15205436.2020.1733613 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15205436.2020.17... I personally hold a belief that a fact-checking publisher has the same biases and profit-motives as any news publisher (or, as motive, political influence of the wealthy). I don't find it useful to distinguish fact-checking as special and call for specific research on this, as if existing academic research can always be invalidated by a simple re-branding.
- epgui 5y ago
  My personal view on automated fact-checking is actually quite different than on what I consider to be real fact-checking (ie.: the product of professional human labour), for much the same reason that I wouldn't buy a newspaper written by a bot, but that I see a lot of value in articles written by humans. I don't know how well this will age, but for now, I think any company claiming to be able to automate fact-checking should be met with a high degree of skepticism. Just for context, what I imagine in my head when I think of a "fact check" is something like this, basically a specialized or somewhat standardized / formulaic form of journalism: - https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/england-banned-fox-news/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/england-banned-fox-news/ - https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/feb/18/joe-biden/joe-bidens-town-hall-mistake-about-inflation-index/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/feb/18/joe-biden/... - https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jan/05/donald-trump/does-mike-pence-have-power-reject-electoral-colleg/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jan/05/donald-tru... I deliberately picked a couple of less obvious fact-checks than "is the earth round", because I wanted to highlight how even in politics, on questions where there is high potential for bias, there are cut and dry things which can be fact-checked, or at the very least 'contextualized'. I'm sure none of this is perfect, but I am not super optimistic that automated content would be of this level of quality.

croon 5y ago

The ones I'm referring to always provide both their rationale and their sources for their verdict. It's trivial to verify in most cases. > Nobody - because fact-checking [of the type under discussion] is essentially an infotainment service, and people providing those services don't wish to draw attention to their competitors. You are basically suggesting that no one has an interest in disproving something on the internet, which is probably the second thing people engaged with after porn.

teachingassist 5y ago
> You are basically suggesting that no one has an interest in disproving something on the internet No. I'm saying it's an internet standard commercial practice to not provide links sending people to your competitors, no matter what space you are in.
- croon 5y ago
  https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Afoxnews.com+cnn https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Afoxnews.com+cnn https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Acnn.com+foxnews https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Acnn.com+foxnews I refute your supposition with extremely clear evidence that competitors have no problem mentioning each other, especially when it's in an attempt to refute something they said. So that solves the commercial aspect. The fact (no pun intended) still stands that fact-checking services are even easier to falsify since their claims are generally binary. The fact that we're having this discussion should prove that there's an abundance of interest in doing just that on the internet since we both likely have better things to do.
  - teachingassist 5y ago
    You disproved my point with occasional articles showing CNN trashing Fox News (and vice versa; one still doesn't appear to link to the other, which is what I actually said): is that an example of them fact-checking each other, or is it high school-level drama? Neither of us are making any money; and, by now, nobody else is reading it.