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Oh yeah, choosing what to fact-check is a really powerful tool. For example, I remember a Snopes fact check going hugely viral a while back as proof that the re
by makomk 5y ago
Oh yeah, choosing what to fact-check is a really powerful tool. For example, I remember a Snopes fact check going hugely viral a while back as proof that the reason people believed that antifa is violent was because of right-wing lies. The thing is, that fact check had to cherry-pick an obscure tweet with only a few hundred retweets - something Snopes wouldn't normally bother touching at all - because all the more widely viewed tweets about the exact same incident posted and spread by people with more reach didn't make the same error and matched what Snopes claimed the truth was. By choosing what to fact check in a misleading way, Snopes had actually helped seed viral misinformation on social media far more widespread than what they were debunking.