5 ms·

TLDR: The people pedaling false information and pushing extremist views are complaining that they're being tagged as posting misinformation and extremism.

• ultrablack 5y ago
  You have been tagged!
• wpietri 5y ago
  Not sure why this is getting voted down. It's a far-right paper quoting far-right sources only (or at least as far as I could read before uncloseable ads took over my tab). Asymmetric polarization is a real problem in the US, and the Washington Times has been a leader in that for decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times
  • lostmsu 5y ago
    Just an attempt to explain downvoting. Unbiased critical thinking requires one to only look at the validity of the message. The author should not matter at all. The only exception to that I am aware of is when an extraordinary claim is made that is previously considered unlikely, when disproving it is very hard. In that case it might be easier for the sake of saving time of readers to point out that author lied or misled in similar statements before. An example of that would be somebody coming up with a energy out of thin air idea (extremely unlikely, hard to check in-house), and pointing out that same person made such claims for 10+ years, perhaps with different apparatus and it never worked when reviewed, etc allows quick dismissal for many people until more trusted source checks and speaks on the matter. "Extremist" material plaque on Facebook however is factual information, there's nothing to quickly dismiss based on credentials of the author here. Therefore bringing up their identity only introduces previously missing bias in otherwise unbiased conversation, thus damaging clear thought process.
    • wpietri 5y ago
      > Unbiased critical thinking requires one to only look at the validity of the message. The author should not matter at all. This is obviously not what people do. It's not what experts in media criticism recommend. And it's also not even vaguely practical. The number of claims made is effectively infinite. The time needed to validate a given claim varies, but is often quite large, and can be effectively infinite. No single person can fully validate even a tiny fraction of all the claims made. Ergo, a person must choose between almost never deciding anything or collaborating with other people to do the work of validation. This introduces the vital concept of trust. The whole existence of journalism is part of that. If the world worked the way you suggest, we would just need something like 4chan: a bunch of anons posting messages. Then individuals could validate each one themselves. Instead what we have is established, branded newspapers, networks, magazines, and the like. What most have in common is a reputation for accuracy, something they invest quite a bit in maintaining and defending through the use of standard journalistic practices, professional editors, and fact-checking departments. The Washington Times purports to be a respectable journalistic outfit, inviting its readers to trust it. Its history demonstrates that is has a strong agenda and is willing to ride roughshod over traditional standards of validity in pursuit of partisan gains. There's nothing wrong with noting that so that people don't mistake it for some sort of journalistic effort.
      • bmarquez 5y ago
        Just because an news outfit has an editorial bias doesn't mean the actual article is incorrect. If that was the case people would flag certain domains posted on HN without reading the articles. I looked for other sources besides Washington Times and found them. Could the submitter have chosen a more centrist source? Sure. Does it change the fact that Facebook is posting these alerts and there is controversy over them? It does not.
        • wpietri 5y ago
          Neither I nor the person I replied to claimed the article was incorrect, so I don't know what that has to do with it.