4 ms·

I find fact checkers quite interesting in the way they've been deployed over the last few years. As if one source is the "truth" and that settles things. Usuall

by ccn0p 5y ago

I find fact checkers quite interesting in the way they've been deployed over the last few years. As if one source is the "truth" and that settles things. Usually when you get to the end of "false" claims, you find some tidbits that make you wonder... such as: "Several posts circulating online wrongly suggest that the pills are the same because ivermectin also acts like a protease inhibitor and keeps the virus from replicating. Ivermectin continues to be studied in relation to COVID-19, however, it has yet to be proven that it can treat COVID-19."

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
nuerow 5y ago
> Usually when you get to the end of "false" claims, you find some tidbits that make you wonder... such as: Could you please explain what exactly did you interpreted from a statement that boils down to "no one showed that this actually works"? The fact check looks pretty cut and dry to me.
- artificialLimbs 5y ago
  Not op, but "We don't know" != "False" Also, op does not claim "no one showed this actually works." Your comment is not in good faith.
  - gizmo686 5y ago
    The top-line claim in the linked fact-check is "Pfizer’s new pill to treat COVID-19 is just ivermectin repackaged". The claim is explicitly countered by claims in the fact check: "They are dramatically different molecules. The drugs are different in their structure and their molecular size". I have not fact-checked the fact check, but to suggest that the headline claim of "false" is misleading or inconsistent with the body of the article is simply wrong. The comment about Ivermectin still being studied and not yet known to be effective is not relevant to the claim under review, but merely added to provide the reader with context.
    - ccn0p 5y ago
      Thanks for the response. You're right, but, I'm not trying to say that the headline claim of "false" is misleading with the body of the article. I'm trying to say something more nuanced... that the headline claim of "false" is misleading from the actual conversations happening out there right now. Which in a way is not a problem with just fact checkers, but the Internet as a whole. BUT... In my opinion, "fact checkers" by nature of their name have a greater responsibility to Internet discourse than the random comment thread or opinion article because they claim to be an authoritative source. I can't help but think of the Ministry of Truth.
      - sdenton4 5y ago
        Why keep reading an article that's placed wrong information front and center? The false info should lower your prior on anything else the article says... Unless of course you're just looking to confirm your biases, in which case you'll find whatever you want to find.
      - ashtonkem 5y ago
        So basically someone proved their position thoroughly with regards to this singular claim, but you’re still skeptical towards the fact checkers because …? Kinda seems like the fact checkers were right here, and yet you still persist for whatever reason.
  - nuerow 5y ago
    > Not op, but "We don't know" != "False" That's not what the fat checker states. At all. The fact checker states, and I quote: > however, it has yet to be proven that it can treat COVID-19." "It is yet to be proven" means, quite literally, anyone who looked into it never saw it work, ever. At all.
    - vmception 5y ago
      > "It is yet to be proven" means, quite literally, anyone who looked into it never saw it work, ever. At all. [yet]. There are studies ongoing. Not in the anti-vaxxer "I'm still doing research" sense, but in the sense that there are actual non-Facebook studies ongoing. Even that AP fact checker article mentions that. When the context says there are studies ongoing and yet to be proven is mentioned, it means that the conclusion has not been drawn. In isolation, when yet to be proven is written with no other context, it means what you interpreted: that nobody has ever seen it work, and we need a nice way to say that. The fact checker and this conversation both accurately conveyed how different ivermectin is from what Pfizer is developing: the compounds are different, the molecules are different, everything is different. They don't say the result is different. Ivermectin - a completely different compound and molecule - has a hypothesis and limited result showing it functions as a protease inhibitor. It does omit where there are similarities being studied and what those hypothesis are. This is actually new information to me and I found that looking for a response to you. This isn't about Ivermectin or laughing at Republicans turn their whole states blue from a lack of oxygen as well as the remaining population, its just about what is omitted from the fact checking article.
    - naasking 5y ago
      > "It is yet to be proven" means, quite literally, anyone who looked into it never saw it work, ever. At all. This claim is quite literally false. If no one saw an effect, then we wouldn't still be talking about it. Most of the studies listed here [1] all claim to have seen it work. You can of course claim these are poor or unconvincing studies for various reasons, but they still falsify your claim that no one who looked into it ever saw it work. [1] https://ivmmeta.com/ https://ivmmeta.com/
      - 5y ago
- ccn0p 5y ago
  The problem with "fact checkers" is you can design them any way you want to get the answer you want. Here's how this is done with this one: Yes, the claim that Pfizer's new pill is "just repackaged Ivermectin" is certainly verifiably false, so the second line of the article can claim false followed by a supporting expert quote to drive it home. Statistically something like 95% of readers will stop there. Case closed. They're convinced. But it's not hard to find lots of front-line doctors who are seeing success with Ivermectin. Even the 4th-to-last paragraph in the factcheck article (that I cited) admits that Ivermectin "acts like a protease inhibitor" which is how the new patented "covid pills" will also act. If you follow many of these voices like I do, you see patterns that they aren't really even claiming that the new drug is exactly like Ivermectin. So even framing the question like this is a failure and doesn't capture the actually-useful voices out there. Probably just the Twitter mobs which always seem like the majority these days, but are far from it. This doesn't prove anything, nor am I claiming that Ivermectin works, but advancing the conversation is so much more nuanced than framing something and then calling it false. We, dear Hacker News readers, should know this better than most.
  - nuerow 5y ago
    > But it's not hard to find lots of front-line doctors who are seeing success with Ivermectin. If that was true then how do you explain the fact that so far no study was able observe or reproduce that effect under a controlled environment?
    - naasking 5y ago
      Technically not correct. Most blinded, randomized controlled trials showed improvements in symptoms and timeline [1,2,3, among others], but they are generally underpowered and so many consider the results to be not compelling. All the headlines you may have read that ivermectin studies found no results are way overblow; science journalism has never been great to begin with, and now politics has thoroughly infected this so signal to noise on this question is terrible. Some better trials are underway now, so we'll see. Not surprising, the patentable drug got a decent trial since pharma actually has a much bigger financial incentive there. [1] https://ejmo.org/pdf/A%20Comparative%20Study%20on%20IvermectinDoxycycline%20and%20HydroxychloroquineAzithromycin%20Therapy%20on%20COVID19%20Patients-16263.pdf https://ejmo.org/pdf/A%20Comparative%20Study%20on%20Ivermect... [2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/03000605211013550 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/030006052110135... [3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589537020304648 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S258953702...

by ccn0p 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

nuerow 5y ago

> Usually when you get to the end of "false" claims, you find some tidbits that make you wonder... such as: Could you please explain what exactly did you interpreted from a statement that boils down to "no one showed that this actually works"? The fact check looks pretty cut and dry to me.

artificialLimbs 5y ago
Not op, but "We don't know" != "False" Also, op does not claim "no one showed this actually works." Your comment is not in good faith.
- gizmo686 5y ago
  The top-line claim in the linked fact-check is "Pfizer’s new pill to treat COVID-19 is just ivermectin repackaged". The claim is explicitly countered by claims in the fact check: "They are dramatically different molecules. The drugs are different in their structure and their molecular size". I have not fact-checked the fact check, but to suggest that the headline claim of "false" is misleading or inconsistent with the body of the article is simply wrong. The comment about Ivermectin still being studied and not yet known to be effective is not relevant to the claim under review, but merely added to provide the reader with context.
  - ccn0p 5y ago
    Thanks for the response. You're right, but, I'm not trying to say that the headline claim of "false" is misleading with the body of the article. I'm trying to say something more nuanced... that the headline claim of "false" is misleading from the actual conversations happening out there right now. Which in a way is not a problem with just fact checkers, but the Internet as a whole. BUT... In my opinion, "fact checkers" by nature of their name have a greater responsibility to Internet discourse than the random comment thread or opinion article because they claim to be an authoritative source. I can't help but think of the Ministry of Truth.
    - sdenton4 5y ago
      Why keep reading an article that's placed wrong information front and center? The false info should lower your prior on anything else the article says... Unless of course you're just looking to confirm your biases, in which case you'll find whatever you want to find.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      So basically someone proved their position thoroughly with regards to this singular claim, but you’re still skeptical towards the fact checkers because …? Kinda seems like the fact checkers were right here, and yet you still persist for whatever reason.
- nuerow 5y ago
  > Not op, but "We don't know" != "False" That's not what the fat checker states. At all. The fact checker states, and I quote: > however, it has yet to be proven that it can treat COVID-19." "It is yet to be proven" means, quite literally, anyone who looked into it never saw it work, ever. At all.
  - vmception 5y ago
    > "It is yet to be proven" means, quite literally, anyone who looked into it never saw it work, ever. At all. [yet]. There are studies ongoing. Not in the anti-vaxxer "I'm still doing research" sense, but in the sense that there are actual non-Facebook studies ongoing. Even that AP fact checker article mentions that. When the context says there are studies ongoing and yet to be proven is mentioned, it means that the conclusion has not been drawn. In isolation, when yet to be proven is written with no other context, it means what you interpreted: that nobody has ever seen it work, and we need a nice way to say that. The fact checker and this conversation both accurately conveyed how different ivermectin is from what Pfizer is developing: the compounds are different, the molecules are different, everything is different. They don't say the result is different. Ivermectin - a completely different compound and molecule - has a hypothesis and limited result showing it functions as a protease inhibitor. It does omit where there are similarities being studied and what those hypothesis are. This is actually new information to me and I found that looking for a response to you. This isn't about Ivermectin or laughing at Republicans turn their whole states blue from a lack of oxygen as well as the remaining population, its just about what is omitted from the fact checking article.
  - naasking 5y ago
    > "It is yet to be proven" means, quite literally, anyone who looked into it never saw it work, ever. At all. This claim is quite literally false. If no one saw an effect, then we wouldn't still be talking about it. Most of the studies listed here [1] all claim to have seen it work. You can of course claim these are poor or unconvincing studies for various reasons, but they still falsify your claim that no one who looked into it ever saw it work. [1] https://ivmmeta.com/ https://ivmmeta.com/
    - 5y ago
ccn0p 5y ago
The problem with "fact checkers" is you can design them any way you want to get the answer you want. Here's how this is done with this one: Yes, the claim that Pfizer's new pill is "just repackaged Ivermectin" is certainly verifiably false, so the second line of the article can claim false followed by a supporting expert quote to drive it home. Statistically something like 95% of readers will stop there. Case closed. They're convinced. But it's not hard to find lots of front-line doctors who are seeing success with Ivermectin. Even the 4th-to-last paragraph in the factcheck article (that I cited) admits that Ivermectin "acts like a protease inhibitor" which is how the new patented "covid pills" will also act. If you follow many of these voices like I do, you see patterns that they aren't really even claiming that the new drug is exactly like Ivermectin. So even framing the question like this is a failure and doesn't capture the actually-useful voices out there. Probably just the Twitter mobs which always seem like the majority these days, but are far from it. This doesn't prove anything, nor am I claiming that Ivermectin works, but advancing the conversation is so much more nuanced than framing something and then calling it false. We, dear Hacker News readers, should know this better than most.
- nuerow 5y ago
  > But it's not hard to find lots of front-line doctors who are seeing success with Ivermectin. If that was true then how do you explain the fact that so far no study was able observe or reproduce that effect under a controlled environment?
  - naasking 5y ago
    Technically not correct. Most blinded, randomized controlled trials showed improvements in symptoms and timeline [1,2,3, among others], but they are generally underpowered and so many consider the results to be not compelling. All the headlines you may have read that ivermectin studies found no results are way overblow; science journalism has never been great to begin with, and now politics has thoroughly infected this so signal to noise on this question is terrible. Some better trials are underway now, so we'll see. Not surprising, the patentable drug got a decent trial since pharma actually has a much bigger financial incentive there. [1] https://ejmo.org/pdf/A%20Comparative%20Study%20on%20IvermectinDoxycycline%20and%20HydroxychloroquineAzithromycin%20Therapy%20on%20COVID19%20Patients-16263.pdf https://ejmo.org/pdf/A%20Comparative%20Study%20on%20Ivermect... [2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/03000605211013550 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/030006052110135... [3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589537020304648 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S258953702...