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In addition to the points raised by BMJ and in the comments below, there is a limit to what independent fact checking can accomplish. For example, are their fac

In addition to the points raised by BMJ and in the comments below, there is a limit to what independent fact checking can accomplish. For example, are their fact checkers conducting their own scientific experiments validating claims and outcomes of a scientific paper? Are fact checkers reaching out to sources from a news article and verifying quoted information? When “breaking news” or “scoops” are reported presenting totally new information about the world, how can that be verified against other information that - by virtue of something being new - cannot be verified by other preexisting sources? If the fact checking process is limited to verification based on other information that is currently available, and if the fact checking process cannot distinguish between factual information and the opinions people hold as a result of that information, the outcome will be an inevitable echo chamber that reinforces currently dominant views or whatever preexisting biases are present. In short, fact checking is hard and there is a reason why reputable publishing outlets have their own internal fact verification processes before something gets published (including safeguards and retractions, because they make mistakes too), and why news is separated out from opinion-editorial pages... even if it is in style to add opinions (read: “perspective”) to every article.

beefman 5y ago
This isn't about the inherent limits of fact-checking (substantial though they are). It's about the inherent bias of Facebook's fact-checking.
- dr-detroit 5y ago
  Dont cross Musk or Zuck. They seem like harmless tools but they are the face of the megatechnocrats.
- Stranger43 5y ago
  All arbiters of truth will eventually end up deferring to whatever the current holders of power wants the narrative to be as that is the nature of power and authoritative fact-checking is merely one more aspect of how power is exercises.
AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
I wonder how much more expensive would it be to have "explainers" instead of "fact-checkers". We all have heard about "the same lies being repeat over and over". Well, if these lies are indeed all kinda the same, then it should be relatively easy to (1) gather a proper, extensive set of facts that disprove the lies and then (2) hire an army of war hamsters to introduce these facts into discussion - following the guidelines from (1). Right now this approach doesn't work very well, because as soon as you start attacking anyone with facts and logic, you simply get banned from the community. But I'm sure changing this is within the power of the social media.
- rightisleft 5y ago
  you just reinvented the news journalist...
  - AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
    Well, with the decline of newspapers there should be plenty of unemployed journalists who'll be happy to spread some knowledge around FB for a moderate fee? Or - this thought scares me the most - FB actually doesn't care about facts?
    - 3maj 5y ago
      Worse, FB doesn't care about the facts and neither do journalists anymore. All that matters is clicks and political leanings.
    - namelessoracle 5y ago
      Journalists dont exist to spread knowledge. They exist to spread ideologies. I challenge you to find a point in human history where "journalists" weren't putting their fingers on the scale. Look at the journalistic antics of someone like Benjamin Franklin for instance.
    - User23 5y ago
      Facebook "fact checks" are, according to Facebook's attorneys, just opinions[1]. [1] https://thefederalist.com/2021/12/13/facebook-quietly-admits-its-third-party-fact-checks-are-opinions/ https://thefederalist.com/2021/12/13/facebook-quietly-admits...
spaniard89277 5y ago
I don't know in your country, but in Spain most fact-checkers have very evident ties with two political parties, and they handle info in an agenda-setting style. They even have very personal links to politicians. Of course they really polish their communication and websites, and they know how to sound scientific-y throwing in some graphs and stuff. The problem is not only that, but that the same people who works in the media churning BS articles is the people who works in the fact checkers, and most of them are journalists, AKA experts in nothing that pretend to become experts with a few calls and some google-fu. The reality, at least in Spain, is that fact checkers are just a side-effect of the kulturwars and don't bring any truth to the table. This specially evident when they talk about something you really know about. Of course, because fact-checkers happen to be lefty because of the, let's call, overton-window cycle, then the left choses to ignore this problems and just says it's the right-wingers that chose to ignore facts and yadda yadda. While this is going on, right-wing, and many times right-wing extremist views, become the new punk and many yougsters are flocking to provide new blood to said ideologies. It's all just so tiresome.
- xwolfi 5y ago
  I'm French, live in China, so familiar from both countries with what you say. But I think I disagree a bit with your annoyance with agenda setting and journalist incestuous relationship with ideology or politics. Look I dont know how you're taught in Spain but in France we gave up neutral journalism centuries ago. Each newspaper is clearly categorized and we learn as children, around 7 IIRC all the links (le monde socialist, le figaro gaulist trending christian, l'humanité communist, and so on and there are many more subtle variations too French to list here) and learn to read them all, sometimes with clenched fist, but no truth has ever been reveled by a single perspective: embrace the chaos and join perspective to build a multi facet view. It's something I despair to see in China where politicians, journalist and the mass try to identify a pure source of truth. But no communist think like another, so even their way will never work. Let them all fight, balance out the arguments, take a decision in the voting booth and stop dreaming of a universal truth given to you from greater mind: even a genius in his lab building a life saving cure will forget to listen to the victims of the sacrifices he requires for the greater good, and that voice must be heard too. Fight for MORE ideology and agenda in media in exchange for editorial transparency about it, so you're clear who they propose you to vote for when they present an argument, and you'll be free. Any other way, and it goes with fact checking semi anonymous facebook crap, is doomed to muddy this clarity. That s what facebook must do: what is the political party or alignment behind each piece, and you're done (or almost: also need to learn to read and understand all perspectives, the hardest part in the US it seems).
tehnub 5y ago
Indeed, as we saw in the recent-ish fact checking failure by the New Yorker about the "rent-a-family" business in Japan: https://newrepublic.com/article/160595/new-yorker-japan-rent-family-fabricated https://newrepublic.com/article/160595/new-yorker-japan-rent... From the article: >An emerging theme in both controversies is that there is a fatal chink in the armor of even the most rigorous fact-checking process—that it is especially vulnerable to a naked betrayal of trust by an author or source. There is only so much a fact-checker can do if someone is intent on telling lies, particularly when the stakes are so low [...]
hedora 5y ago
As the letter points out, in this particular case, fact checking is not hard. In fact, this is one of the easiest scenarios for a fact checker to handle correctly. The source is a reputable, top-tier peer-reviewed publication. Even an inexperienced (but competent) fact checker could check run literature searches on the journal, reviewers and authors. This would reveal that they’re working at reputable institutions, and have been for decades.
- srcreigh 5y ago
  No.. the fact checker should also make sure true facts aren't being used out of context causing the reader come to incorrect conclusions. That's what is happening with the BMJ article. That's why the fact check report doesn't mention any specific factual inaccuracies. Context matters, missing context is a problem. EDIT: see here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29597047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29597047
  - hammock 5y ago
    What incorrect conclusion and who came to it?
    - sul_tasto 5y ago
      The BMJ article being discussed points out flaws in the medical validation of the covid vaccine. While true, this medical journal article is being used by the anti-vaccination advocates to make a more general claim that the vaccine is ineffective/dangerous/evil, etc. Even though the medical journal article accurately shows problems with this specific aspect of the medical/clinical review of the vaccine, the vaccine is proving effective in combating the transmission and severity of the covid virus. Many of the people currently going to the hospital for covid are unvaccinated. This is placing a heavy burden on the hospitals and preventing other people from getting the care they need. People are fighting over specific facts because they are trying to influence the broader narrative/discourse going on in society about covid, vaccinations, lockdowns, etc. Comments in this thread are discussing facebook, journalists and fact-checkers, and their roles in influencing public opinion and social discourse.
rg111 5y ago
> there is a limit to what independent fact checking can accomplish Slightly on a tangent, but it is worth mentioning. I used to be a regular part of both English and a regional language version of <very overhyped SV darling Q&A site which still survives and many wonder how and why>. There were moderators on this site. And moderation was overseen by "Community Managers" who are humanities majors and MBAs. They not only let very wrong answers on scientific, mathematical, and technical matters stay on their platform until and unless reported by someone with good credentials, they also picked up "top writers" from people who wrote weirdly wrong things like Python being a database, or Quantum Mechanics determining the radii of solar systems. It was embarassingly funny to watch. The arts major, MBA community managers did not know jack about programming or physics, yet, they are supposed to choose "top writers". This also points the flaws in the thought that professional factcheckers should exist and they can be trusted with every topic. They simply won't know enough. Ever. A knowledgeable SWE won't work for a Q&A site's moderation or a renowned biologist for Facebook factchecking. They would rather work at a high-paying tech job and a tenure track professorship or big pharma, respectively.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  This sounds vaguely familiar. Do you think the people who created this site had recurring opinions on a particular type of punctuation?
- spaniard89277 5y ago
  You could work for the media/press if it was worth it as a side gig. But they tend to pay badly.
specialp 5y ago
I am not a fan of Facebook, but this is one reason they did not want to get into being the arbiter of what is true (Along with a lot of other less noble reasons). There are indeed things that are demonstrably not true, or presented in a very misleading manner, but there's a whole class of things that are in between. The scientific world in general is a community where research about things comes in, people digest it, and come to a consensus. This includes some contradictory things or things that turn out to be faulty conclusions. This does not make them "fact check verified false". It is a stream of information that is weighed and honed over time with further research or questioning. Now I agree people are very bad (even "smart" people) at ditching their inherent tribal nature to weigh data that supports their bias more highly. The echo chambers of partisans on social media will assign an impossible burden of proof against evidence that challenges their thought on something and have no burden of proof on the converse. But that does not mean that we can then make it binary of "true" or "untrue" to stop this. "Fact-checks" feel good, but it is clear now they are being extended to not just the realm of demonstrably false information and more into the opinion and inconclusive realm.
- specialist 5y ago
  If Facebook doesn't want to be arbiter, they should stop arbitrating. The moment Facebook chooses what to display, they own the content. And it just so happens that what Facebook chooses to display, chooses to recommend, are the lies, more often than not.
  - postingawayonhn 5y ago
    The moment Facebook stops trying to be the arbiter is the moment the government steps in and places heavy regulations on them.
    - specialist 5y ago
      Facebook's algorithmic outrage amplification is necessary to prevent an overbearing government from forcibly reverting parasocial norms to a simple chronologically sorted inbox?
hogFeast 5y ago
The BMJ, ironically, is prone to publishing articles that make unverified claims without making clear rather significant conflicts of interest. Infamously, they published a largely spurious article which claimed that UK govt cuts had killed hundreds of thousands of people, they failed to make clear several aspects of the data that didn't support their conclusion which ofc was that doctors should get more money, they also failed to mention that one of the authors ran a company selling stuff to the NHS that was linked to the conclusions or that the lead author of the paper had no statistical training. Unfortunately, life is like this. Doctors would prefer that people just listen to them, they are very serious people after all, we should believe everything they say. Most fact-checking services in the UK have a ludicrously political bent, they pick whatever facts and sources support their argument. In practice, they are just attempting to stop all debate about a topic. Life is messy, people will have different opinions even if they acknowledge the same facts, proof is often messy and unclear (if you look at some of the forecasts for Covid this year, just ludicrously wrong and all errors in the same direction...we need criticism, we need debate...afaik, only one publication has actually highlighted all these forecasters who dominate the media making consistently bad forecasts...where are the fact-checkers now? Too busy hunting down shadows on Twitter.). Deal with life as it is, not life as you wish it was (again, doctors in the UK are more guilty than anyone in civil society of this error, their lobbying/political power is immense, their view is: might makes right).
stjohnswarts 5y ago
Overall they are doing more good than harm. Quickly cutting disinformation about covid and sending hateful racist/terroristic politics down the toilet where it belongs is important even if they mess up occasionally. I would have them hire fact checkers than just let the garbage that floats around freely on facebook not get shutdown.
TeeMassive 5y ago
> there is a limit to what independent fact checking can accomplish I am fine with that. But they shouldn't call it a "fact-check" when the only thing they can connect the dots with are opinions, not facts. > and why news is separated out from opinion-editorial pages... even if it is in style to add opinions The problem I have with so-called "fact checkers" is that when it comes down to put the money where their mouth is, that is in court, they argue that they are not factual but rather opinion pieces, as Facebook recently argued in court: https://nypost.com/2021/12/14/facebook-admits-the-truth-fact-checks-are-really-just-lefty-opinion/ https://nypost.com/2021/12/14/facebook-admits-the-truth-fact... (I couldn't find a more politically neutral source, sorry)
wellbehaved 5y ago
"Fact checking" by social media giants is an inherent farce, which would be laughable if it weren't leading to people getting oppressed and killed and governments being perverted.

beefman 5y ago

This isn't about the inherent limits of fact-checking (substantial though they are). It's about the inherent bias of Facebook's fact-checking.

dr-detroit 5y ago
Dont cross Musk or Zuck. They seem like harmless tools but they are the face of the megatechnocrats.
Stranger43 5y ago
All arbiters of truth will eventually end up deferring to whatever the current holders of power wants the narrative to be as that is the nature of power and authoritative fact-checking is merely one more aspect of how power is exercises.

AlexTWithBeard 5y ago

I wonder how much more expensive would it be to have "explainers" instead of "fact-checkers". We all have heard about "the same lies being repeat over and over". Well, if these lies are indeed all kinda the same, then it should be relatively easy to (1) gather a proper, extensive set of facts that disprove the lies and then (2) hire an army of war hamsters to introduce these facts into discussion - following the guidelines from (1). Right now this approach doesn't work very well, because as soon as you start attacking anyone with facts and logic, you simply get banned from the community. But I'm sure changing this is within the power of the social media.

rightisleft 5y ago
you just reinvented the news journalist...
- AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
  Well, with the decline of newspapers there should be plenty of unemployed journalists who'll be happy to spread some knowledge around FB for a moderate fee? Or - this thought scares me the most - FB actually doesn't care about facts?
  - 3maj 5y ago
    Worse, FB doesn't care about the facts and neither do journalists anymore. All that matters is clicks and political leanings.
  - namelessoracle 5y ago
    Journalists dont exist to spread knowledge. They exist to spread ideologies. I challenge you to find a point in human history where "journalists" weren't putting their fingers on the scale. Look at the journalistic antics of someone like Benjamin Franklin for instance.
  - User23 5y ago
    Facebook "fact checks" are, according to Facebook's attorneys, just opinions[1]. [1] https://thefederalist.com/2021/12/13/facebook-quietly-admits-its-third-party-fact-checks-are-opinions/ https://thefederalist.com/2021/12/13/facebook-quietly-admits...

spaniard89277 5y ago

I don't know in your country, but in Spain most fact-checkers have very evident ties with two political parties, and they handle info in an agenda-setting style. They even have very personal links to politicians. Of course they really polish their communication and websites, and they know how to sound scientific-y throwing in some graphs and stuff. The problem is not only that, but that the same people who works in the media churning BS articles is the people who works in the fact checkers, and most of them are journalists, AKA experts in nothing that pretend to become experts with a few calls and some google-fu. The reality, at least in Spain, is that fact checkers are just a side-effect of the kulturwars and don't bring any truth to the table. This specially evident when they talk about something you really know about. Of course, because fact-checkers happen to be lefty because of the, let's call, overton-window cycle, then the left choses to ignore this problems and just says it's the right-wingers that chose to ignore facts and yadda yadda. While this is going on, right-wing, and many times right-wing extremist views, become the new punk and many yougsters are flocking to provide new blood to said ideologies. It's all just so tiresome.

xwolfi 5y ago
I'm French, live in China, so familiar from both countries with what you say. But I think I disagree a bit with your annoyance with agenda setting and journalist incestuous relationship with ideology or politics. Look I dont know how you're taught in Spain but in France we gave up neutral journalism centuries ago. Each newspaper is clearly categorized and we learn as children, around 7 IIRC all the links (le monde socialist, le figaro gaulist trending christian, l'humanité communist, and so on and there are many more subtle variations too French to list here) and learn to read them all, sometimes with clenched fist, but no truth has ever been reveled by a single perspective: embrace the chaos and join perspective to build a multi facet view. It's something I despair to see in China where politicians, journalist and the mass try to identify a pure source of truth. But no communist think like another, so even their way will never work. Let them all fight, balance out the arguments, take a decision in the voting booth and stop dreaming of a universal truth given to you from greater mind: even a genius in his lab building a life saving cure will forget to listen to the victims of the sacrifices he requires for the greater good, and that voice must be heard too. Fight for MORE ideology and agenda in media in exchange for editorial transparency about it, so you're clear who they propose you to vote for when they present an argument, and you'll be free. Any other way, and it goes with fact checking semi anonymous facebook crap, is doomed to muddy this clarity. That s what facebook must do: what is the political party or alignment behind each piece, and you're done (or almost: also need to learn to read and understand all perspectives, the hardest part in the US it seems).

tehnub 5y ago

Indeed, as we saw in the recent-ish fact checking failure by the New Yorker about the "rent-a-family" business in Japan: https://newrepublic.com/article/160595/new-yorker-japan-rent-family-fabricated https://newrepublic.com/article/160595/new-yorker-japan-rent... From the article: >An emerging theme in both controversies is that there is a fatal chink in the armor of even the most rigorous fact-checking process—that it is especially vulnerable to a naked betrayal of trust by an author or source. There is only so much a fact-checker can do if someone is intent on telling lies, particularly when the stakes are so low [...]

hedora 5y ago

As the letter points out, in this particular case, fact checking is not hard. In fact, this is one of the easiest scenarios for a fact checker to handle correctly. The source is a reputable, top-tier peer-reviewed publication. Even an inexperienced (but competent) fact checker could check run literature searches on the journal, reviewers and authors. This would reveal that they’re working at reputable institutions, and have been for decades.

srcreigh 5y ago
No.. the fact checker should also make sure true facts aren't being used out of context causing the reader come to incorrect conclusions. That's what is happening with the BMJ article. That's why the fact check report doesn't mention any specific factual inaccuracies. Context matters, missing context is a problem. EDIT: see here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29597047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29597047
- hammock 5y ago
  What incorrect conclusion and who came to it?
  - sul_tasto 5y ago
    The BMJ article being discussed points out flaws in the medical validation of the covid vaccine. While true, this medical journal article is being used by the anti-vaccination advocates to make a more general claim that the vaccine is ineffective/dangerous/evil, etc. Even though the medical journal article accurately shows problems with this specific aspect of the medical/clinical review of the vaccine, the vaccine is proving effective in combating the transmission and severity of the covid virus. Many of the people currently going to the hospital for covid are unvaccinated. This is placing a heavy burden on the hospitals and preventing other people from getting the care they need. People are fighting over specific facts because they are trying to influence the broader narrative/discourse going on in society about covid, vaccinations, lockdowns, etc. Comments in this thread are discussing facebook, journalists and fact-checkers, and their roles in influencing public opinion and social discourse.

rg111 5y ago

> there is a limit to what independent fact checking can accomplish Slightly on a tangent, but it is worth mentioning. I used to be a regular part of both English and a regional language version of <very overhyped SV darling Q&A site which still survives and many wonder how and why>. There were moderators on this site. And moderation was overseen by "Community Managers" who are humanities majors and MBAs. They not only let very wrong answers on scientific, mathematical, and technical matters stay on their platform until and unless reported by someone with good credentials, they also picked up "top writers" from people who wrote weirdly wrong things like Python being a database, or Quantum Mechanics determining the radii of solar systems. It was embarassingly funny to watch. The arts major, MBA community managers did not know jack about programming or physics, yet, they are supposed to choose "top writers". This also points the flaws in the thought that professional factcheckers should exist and they can be trusted with every topic. They simply won't know enough. Ever. A knowledgeable SWE won't work for a Q&A site's moderation or a renowned biologist for Facebook factchecking. They would rather work at a high-paying tech job and a tenure track professorship or big pharma, respectively.

eyelidlessness 5y ago
This sounds vaguely familiar. Do you think the people who created this site had recurring opinions on a particular type of punctuation?
spaniard89277 5y ago
You could work for the media/press if it was worth it as a side gig. But they tend to pay badly.

specialp 5y ago

I am not a fan of Facebook, but this is one reason they did not want to get into being the arbiter of what is true (Along with a lot of other less noble reasons). There are indeed things that are demonstrably not true, or presented in a very misleading manner, but there's a whole class of things that are in between. The scientific world in general is a community where research about things comes in, people digest it, and come to a consensus. This includes some contradictory things or things that turn out to be faulty conclusions. This does not make them "fact check verified false". It is a stream of information that is weighed and honed over time with further research or questioning. Now I agree people are very bad (even "smart" people) at ditching their inherent tribal nature to weigh data that supports their bias more highly. The echo chambers of partisans on social media will assign an impossible burden of proof against evidence that challenges their thought on something and have no burden of proof on the converse. But that does not mean that we can then make it binary of "true" or "untrue" to stop this. "Fact-checks" feel good, but it is clear now they are being extended to not just the realm of demonstrably false information and more into the opinion and inconclusive realm.

specialist 5y ago
If Facebook doesn't want to be arbiter, they should stop arbitrating. The moment Facebook chooses what to display, they own the content. And it just so happens that what Facebook chooses to display, chooses to recommend, are the lies, more often than not.
- postingawayonhn 5y ago
  The moment Facebook stops trying to be the arbiter is the moment the government steps in and places heavy regulations on them.
  - specialist 5y ago
    Facebook's algorithmic outrage amplification is necessary to prevent an overbearing government from forcibly reverting parasocial norms to a simple chronologically sorted inbox?

hogFeast 5y ago

The BMJ, ironically, is prone to publishing articles that make unverified claims without making clear rather significant conflicts of interest. Infamously, they published a largely spurious article which claimed that UK govt cuts had killed hundreds of thousands of people, they failed to make clear several aspects of the data that didn't support their conclusion which ofc was that doctors should get more money, they also failed to mention that one of the authors ran a company selling stuff to the NHS that was linked to the conclusions or that the lead author of the paper had no statistical training. Unfortunately, life is like this. Doctors would prefer that people just listen to them, they are very serious people after all, we should believe everything they say. Most fact-checking services in the UK have a ludicrously political bent, they pick whatever facts and sources support their argument. In practice, they are just attempting to stop all debate about a topic. Life is messy, people will have different opinions even if they acknowledge the same facts, proof is often messy and unclear (if you look at some of the forecasts for Covid this year, just ludicrously wrong and all errors in the same direction...we need criticism, we need debate...afaik, only one publication has actually highlighted all these forecasters who dominate the media making consistently bad forecasts...where are the fact-checkers now? Too busy hunting down shadows on Twitter.). Deal with life as it is, not life as you wish it was (again, doctors in the UK are more guilty than anyone in civil society of this error, their lobbying/political power is immense, their view is: might makes right).

stjohnswarts 5y ago

Overall they are doing more good than harm. Quickly cutting disinformation about covid and sending hateful racist/terroristic politics down the toilet where it belongs is important even if they mess up occasionally. I would have them hire fact checkers than just let the garbage that floats around freely on facebook not get shutdown.

TeeMassive 5y ago

> there is a limit to what independent fact checking can accomplish I am fine with that. But they shouldn't call it a "fact-check" when the only thing they can connect the dots with are opinions, not facts. > and why news is separated out from opinion-editorial pages... even if it is in style to add opinions The problem I have with so-called "fact checkers" is that when it comes down to put the money where their mouth is, that is in court, they argue that they are not factual but rather opinion pieces, as Facebook recently argued in court: https://nypost.com/2021/12/14/facebook-admits-the-truth-fact-checks-are-really-just-lefty-opinion/ https://nypost.com/2021/12/14/facebook-admits-the-truth-fact... (I couldn't find a more politically neutral source, sorry)

wellbehaved 5y ago

"Fact checking" by social media giants is an inherent farce, which would be laughable if it weren't leading to people getting oppressed and killed and governments being perverted.