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Yeah, the problem here is that there is so much disinformation that we need fact checking in the first place. Once you've gotten to that point, there will be no

Yeah, the problem here is that there is so much disinformation that we need fact checking in the first place. Once you've gotten to that point, there will be no perfect solutions. But IMO, we're far better off having organizations at least attempt to fact check, even if they get it wrong from time to time. The alternative is an open fire hose of unchecked disinformation, and I'm not sure how we survive that.

luckylion 5y ago
Do fact-checks work? That is, if they fact-check an article claiming that Bush did 9/11, are there significant amounts of people who say "oh, I thought he did. But I guess not, thanks, fact checkers"? The things that get fact checked tend to be more tribal, so most people either believe it or not, and tend to understand the fact-checkers as mostly biased against them if they don't agree with the result. Fact-checking is pretty useless in that situation, and people will start considering it as a biased tool ("they only fact-check what my side is saying and start splitting hairs, but they never fact-check what the other side is saying"). I don't think you can solve a tribal conflict by trying to present selected facts.
- andybak 5y ago
  I think this ignores the fact that the "tribes" are dynamic. People join, leave, sub-groups form etc. Nobody was born believing in Pizzagate. People with more moderate views can become radicalized and leaving misinformation unchallenged must at least sometimes contribute to this.
  - luckylion 5y ago
    You'd have to step in super early though, wouldn't you? If you have people at the level where reading about Pizzagate will make them a believer, I reckon you've already lost them. What leads them to that kind of thinking? Will a generic "the elites just look after themselves" feed that kind of thinking? Should we fact-check it and say that it's false because of some counter-example? I have no idea when people get onto a slope that leads them to believing that reptilians are ruling the country, but I doubt that there's a right moment where you can hide content from them and not make them think "aha, they're trying to hide something from me ... I wonder what it is". At that level, I assume, there's a good chunk of paranoia involved, and paranoia doesn't really need a certain fuel.
- lovecg 5y ago
  Fact checking is a fig leaf that allows you to apply further content decisions. You can’t just stop promoting or ban a piece of content outright without some ground rules; a “fact check” acts as a filter that enables you to do so. It doesn’t matter if the target audience believes the fact check or not if they never see the content as a result of it.
- unclebucknasty 5y ago
  They're definitely not perfect, and they will be ineffective at times. But there is a need for sources of factual information, so it is a worthwhile objective. And, I think there is a lot of usage for fact checks, wherein reasonable people who are not tribalists just want to sort through competing information. And remember, fact checks also include removal of disinformation (i.e. not just leaving in place and providing commentary). So at a minimum fact checks can slow the propagation of disinformation by simply making it unavailable.
  - luckylion 5y ago
    > reasonable people who are not tribalists just want to sort through competing information Hmm, maybe. I've always assumed that you go to reddit, twitter or facebook with your mind made up and a need for validation or the wish to tell everyone -- it's social media after all, not news media, and you'd go some news site to get your fix, or to Wikipedia if you want to learn about some topic de jour. The removal of (dis-)information is what I'm least comfortable with. We've pretty much always called it misinformation when we censored something, but it hasn't always stood up to the test of time. I have to admit however, that I've never personally come across a fact-checked link, so I don't have a good intuition where most of it is between "ban that opinion, I don't like it" and "this is insane and they have pitchforks, we better shut this down".
    - unclebucknasty 5y ago
      >I've always assumed that you go to reddit, twitter or facebook with your mind made up Well, that definitely happens, and maybe I'm thinking more of independent fact-checking sites like Snopes, where people visit explicitly to verify the veracity of something. >The removal of (dis-)information is what I'm least comfortable with I understand, but, unfortunately, we have an absolute explosion of explicit disinformation. The funny thing is that the notion of being uncomfortable with removing disinformation is itself partly the product of the idea that there are no objective facts. And, that is a function of how successful the firehose of disinfo has been at attacking the value of truth and the existence of objectivity. So, we kind of conflate removing disinfo with undertaking a subjective political act. But, not long ago, it wasn't so easy to argue base reality.

luckylion 5y ago

Do fact-checks work? That is, if they fact-check an article claiming that Bush did 9/11, are there significant amounts of people who say "oh, I thought he did. But I guess not, thanks, fact checkers"? The things that get fact checked tend to be more tribal, so most people either believe it or not, and tend to understand the fact-checkers as mostly biased against them if they don't agree with the result. Fact-checking is pretty useless in that situation, and people will start considering it as a biased tool ("they only fact-check what my side is saying and start splitting hairs, but they never fact-check what the other side is saying"). I don't think you can solve a tribal conflict by trying to present selected facts.

andybak 5y ago
I think this ignores the fact that the "tribes" are dynamic. People join, leave, sub-groups form etc. Nobody was born believing in Pizzagate. People with more moderate views can become radicalized and leaving misinformation unchallenged must at least sometimes contribute to this.
- luckylion 5y ago
  You'd have to step in super early though, wouldn't you? If you have people at the level where reading about Pizzagate will make them a believer, I reckon you've already lost them. What leads them to that kind of thinking? Will a generic "the elites just look after themselves" feed that kind of thinking? Should we fact-check it and say that it's false because of some counter-example? I have no idea when people get onto a slope that leads them to believing that reptilians are ruling the country, but I doubt that there's a right moment where you can hide content from them and not make them think "aha, they're trying to hide something from me ... I wonder what it is". At that level, I assume, there's a good chunk of paranoia involved, and paranoia doesn't really need a certain fuel.
lovecg 5y ago
Fact checking is a fig leaf that allows you to apply further content decisions. You can’t just stop promoting or ban a piece of content outright without some ground rules; a “fact check” acts as a filter that enables you to do so. It doesn’t matter if the target audience believes the fact check or not if they never see the content as a result of it.
unclebucknasty 5y ago
They're definitely not perfect, and they will be ineffective at times. But there is a need for sources of factual information, so it is a worthwhile objective. And, I think there is a lot of usage for fact checks, wherein reasonable people who are not tribalists just want to sort through competing information. And remember, fact checks also include removal of disinformation (i.e. not just leaving in place and providing commentary). So at a minimum fact checks can slow the propagation of disinformation by simply making it unavailable.
- luckylion 5y ago
  > reasonable people who are not tribalists just want to sort through competing information Hmm, maybe. I've always assumed that you go to reddit, twitter or facebook with your mind made up and a need for validation or the wish to tell everyone -- it's social media after all, not news media, and you'd go some news site to get your fix, or to Wikipedia if you want to learn about some topic de jour. The removal of (dis-)information is what I'm least comfortable with. We've pretty much always called it misinformation when we censored something, but it hasn't always stood up to the test of time. I have to admit however, that I've never personally come across a fact-checked link, so I don't have a good intuition where most of it is between "ban that opinion, I don't like it" and "this is insane and they have pitchforks, we better shut this down".
  - unclebucknasty 5y ago
    >I've always assumed that you go to reddit, twitter or facebook with your mind made up Well, that definitely happens, and maybe I'm thinking more of independent fact-checking sites like Snopes, where people visit explicitly to verify the veracity of something. >The removal of (dis-)information is what I'm least comfortable with I understand, but, unfortunately, we have an absolute explosion of explicit disinformation. The funny thing is that the notion of being uncomfortable with removing disinformation is itself partly the product of the idea that there are no objective facts. And, that is a function of how successful the firehose of disinfo has been at attacking the value of truth and the existence of objectivity. So, we kind of conflate removing disinfo with undertaking a subjective political act. But, not long ago, it wasn't so easy to argue base reality.