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> Our culture has become filled with a certain kind of noise in which people who frequently don't know what they are talking about make predictions about the fu

by pdonis 5y ago

> Our culture has become filled with a certain kind of noise in which people who frequently don't know what they are talking about make predictions about the future. Focusing on "fact-checking" in general, let alone expanding it to include "prediction checking", worsens the huge amount of noise in our culture of supposedly authoritative pronouncements being made that turn out to be wrong. The Facebook "fact check" that is the subject of the article we are discussing is a case in point. If Facebook weren't so fixated on trying to remove "noise" through "fact checking", they wouldn't be going overboard all the time and removing things that aren't noise at all, but useful dissent. Also, the very term "fact checking", as it is being used in our culture now, is a Russell conjugation (someone else brought up Russell conjugations elsewhere in this thread). Facebook is "fact checking" (actually their outsourced third parties who remain anonymous and unaccountable are doing it, but let that pass); those who support Facebook (and other "fact checkers") are "helping to spread authoritative information"; those who question Facebook (and other "fact checkers") are "questioning authority" (even if they cite actual facts). In short, while I agree that our culture is filled with noise, I don't think all the noise is from individuals who don't know what they're talking about; I think a lot of it is from organizations who don't like to have their power and authority questioned.

_dain_ 5y ago
I am a fact checker, you are a journalist, he is spreading harmful disinformation.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  I haven't provided any information at all. I provided some opinions. If you're actually a fact checker, that would seem to behavior that plays directly into the critiques of such work. However, I suspect this remark is just a play on the "they are stubborn, i am persistent" trope, in which case I don't see the relevance at this point in this sub-thread.
  - _dain_ 5y ago
    yes it's a russell conjugation joke (and an example of something that is blindingly obvious to one person, and evidently not to another)
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/ of course
PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
I would agree that "fact checking" (at least of several varieties) is not unambiguously good, and may in fact turn out to be harmful, quite possibly for reasons not directly related to the content of "fact checking" itself. I would also agree that the case discussed in TFA is a good example of "fact checking" that likely does more harm than good. However, that doesn't mean that the concept of "fact checking" is inherently problematic. It could be that there is no way in our current culture of doing anything remotely like what "fact checking" probably needs to be. To me, that's still not an argument against the concept, even if it is necessary to accept for now, the actual execution issues force us all to be profoundly skeptical about it.
- pdonis 5y ago
  > that doesn't mean that the concept of "fact checking" is inherently problematic Perhaps not, but I think there are wrinkles in it that you might not be considering. First, if "fact checking" just means "consulting other sources of information to see if they say the same thing", then you have to deal with the question of the credibility of those other sources of information. No source of information is always right. Nor is any "fact checker" always right in judging the relative credibility of sources of information. Ultimately, unless you have your own personal knowledge of some fact, any "fact checking" is going to come down to which sources you trust and which sources you don't. Those are always judgment calls and there will always be some degree of residual skepticism, so citing "fact checks" as if they were authoritative is problematic. Second, if you try to go beyond that and actually do things like independent experiments to check claims (for example, when scientists try to replicate experiments or studies), then you're not really checking on previous facts, you're creating new facts, which you are then going to use to judge the validity of previous claims. But those previous claims were not factual claims but theoretical ones (for example, doing study B to help in judging the claim "study A shows that treatment X is effective against illness Y"). And again, these kinds of comparisons are judgment calls (sure, sometimes you uncover strong evidence that, for example, the data in study A was fabricated, but study B alone won't tell you that). > t could be that there is no way in our current culture of doing anything remotely like what "fact checking" probably needs to be. The critical problem I see with the Facebook case is that their "fact checking" results in something more than just publishing whatever Facebook's ultimate judgment is on some website (as, for example, Snopes and other "fact checking" sites do). Facebook's "fact checking" has other consequences, such as blocking access to things people have posted. And since our current culture seems to be fixated on using "fact checking" in this way, not just to arrive at judgments which are then published as speech, for the reader to take or leave, but to take actions that amount to filtering, restricting, or blocking other speech, yes, I think our current culture is not really capable of doing the limited kind of things that "fact checking" properly done would consist of.

by pdonis 5y ago

_dain_ 5y ago

I am a fact checker, you are a journalist, he is spreading harmful disinformation.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
I haven't provided any information at all. I provided some opinions. If you're actually a fact checker, that would seem to behavior that plays directly into the critiques of such work. However, I suspect this remark is just a play on the "they are stubborn, i am persistent" trope, in which case I don't see the relevance at this point in this sub-thread.
- _dain_ 5y ago
  yes it's a russell conjugation joke (and an example of something that is blindingly obvious to one person, and evidently not to another)
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/ of course

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

I would agree that "fact checking" (at least of several varieties) is not unambiguously good, and may in fact turn out to be harmful, quite possibly for reasons not directly related to the content of "fact checking" itself. I would also agree that the case discussed in TFA is a good example of "fact checking" that likely does more harm than good. However, that doesn't mean that the concept of "fact checking" is inherently problematic. It could be that there is no way in our current culture of doing anything remotely like what "fact checking" probably needs to be. To me, that's still not an argument against the concept, even if it is necessary to accept for now, the actual execution issues force us all to be profoundly skeptical about it.

pdonis 5y ago
> that doesn't mean that the concept of "fact checking" is inherently problematic Perhaps not, but I think there are wrinkles in it that you might not be considering. First, if "fact checking" just means "consulting other sources of information to see if they say the same thing", then you have to deal with the question of the credibility of those other sources of information. No source of information is always right. Nor is any "fact checker" always right in judging the relative credibility of sources of information. Ultimately, unless you have your own personal knowledge of some fact, any "fact checking" is going to come down to which sources you trust and which sources you don't. Those are always judgment calls and there will always be some degree of residual skepticism, so citing "fact checks" as if they were authoritative is problematic. Second, if you try to go beyond that and actually do things like independent experiments to check claims (for example, when scientists try to replicate experiments or studies), then you're not really checking on previous facts, you're creating new facts, which you are then going to use to judge the validity of previous claims. But those previous claims were not factual claims but theoretical ones (for example, doing study B to help in judging the claim "study A shows that treatment X is effective against illness Y"). And again, these kinds of comparisons are judgment calls (sure, sometimes you uncover strong evidence that, for example, the data in study A was fabricated, but study B alone won't tell you that). > t could be that there is no way in our current culture of doing anything remotely like what "fact checking" probably needs to be. The critical problem I see with the Facebook case is that their "fact checking" results in something more than just publishing whatever Facebook's ultimate judgment is on some website (as, for example, Snopes and other "fact checking" sites do). Facebook's "fact checking" has other consequences, such as blocking access to things people have posted. And since our current culture seems to be fixated on using "fact checking" in this way, not just to arrive at judgments which are then published as speech, for the reader to take or leave, but to take actions that amount to filtering, restricting, or blocking other speech, yes, I think our current culture is not really capable of doing the limited kind of things that "fact checking" properly done would consist of.