5 ms·

I’m not sure about the prevalence but one major peeve of mine is when someone states, X is ten meters high. Fact check: Wrong, X is 9.6 meters high. It takes

by mc32 5y ago

I’m not sure about the prevalence but one major peeve of mine is when someone states, X is ten meters high. Fact check: Wrong, X is 9.6 meters high. It takes away credibility.

varispeed 5y ago
I saw fact checkers going to town to discredit someone not going with the "accepted" narrative. For example they would say: - Wrong, X is 9.999999 high. - Misleading. While X is indeed 10 metres high, the author of the claim measured it from top to bottom instead of generally accepted bottom to top way of measuring. etc.
willcipriano 5y ago
One of my favorites, they have since been called out on it and had to fix it: This statement "We did not even have a federal income tax in this country until 1913." was rated "mostly true"[0] While this one "the U.S. federal income tax rate was 0 percent until 1913." was rated "half true"[1] What more evidence do you need that this whole thing is sort of arbitrary? [0]https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/aug/24/jim-webb/jim-webb-says-us-didnt-have-income-taxes-until-191/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/aug/24/jim-webb/j... [1]https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/jan/31/ron-paul/ron-paul-says-federal-income-tax-rate-was-0-percen/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/jan/31/ron-paul/r...
- ModernMech 5y ago
  I mean, the little cartoon meter is pretty arbitrary. What’s the difference between half true and mostly true? Those two phrases seem mostly equivalent to me. But the more important thing is the analyses I think, they are quite similar in content. And raise the same caveat about the civil war taxes. These fact checks were 3 years apart, so it may be completely different groups of people writing these fact checks. Yet, they both arrive at similar conclusions with slightly different language. I’d say that’s an okay result.
  - mc32 5y ago
    To me the main issue would be that an income tax prior to 1913 were temporary taxes. Technically, yes they were based on income. But when we talk about income taxes today, we don’t talk about them as necessary tools to generate revenue in support of a war that would have an end date. It wasn’t a permanent fixture. Today it’s a permanent fixture and short of one of the Paul clan winning the office, it will continue into the foreseeable future.
nailer 5y ago
This is one of my favourites: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blm-terrorist-rosenberg/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blm-terrorist-rosenberg/ Snopes acknowledges that a convicted terrorist (ie, someone that targeted civilians to enact political change) sat on the board of a BLM funding body then concludes 'mixture' because there is no universally agreed definition of 'terrorism'. > In the absence of a single, universally-agreed definition of "terrorism," it is a matter of subjective determination as to whether the actions for which Rosenberg was convicted and imprisoned — possession of weapons and hundreds of pounds of explosives — should be described as acts of "domestic terrorism."
- willcipriano 5y ago
  I'd like to watch them sweat if you forced them to fact check "The 9/11 hijackers were terrorists" using the same priors. > In the absence of a single, universally-agreed definition of "terrorism," it is a matter of subjective determination as to whether the actions of Mohamed Atta - leading a group of young men to hijack planes and fly them into buildings — should be described as acts of "domestic terrorism."
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - slavik81 5y ago
    It's kind of beside the point, but Mohamed Atta would never be considered a domestic terrorist. He travelled to the United States on a tourist visa, specifically to engage in terrorism. That disqualifies his actions from being 'domestic'.
- ModernMech 5y ago
  I understand what you are saying, but at the same time the claim was that she was a “convicted terrorist”, when in fact she was not convicted of terrorism. That’s just a fact. You can look at her convictions, and there is no conviction for terrorism. There’s plenty to say about her actions, which are certainly terroristic, but her being “convicted” of terrorism is straight up not true, no matter how you feel about it. That’s why they say it’s mixed and subjective, because there is no objective fact you can point to that would back up the position that she was convicted of terrorism. She wasn’t.

by mc32 5y ago

I’m not sure about the prevalence but one major peeve of mine is when someone states, X is ten meters high. Fact check: Wrong, X is 9.6 meters high. It takes away credibility.

varispeed 5y ago

I saw fact checkers going to town to discredit someone not going with the "accepted" narrative. For example they would say: - Wrong, X is 9.999999 high. - Misleading. While X is indeed 10 metres high, the author of the claim measured it from top to bottom instead of generally accepted bottom to top way of measuring. etc.

willcipriano 5y ago

One of my favorites, they have since been called out on it and had to fix it: This statement "We did not even have a federal income tax in this country until 1913." was rated "mostly true"[0] While this one "the U.S. federal income tax rate was 0 percent until 1913." was rated "half true"[1] What more evidence do you need that this whole thing is sort of arbitrary? [0]https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/aug/24/jim-webb/jim-webb-says-us-didnt-have-income-taxes-until-191/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/aug/24/jim-webb/j... [1]https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/jan/31/ron-paul/ron-paul-says-federal-income-tax-rate-was-0-percen/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/jan/31/ron-paul/r...

ModernMech 5y ago
I mean, the little cartoon meter is pretty arbitrary. What’s the difference between half true and mostly true? Those two phrases seem mostly equivalent to me. But the more important thing is the analyses I think, they are quite similar in content. And raise the same caveat about the civil war taxes. These fact checks were 3 years apart, so it may be completely different groups of people writing these fact checks. Yet, they both arrive at similar conclusions with slightly different language. I’d say that’s an okay result.
- mc32 5y ago
  To me the main issue would be that an income tax prior to 1913 were temporary taxes. Technically, yes they were based on income. But when we talk about income taxes today, we don’t talk about them as necessary tools to generate revenue in support of a war that would have an end date. It wasn’t a permanent fixture. Today it’s a permanent fixture and short of one of the Paul clan winning the office, it will continue into the foreseeable future.

nailer 5y ago

This is one of my favourites: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blm-terrorist-rosenberg/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blm-terrorist-rosenberg/ Snopes acknowledges that a convicted terrorist (ie, someone that targeted civilians to enact political change) sat on the board of a BLM funding body then concludes 'mixture' because there is no universally agreed definition of 'terrorism'. > In the absence of a single, universally-agreed definition of "terrorism," it is a matter of subjective determination as to whether the actions for which Rosenberg was convicted and imprisoned — possession of weapons and hundreds of pounds of explosives — should be described as acts of "domestic terrorism."

willcipriano 5y ago
I'd like to watch them sweat if you forced them to fact check "The 9/11 hijackers were terrorists" using the same priors. > In the absence of a single, universally-agreed definition of "terrorism," it is a matter of subjective determination as to whether the actions of Mohamed Atta - leading a group of young men to hijack planes and fly them into buildings — should be described as acts of "domestic terrorism."
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- slavik81 5y ago
  It's kind of beside the point, but Mohamed Atta would never be considered a domestic terrorist. He travelled to the United States on a tourist visa, specifically to engage in terrorism. That disqualifies his actions from being 'domestic'.
ModernMech 5y ago
I understand what you are saying, but at the same time the claim was that she was a “convicted terrorist”, when in fact she was not convicted of terrorism. That’s just a fact. You can look at her convictions, and there is no conviction for terrorism. There’s plenty to say about her actions, which are certainly terroristic, but her being “convicted” of terrorism is straight up not true, no matter how you feel about it. That’s why they say it’s mixed and subjective, because there is no objective fact you can point to that would back up the position that she was convicted of terrorism. She wasn’t.