5 ms·

All the "fact checking" sites I am aware of are heavily biased. It seems very unlikely that they actually try to be unbiased in their checking. It already start

All the "fact checking" sites I am aware of are heavily biased. It seems very unlikely that they actually try to be unbiased in their checking. It already starts with selecting the facts they check (cherry picking).

cto_of_antifa 5y ago
medstrom 5y ago
I would ask you to please identify the ones to which you apply this criticism, for epistemic hygiene.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  I mostly encounter the ones in Germany, so I doubt it would be much use to you. For example correctiv.org or even https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/ https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/ which is from the public TV network (government funding). I remember trying to verify the claims about "Trump lied x zillion times" at some US fact checking portal (I think from some major newspaper, maybe NYT or Washington Post), and all the supposed "lies" were also bullshit, like taken out of context, misinterpreted in extreme ways and so on in typical "fact checker" fashion. Really it doesn't matter what sites I list, because they are all shit. The very act of calling themselves "fact checkers" should give it away. Just pick any of them and read their "checks" with a critical mind. Anybody can call themselves a "fact checker", it is a fake claim to authority. Isn't Snopes also a renowned "fact checker"? I think some scandals regarding their founders came to light recently, but I don't remember the details.
  - _ea1k 5y ago
    > Isn't Snopes also a renowned "fact checker"? I think some scandals regarding their founders came to light recently, but I don't remember the details. Yes, and despite this, snopes is still one of the better ones. Their articles are well sourced and easy to verify. I'm sure they've made some mistakes, and there've been a few cases where I disagreed with their conclusion or approach, but overall they do a good job.
    - pstuart 5y ago
      Trust but verify comes to mind. I expect bias in all sources (including myself), but the key thing is to be prepared to be wrong in one's assumptions, as well as being able to update one's understanding of things as new data arrives.
      - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
        I guess a system of enemies trying to debunk each other might work better than sources trying to be neutral. Enemies might work harder at finding flaws and errors.
        pstuart 5y ago
        That supposes that truth matters. I wish it did. What seems to work is soundbites that resonate with existing bias. And by work, I mean takes root in hearts and minds.
      - _ea1k 5y ago
        I agree, and that's one of the reasons that I respect Snopes. Even the few times that I've disagreed with them, the article was well sourced enough to use the article to reach contrary opinions.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    And your research let you come to the conclusion that Donald Trump wasn't, even by politician standards, a liar? Possibly you've commuted in from a parallel dimension, and that's why you are suspicious of these fact checkers claiming "the sky is blue" and other obvious lies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veracity_of_statements_by_Donald_Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veracity_of_statements_by_Dona...
    - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
      It seems unlikely to me that those claims of thousands of lies and the "firehose of lies" have much merit. Wikipedia does not really have any bearing on it, as it only cites other sources. Maybe instead of claiming thousands of lies, his enemies should focus on a couple of especially severe lies and scandals and make a good case about it. However, most of the times when I looked into such stories, they turned out to be bullshit. So what am I supposed to believe? Obviously I can't fact check 30000 claimed lies. If I read Anti-Trump stories, I would expect his enemies to bring up the worst they have. If those turn out to be bullshit, what is left? How is the Russian collusion accusation coming along, anyway?
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  Not OP, but Snopes used to be very trustworthy but has since become nearly completely useless.
  - michaelcampbell 5y ago
    How so; do you have any concrete examples of the lack of use? Bias, omissions, lying, lack of context, deliberate miseading, etc? I see some shade thrown at Snopes from time to time, but it's usually of the of "But they're LIBERAL!" variety which is not of much value.
    - naasking 5y ago
      There was some discussion of this above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30170584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30170584
mandmandam 5y ago
You're 100% right. An unbiased perspective would call the arms, pharma, media, agricultural and oil industries out far more. The bias is so widespread many people don't see it, like fish not realizing they're wet. Whole shelves of books get written about the illegal wars media cheerleads; and about the unconscionable and unimaginable atrocities regularly committed by big agriculture and fossil fuel. Yet we drown in pure distraction; "debating" whatever clown shit Ben Shapiro or Trump or Biden just said, or tilting at such windmills as trying to cancel Joe Rogan for having conversations with people. "We live in a time when all elites, whether on the left or the right, believe in rigid rules that say there is no alternative to the present political and economic system." - Adam Curtis
- prometheus76 5y ago
  There's no such thing as an unbiased perspective. That's what perspective means. It's a report from a certain point of view. If you tried to be an "unbiased perspective" you'd have to include all details of every part of everything, because the mere act of choosing what to include and what not to include is a result of a perspective, and a perspective is the result of telos. Action towards a purpose. Have you ever been friends with someone who includes too many details in their story and they lose track of what they were saying? That's what happens when someone tries to be "unbiased". They include too much and it starts to lose purpose. You won't read a book written this way. Perspective and narrative structures are what engage our attention and help us understand the purpose of the story.
  - mandmandam 5y ago
    You may benefit from looking up the term "enlightened centrism". Or "pedant". If you think pro-war corporate media's constant military cheer-leading is as valid a perspective as independent media, I have nothing polite to say to you.
    - prometheus76 5y ago
      I was intentionally drawing attention to phrases that we, as a society, use frequently, but are taken for granted as being valuable, or even attainable. This "detached perspective" of being disembodied and floating somewhere above everything and "including everything" is a myth of modernism and a myth of "scientific objectivity". I have no problem with trying to be balanced or nuanced, but that's very different than feigned "objectivity" that basically just tries to use handwaving and gaslighting to distract you from considering that every perspective comes from a structure of presuppositions. If you want to call me a "pedant" for making a distinction between implied, but impossible "objectivity" and balance/nuance, I'm fine with that label, because it's still a point worth making.
noacct152437 5y ago
- throw3838 5y ago
  Facebook recently admitted at court, that its fact checking is "personal opinion" rather than authoritative source. They did it to avoid fine. If something claims authority, but with no responsibility and no oversight...
  - xdennis 5y ago
    And the judge bought it: > The labels themselves are neither false nor defamatory; to the contrary, they constitute protected opinion. [1]: https://wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Facebook-admits-its-fact-check-is-opinion-page-2.pdf https://wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Faceb...
    - jml7c5 5y ago
      "Protected opinion" is not equivalent to "opinion".
    - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
      Sounds like perhaps it was the judge that was bought?
    - quantumwannabe 5y ago
      That document was written by Facebook's lawyers, not the judge.
- mandmandam 5y ago
  How many "fact checkers" broke the artificial consensus view on the lab leak theory being "impossible"? None that I saw. The facts were pretty clear from the start if you actually read Daszak's bullshit, as eventually became clear despite the removal of millions of posts. I recently saw USAToday "fact check" the claim that Fauci once said masks provided no protection from Corona. This was classed as misleading and lacking context - despite the fact Fauci said this on primetime national TV. There's video for it easily findable (thought certainly a little hard to find thanks to search engine fuckery). - https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/06/03/fact-check-missing-context-claim-mask-emails-fauci/7531267002/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/06/03/fact... Did any fact check sites cover America's lies to go into Iraq? How many of them looked into the promotion of a known torturer and destroyer of congressional evidence to a top US position? How did your favorite fact check site cover the Deepwater Horizon spill? Are they talking about Stephen Donziger? We could go on all day, but it's farcical that anyone still believes these people.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
Fact checking has poisoned discourse because it has an underlying assumption that preferences of one sort or another can be proven true, when in fact they cannot because they are by definition preferences. People would hope to just recognize that they have different preferences about how others should behave, some of those preferences get condensed into laws and some are argued about indefinitely.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  This is it but then then they cant wield the sledgehammer of "objectivity" and normativity over the other side. Whichever side gives that up first probably loses out, so I predict neither will.
darawk 5y ago
I don't entirely disagree. I suppose I should have said "less biased". Imagine how biased "context checking" sites would be. Facts at least sort of have an appeal to an objective reality outside of politics.

cto_of_antifa 5y ago

medstrom 5y ago

I would ask you to please identify the ones to which you apply this criticism, for epistemic hygiene.

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
I mostly encounter the ones in Germany, so I doubt it would be much use to you. For example correctiv.org or even https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/ https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/ which is from the public TV network (government funding). I remember trying to verify the claims about "Trump lied x zillion times" at some US fact checking portal (I think from some major newspaper, maybe NYT or Washington Post), and all the supposed "lies" were also bullshit, like taken out of context, misinterpreted in extreme ways and so on in typical "fact checker" fashion. Really it doesn't matter what sites I list, because they are all shit. The very act of calling themselves "fact checkers" should give it away. Just pick any of them and read their "checks" with a critical mind. Anybody can call themselves a "fact checker", it is a fake claim to authority. Isn't Snopes also a renowned "fact checker"? I think some scandals regarding their founders came to light recently, but I don't remember the details.
- _ea1k 5y ago
  > Isn't Snopes also a renowned "fact checker"? I think some scandals regarding their founders came to light recently, but I don't remember the details. Yes, and despite this, snopes is still one of the better ones. Their articles are well sourced and easy to verify. I'm sure they've made some mistakes, and there've been a few cases where I disagreed with their conclusion or approach, but overall they do a good job.
  - pstuart 5y ago
    Trust but verify comes to mind. I expect bias in all sources (including myself), but the key thing is to be prepared to be wrong in one's assumptions, as well as being able to update one's understanding of things as new data arrives.
    - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
      I guess a system of enemies trying to debunk each other might work better than sources trying to be neutral. Enemies might work harder at finding flaws and errors.
      - pstuart 5y ago
        That supposes that truth matters. I wish it did. What seems to work is soundbites that resonate with existing bias. And by work, I mean takes root in hearts and minds.
    - _ea1k 5y ago
      I agree, and that's one of the reasons that I respect Snopes. Even the few times that I've disagreed with them, the article was well sourced enough to use the article to reach contrary opinions.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  And your research let you come to the conclusion that Donald Trump wasn't, even by politician standards, a liar? Possibly you've commuted in from a parallel dimension, and that's why you are suspicious of these fact checkers claiming "the sky is blue" and other obvious lies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veracity_of_statements_by_Donald_Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veracity_of_statements_by_Dona...
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    It seems unlikely to me that those claims of thousands of lies and the "firehose of lies" have much merit. Wikipedia does not really have any bearing on it, as it only cites other sources. Maybe instead of claiming thousands of lies, his enemies should focus on a couple of especially severe lies and scandals and make a good case about it. However, most of the times when I looked into such stories, they turned out to be bullshit. So what am I supposed to believe? Obviously I can't fact check 30000 claimed lies. If I read Anti-Trump stories, I would expect his enemies to bring up the worst they have. If those turn out to be bullshit, what is left? How is the Russian collusion accusation coming along, anyway?
commandlinefan 5y ago
Not OP, but Snopes used to be very trustworthy but has since become nearly completely useless.
- michaelcampbell 5y ago
  How so; do you have any concrete examples of the lack of use? Bias, omissions, lying, lack of context, deliberate miseading, etc? I see some shade thrown at Snopes from time to time, but it's usually of the of "But they're LIBERAL!" variety which is not of much value.
  - naasking 5y ago
    There was some discussion of this above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30170584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30170584

mandmandam 5y ago

You're 100% right. An unbiased perspective would call the arms, pharma, media, agricultural and oil industries out far more. The bias is so widespread many people don't see it, like fish not realizing they're wet. Whole shelves of books get written about the illegal wars media cheerleads; and about the unconscionable and unimaginable atrocities regularly committed by big agriculture and fossil fuel. Yet we drown in pure distraction; "debating" whatever clown shit Ben Shapiro or Trump or Biden just said, or tilting at such windmills as trying to cancel Joe Rogan for having conversations with people. "We live in a time when all elites, whether on the left or the right, believe in rigid rules that say there is no alternative to the present political and economic system." - Adam Curtis

prometheus76 5y ago
There's no such thing as an unbiased perspective. That's what perspective means. It's a report from a certain point of view. If you tried to be an "unbiased perspective" you'd have to include all details of every part of everything, because the mere act of choosing what to include and what not to include is a result of a perspective, and a perspective is the result of telos. Action towards a purpose. Have you ever been friends with someone who includes too many details in their story and they lose track of what they were saying? That's what happens when someone tries to be "unbiased". They include too much and it starts to lose purpose. You won't read a book written this way. Perspective and narrative structures are what engage our attention and help us understand the purpose of the story.
- mandmandam 5y ago
  You may benefit from looking up the term "enlightened centrism". Or "pedant". If you think pro-war corporate media's constant military cheer-leading is as valid a perspective as independent media, I have nothing polite to say to you.
  - prometheus76 5y ago
    I was intentionally drawing attention to phrases that we, as a society, use frequently, but are taken for granted as being valuable, or even attainable. This "detached perspective" of being disembodied and floating somewhere above everything and "including everything" is a myth of modernism and a myth of "scientific objectivity". I have no problem with trying to be balanced or nuanced, but that's very different than feigned "objectivity" that basically just tries to use handwaving and gaslighting to distract you from considering that every perspective comes from a structure of presuppositions. If you want to call me a "pedant" for making a distinction between implied, but impossible "objectivity" and balance/nuance, I'm fine with that label, because it's still a point worth making.

noacct152437 5y ago

throw3838 5y ago
Facebook recently admitted at court, that its fact checking is "personal opinion" rather than authoritative source. They did it to avoid fine. If something claims authority, but with no responsibility and no oversight...
- xdennis 5y ago
  And the judge bought it: > The labels themselves are neither false nor defamatory; to the contrary, they constitute protected opinion. [1]: https://wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Facebook-admits-its-fact-check-is-opinion-page-2.pdf https://wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Faceb...
  - jml7c5 5y ago
    "Protected opinion" is not equivalent to "opinion".
  - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
    Sounds like perhaps it was the judge that was bought?
  - quantumwannabe 5y ago
    That document was written by Facebook's lawyers, not the judge.
mandmandam 5y ago
How many "fact checkers" broke the artificial consensus view on the lab leak theory being "impossible"? None that I saw. The facts were pretty clear from the start if you actually read Daszak's bullshit, as eventually became clear despite the removal of millions of posts. I recently saw USAToday "fact check" the claim that Fauci once said masks provided no protection from Corona. This was classed as misleading and lacking context - despite the fact Fauci said this on primetime national TV. There's video for it easily findable (thought certainly a little hard to find thanks to search engine fuckery). - https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/06/03/fact-check-missing-context-claim-mask-emails-fauci/7531267002/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/06/03/fact... Did any fact check sites cover America's lies to go into Iraq? How many of them looked into the promotion of a known torturer and destroyer of congressional evidence to a top US position? How did your favorite fact check site cover the Deepwater Horizon spill? Are they talking about Stephen Donziger? We could go on all day, but it's farcical that anyone still believes these people.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

Fact checking has poisoned discourse because it has an underlying assumption that preferences of one sort or another can be proven true, when in fact they cannot because they are by definition preferences. People would hope to just recognize that they have different preferences about how others should behave, some of those preferences get condensed into laws and some are argued about indefinitely.

guerrilla 5y ago
This is it but then then they cant wield the sledgehammer of "objectivity" and normativity over the other side. Whichever side gives that up first probably loses out, so I predict neither will.

darawk 5y ago

I don't entirely disagree. I suppose I should have said "less biased". Imagine how biased "context checking" sites would be. Facts at least sort of have an appeal to an objective reality outside of politics.