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We just want to see how and what is defined as “false info”. As any one who’s read snopes or fact check, while the fact checks often point out actually incorre

We just want to see how and what is defined as “false info”. As any one who’s read snopes or fact check, while the fact checks often point out actually incorrect information, some of the time, they reframe the question/narrative, assume an inaccurate scope or apply semantics in a convenient way and label something that isn’t necessarily false as not false that reflects the bias of the author. It leads to a basic mistrust of what’s “false info” and what is not “false info” and so some people have a hard time trusting these types of studies and the basic premise that platforms should ban “false info”. I feel Twitter’s community notes function is actually pretty good at combatting false info without creating a centralized source with the above issues.

pfisch 2y ago
Community notes seems to get stalemated as soon as any demagogue starts saying things that aren't true. The demagogues followers make it so the community note never appears.(Just look at all the false stuff elon musk has tweeted.) Our entire current system of spreading information seems to allow liars who get popular on basically false outrage bait to have a huge megaphone. I'm not sure how to stop this without a centralized authority shutting it down.
- Jimmc414 2y ago
  > Our entire current system of spreading information seems to allow liars who get popular on basically false outrage bait to have a huge megaphone. I'm not sure how to stop this without a centralized authority shutting it down. Centralized authorities are immune from demagoguery? You would throw out the first amendment to protect us from liars getting megaphones?
  - pfisch 2y ago
    This isn't a 1st amendment issue. Before social media things were generally better and we didn't have big groups like qanon or people storming the capital trying to end democracy. Back then we did have centralized authorities doing quality control on the airwaves.
    - paleotrope 2y ago
      Bonus army would disagree there. Dispersed with tanks.
      - pfisch 2y ago
        That was almost 100 years ago. I'm talking about 20 years ago here.
    - Jimmc414 2y ago
      A centralized authority shutting down conversations is not a first amendment issue because of qanon and January 6th?
- gcau 2y ago
  >The demagogues followers make it so the community note never appears >Just look at all the false stuff elon musk has tweeted. >allow liars who get popular on basically false outrage bait to have a huge megaphone Do you have any kind of evidence or proof, for any of these claims? It sounds conspiratorial and emotional, especially when you say "it seems" about something that is the opposite of what I've seen in the CN program. >I'm not sure how to stop this without a centralized authority shutting it down. This honestly comes off as satire.
  - pfisch 2y ago
    I've seen proof on twitter before. People showing the downvotes on corrections of demagogue posts. Twitter is littered with high profile false information with no community notes. So the system isn't working.
  - suzzer99 2y ago
    https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/12/community-notes-is-great-until-it-challenges-elon-and-then-its-being-manipulated-by-state-actors/ https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/12/community-notes-is-great... https://x.com/CardQueenEileen/status/1655061481862619136 https://x.com/CardQueenEileen/status/1655061481862619136
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  You can't really shut it down, but you can protect the right of opposing points of view to have their own big megaphones.
  - pfisch 2y ago
    We could shut it down, but we don't.
- daft_pink 2y ago
  I only see the end result, but generally when there is a community note, it tends to be something obviously false and I agree with it.
- suzzer99 2y ago
  That's basically the whole game in politics right now. Spread lies to your base, then when called on it, turn around and say "Well, 50 million people believe this is true. We need to respect their opinion." And I'm not saying both sides do it equally.
cortesoft 2y ago
> As any one who’s read snopes or fact check, while the fact checks often point out actually incorrect information, some of the time, they reframe the question/narrative, assume an inaccurate scope or apply semantics in a convenient way and label something that isn’t necessarily false as not false that reflects the bias of the author. Do you have an example of this, on Snopes or another fact checking website?
- TheAceOfHearts 2y ago
  The Media Very Rarely Lies [0] explains how the game is played and it provides a couple examples. [0] https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-media-very-rarely-lies https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-media-very-rarely-lies
- rufus_foreman 2y ago
  allsides.com has done reviews of the fact checking websites. The last one for Snopes was in 2021, it says: "We reviewed the numerous instances of Snopes' left-wing bias that we found during our June 2020 Editorial Review, such as slant. We also noted a number of times that Snopes had recently interpreted things in favor of the left, including when it "fact checked" a subjective opinion on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), when it defended Gov. Andrew Cuomo by saying an accurate tweet about him was "Mostly False," and when it "fact-checked" satire from humor website The Babylon Bee (an entry Snopes then had to edit following criticism)." -- https://www.allsides.com/news-source/snopes https://www.allsides.com/news-source/snopes They claim Snopes has a "Lean Left" bias.
  - GenerativeAl 2y ago
    [dead]
  - yyggvbb 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - cortesoft 2y ago
    So a few things... one, I don't think you can say a fact checker is slanted one way or another by finding a few examples of a bias; how do we know there isn't an equal or greater number of instances where the examples slant the other way? You would need a systemic analysis of all the articles with some rubric for grading. Second, I find issue with the examples they did use. They say the tweet was actually true, but it doesn't seem that way to me. The tweet argued that Cuomo said that the vaccine being developed under Trump was bad, but the thing he actually said was that he thought the roll out plan would be bad. Very different.
nerdjon 2y ago
This was my first thought as well. But thinking about it more, we are not saying that all information has to be true or that someone can't be wrong. I think it is also easier to identify obviously false information than it is to identify true just due to the nature of discovering things. It is easier to rule out than identify. That also helps combat the "censorship" claims. So it seems like it would be seeing a pattern of false information. Maybe they do legitimately believe what they are saying because they fell down some rabbit hole. But if a majority of subject matter experts would say something is false and that happens over and over again for someone, than they are likely not contributing much to the platform.
blueflow 2y ago
Surprisingly little is actually a solid fact, most political things are opinions and socially constructed. We are lucky if there is hard data at all to support some decision.
suzzer99 2y ago
> I feel Twitter’s community notes function is actually pretty good at combatting false info without creating a centralized source with the above issues. I agree, it's pretty good. Except when it gets applied to one of Elon's posts and then mysteriously disappears. https://x.com/CardQueenEileen/status/1655061481862619136 https://x.com/CardQueenEileen/status/1655061481862619136
- f38zf5vdt 2y ago
  BirdWatch ("Community Notes") is a simple reproduction of reddit top comments on Twitter. And like u/spez, Elon just can't seem to resist hopping into the database and monkeying with things.
cryptonector 2y ago
Even if "banning false info online can improve discourse" that wouldn't make the required censorship OK. Either we're an Enlightenment society, or we're not. Which is it?
- katbyte 2y ago
  We most certainly are not an enlightened society.
katbyte 2y ago
Leave it up to the courts to decide. It seems to be the only place that the truth matters now. If you cannot reasonably prove you acted in good faith - or cannot prove you did not knowingly make false statements it’s (and now that they are proved false you retract and remove) then you are a problem. What that looks like in actual practice I don’t know but burying our heads in the sand and saying “it’s to difficult to stop” is not a good position to have.

pfisch 2y ago

Community notes seems to get stalemated as soon as any demagogue starts saying things that aren't true. The demagogues followers make it so the community note never appears.(Just look at all the false stuff elon musk has tweeted.) Our entire current system of spreading information seems to allow liars who get popular on basically false outrage bait to have a huge megaphone. I'm not sure how to stop this without a centralized authority shutting it down.

Jimmc414 2y ago
> Our entire current system of spreading information seems to allow liars who get popular on basically false outrage bait to have a huge megaphone. I'm not sure how to stop this without a centralized authority shutting it down. Centralized authorities are immune from demagoguery? You would throw out the first amendment to protect us from liars getting megaphones?
- pfisch 2y ago
  This isn't a 1st amendment issue. Before social media things were generally better and we didn't have big groups like qanon or people storming the capital trying to end democracy. Back then we did have centralized authorities doing quality control on the airwaves.
  - paleotrope 2y ago
    Bonus army would disagree there. Dispersed with tanks.
    - pfisch 2y ago
      That was almost 100 years ago. I'm talking about 20 years ago here.
  - Jimmc414 2y ago
    A centralized authority shutting down conversations is not a first amendment issue because of qanon and January 6th?
gcau 2y ago
>The demagogues followers make it so the community note never appears >Just look at all the false stuff elon musk has tweeted. >allow liars who get popular on basically false outrage bait to have a huge megaphone Do you have any kind of evidence or proof, for any of these claims? It sounds conspiratorial and emotional, especially when you say "it seems" about something that is the opposite of what I've seen in the CN program. >I'm not sure how to stop this without a centralized authority shutting it down. This honestly comes off as satire.
- pfisch 2y ago
  I've seen proof on twitter before. People showing the downvotes on corrections of demagogue posts. Twitter is littered with high profile false information with no community notes. So the system isn't working.
- suzzer99 2y ago
  https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/12/community-notes-is-great-until-it-challenges-elon-and-then-its-being-manipulated-by-state-actors/ https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/12/community-notes-is-great... https://x.com/CardQueenEileen/status/1655061481862619136 https://x.com/CardQueenEileen/status/1655061481862619136
SoftTalker 2y ago
You can't really shut it down, but you can protect the right of opposing points of view to have their own big megaphones.
- pfisch 2y ago
  We could shut it down, but we don't.
daft_pink 2y ago
I only see the end result, but generally when there is a community note, it tends to be something obviously false and I agree with it.
suzzer99 2y ago
That's basically the whole game in politics right now. Spread lies to your base, then when called on it, turn around and say "Well, 50 million people believe this is true. We need to respect their opinion." And I'm not saying both sides do it equally.

cortesoft 2y ago

> As any one who’s read snopes or fact check, while the fact checks often point out actually incorrect information, some of the time, they reframe the question/narrative, assume an inaccurate scope or apply semantics in a convenient way and label something that isn’t necessarily false as not false that reflects the bias of the author. Do you have an example of this, on Snopes or another fact checking website?

TheAceOfHearts 2y ago
The Media Very Rarely Lies [0] explains how the game is played and it provides a couple examples. [0] https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-media-very-rarely-lies https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-media-very-rarely-lies
rufus_foreman 2y ago
allsides.com has done reviews of the fact checking websites. The last one for Snopes was in 2021, it says: "We reviewed the numerous instances of Snopes' left-wing bias that we found during our June 2020 Editorial Review, such as slant. We also noted a number of times that Snopes had recently interpreted things in favor of the left, including when it "fact checked" a subjective opinion on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), when it defended Gov. Andrew Cuomo by saying an accurate tweet about him was "Mostly False," and when it "fact-checked" satire from humor website The Babylon Bee (an entry Snopes then had to edit following criticism)." -- https://www.allsides.com/news-source/snopes https://www.allsides.com/news-source/snopes They claim Snopes has a "Lean Left" bias.
- GenerativeAl 2y ago
  [dead]
- yyggvbb 2y ago
  [flagged]
- cortesoft 2y ago
  So a few things... one, I don't think you can say a fact checker is slanted one way or another by finding a few examples of a bias; how do we know there isn't an equal or greater number of instances where the examples slant the other way? You would need a systemic analysis of all the articles with some rubric for grading. Second, I find issue with the examples they did use. They say the tweet was actually true, but it doesn't seem that way to me. The tweet argued that Cuomo said that the vaccine being developed under Trump was bad, but the thing he actually said was that he thought the roll out plan would be bad. Very different.

nerdjon 2y ago

This was my first thought as well. But thinking about it more, we are not saying that all information has to be true or that someone can't be wrong. I think it is also easier to identify obviously false information than it is to identify true just due to the nature of discovering things. It is easier to rule out than identify. That also helps combat the "censorship" claims. So it seems like it would be seeing a pattern of false information. Maybe they do legitimately believe what they are saying because they fell down some rabbit hole. But if a majority of subject matter experts would say something is false and that happens over and over again for someone, than they are likely not contributing much to the platform.

blueflow 2y ago

Surprisingly little is actually a solid fact, most political things are opinions and socially constructed. We are lucky if there is hard data at all to support some decision.

suzzer99 2y ago

> I feel Twitter’s community notes function is actually pretty good at combatting false info without creating a centralized source with the above issues. I agree, it's pretty good. Except when it gets applied to one of Elon's posts and then mysteriously disappears. https://x.com/CardQueenEileen/status/1655061481862619136 https://x.com/CardQueenEileen/status/1655061481862619136

f38zf5vdt 2y ago
BirdWatch ("Community Notes") is a simple reproduction of reddit top comments on Twitter. And like u/spez, Elon just can't seem to resist hopping into the database and monkeying with things.

cryptonector 2y ago

Even if "banning false info online can improve discourse" that wouldn't make the required censorship OK. Either we're an Enlightenment society, or we're not. Which is it?

katbyte 2y ago
We most certainly are not an enlightened society.

katbyte 2y ago

Leave it up to the courts to decide. It seems to be the only place that the truth matters now. If you cannot reasonably prove you acted in good faith - or cannot prove you did not knowingly make false statements it’s (and now that they are proved false you retract and remove) then you are a problem. What that looks like in actual practice I don’t know but burying our heads in the sand and saying “it’s to difficult to stop” is not a good position to have.