7 ms·

I think internet discussion worked far better without fact checkers, where some of them cannot really be called accurate. The community notes are the better app

by raxxor 2y ago

I think internet discussion worked far better without fact checkers, where some of them cannot really be called accurate. The community notes are the better approach. They aren't always correct either, but it certainly is the better fit for freedom of expression and freedom of speech. Fact checkers are the authority approach that just does not fit.

hmmm-i-wonder 2y ago
I haven't seen a single discussion be worse off due to fact checking, but I've seen tons of discussions where having it would improve things. I have seen people get mad because they can't post BS without it being challenged. To claim internet discussion worked better without fact checking is something I haven't seen any actual evidence for, just opinions like yours. Community notes is just a watered down, more easily 'ignored' version that appeases people that were angry about fact checkers to begin with. Hopefully there is a push-back, likely from EU legislation. Between the AI generators many of these companies are implementing and changes like this, platforms need to be held more accountable for what they allow to be posted on them.
- raxxor 2y ago
  Claims are challenged all the time by other users and there are enough cases where fact checkers were wrong or heavily biased. EU legislation tries to introduce "trusted flaggers". A ridiculous approach, an information authority by a state-like entity doesn't work, even if they paint these flaggers as independent. They simply are not, a trusted and verifiable fact. Community notes provide higher quality info, it is the better approach. That is an opinion of course. We will probably see community notes on trusted flaggers.
  - hmmm-i-wonder 2y ago
    >Claims are challenged all the time by other users and there are enough cases where fact checkers were wrong or heavily biased. I've only seen a handful of cases where they were wrong of heavily biased, but I've seen hundreds of cases where the poster refuses to accept they are wrong and the fact checkers are right. >Community notes provide higher quality info, it is the better approach. That is an opinion of course. Roughly the same info but from less trusted sources and with less controls being higher quality sounds like a big bag of wishes but not grounded in reality. >We will probably see community notes on trusted flaggers. I expect lots of partisan complaining and yelling, but not a lot of actual valid challenges.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - raxxor 2y ago
      I don't know. I believe the average internet user has less to gain to feed me wrong info. It happens of course, that is why you shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet. A fact checker however has economic incentive towards their employers. You can paint them as independent, but the will always be in a precarious situation or are influenced by third party financiers. This does not at all evoke more trust than a random internet person. Trusted source is pretty subjective, but for me "official" fact checkers don't have too much of that.
- leovingi 2y ago
  > I haven't seen a single discussion be worse off due to fact checking The idea that there is some official governing body that has access to undisputable facts and they have the power to designate what you or I or anyone else can talk about is preposterous and, frankly, anyone on a site called Hacker News should be ashamed for supporting it.
  - bavell 2y ago
    A voice of sanity in a cacophony of madness. I hold no sympathy for Meta but it's laughable that so-called "fact-checkers" are anything but "status-quo enforcers".
  - hmmm-i-wonder 2y ago
    >The idea that there is some official governing body Platforms were encouraged to create their own departments, and have. There is no "one" or "governing" body here, so this is more hyperbole in this already flagrantly absurd discussion. >have the power to designate what you or I or anyone else can talk about is preposterous No one is stopping you from posting bullshit, fact checkers simply post the corresponding challenge or facts that allow others to see the lack of truth in your statements. The idea you can say whatever you want, lie all you want, and be unchallenged as some form of right is absurd. Claiming because you can be challenged is censoring you or preventing you from talking is also completely absurd. >and, frankly, anyone on a site called Hacker News should be ashamed for supporting it. Frankly anyone on this site should be able to separate hyberbolic strawmen from reality.
    - leovingi 2y ago
      > Platforms were encouraged to create their own departments, and have. There is no "one" or "governing" body here, so this is more hyperbole in this already flagrantly absurd discussion. > Finally, in the midst of operating or considering up to three different avenues of “misinformation reporting” (switchboarding, EI-ISAC, and the “misinformation reporting portal”), by early 2020, CISA had dropped any pretense of focusing only on foreign disinformation, openly discussing how to best monitor and censor the speech of Americans. That's a quote taken directly from the House Judiciary report on "disinformation", page number 31 - https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/EIP_Jira_Ticket_Staff_Report_11-6-23_Clean.pdf https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-j... Here's another one > The EIP repeatedly used its fourth category, in particular, to justify the censorship of conservative political speech: the “Delegitimization of Election Results,” defined as “[c]ontent that delegitimizes election results on the basis of false or misleading claims.”166 This arbitrary and inconsistent standard was determined by political actors masquerading as “experts” and academics. But even more troubling, the federal government was heavily intertwined with the universities in making these seemingly arbitrary determinations that skewed against one side of the political aisle. So please, let's not pretend that the fact-checking organizations, the information streams they themselves depended upon and the pressure that was applied to all of the social networks was organic "encouragement" meant to challenge bullshit posted online - it was a censorship campaign by the United States government, plain and simple.
- kcplate 2y ago
  Exposure to many viewpoints, including wrong ones, provides a counterbalancing effect. When you actively try and suppress information you create a “forbidden knowledge” effect where people seek out silos where extreme and wrongheaded information gets passed without the “sunlight is the best disinfectant”—-it grows faster…becomes more wrong, more extreme, and more dangerous. Seems to me in my experience after decades of watching and participating in online discussion extremism really only became more problematic when fact checking and active efforts to suppress took hold. Whatever the good intentions may have been, the results were worse.
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    There's some academic research to the contrary; banning /r/fatpeoplehate and /r/coontown on Reddit reduced incidents of hateful speech across the platform. https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/6zg6w6/reddits_bans_of_rcoontown_and_rfatpeoplehate/ https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/6zg6w6/reddits_ban... / https://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf https://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf "Sunlight is the best disinfectant" is a great pithy slogan, but modern society needs bleach and chlorhexidine sometimes.
    - naasking 2y ago
      > There's some academic research to the contrary; banning /r/fatpeoplehate and /r/coontown on Reddit reduced incidents of hateful speech across the platform. That does not imply it reduced hateful speech overall, maybe the censorship just increased antipathy and drove that speech underground or to other platforms where it couldn't be seen.
      - ceejayoz 2y ago
        "Off Reddit" is a win. Recruitment in neutral-ish venues like Reddit is critical for extremist groups; people aren't starting on Stormfront.
        naasking 2y ago
- llm_trw 2y ago
  You must have slept walked through covid then. Citing the simple fact that every western government ignored their own pandemic plans and did adlib bingo instead was enough to get you banned of Twitter, Facebook and reddit for close to two years.
quantadev 2y ago
The problem with "Fact-Checkers" was that since they're human they're going to impose their own biases, and their own sense of morality. For well over a decade the majority of them were also left-leaning (per Silicon Valley), and so even true things that conservatives were trying to say got "censored" because these left-leaning folks believed their own sense of truth and morality were superior.
intended 2y ago
When you say this, what are you referring to? Was this about the general vibe of online conversations, or are you talking about specific incidences or traits?

by raxxor 2y ago

hmmm-i-wonder 2y ago

I haven't seen a single discussion be worse off due to fact checking, but I've seen tons of discussions where having it would improve things. I have seen people get mad because they can't post BS without it being challenged. To claim internet discussion worked better without fact checking is something I haven't seen any actual evidence for, just opinions like yours. Community notes is just a watered down, more easily 'ignored' version that appeases people that were angry about fact checkers to begin with. Hopefully there is a push-back, likely from EU legislation. Between the AI generators many of these companies are implementing and changes like this, platforms need to be held more accountable for what they allow to be posted on them.

raxxor 2y ago
Claims are challenged all the time by other users and there are enough cases where fact checkers were wrong or heavily biased. EU legislation tries to introduce "trusted flaggers". A ridiculous approach, an information authority by a state-like entity doesn't work, even if they paint these flaggers as independent. They simply are not, a trusted and verifiable fact. Community notes provide higher quality info, it is the better approach. That is an opinion of course. We will probably see community notes on trusted flaggers.
- hmmm-i-wonder 2y ago
  >Claims are challenged all the time by other users and there are enough cases where fact checkers were wrong or heavily biased. I've only seen a handful of cases where they were wrong of heavily biased, but I've seen hundreds of cases where the poster refuses to accept they are wrong and the fact checkers are right. >Community notes provide higher quality info, it is the better approach. That is an opinion of course. Roughly the same info but from less trusted sources and with less controls being higher quality sounds like a big bag of wishes but not grounded in reality. >We will probably see community notes on trusted flaggers. I expect lots of partisan complaining and yelling, but not a lot of actual valid challenges.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - raxxor 2y ago
    I don't know. I believe the average internet user has less to gain to feed me wrong info. It happens of course, that is why you shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet. A fact checker however has economic incentive towards their employers. You can paint them as independent, but the will always be in a precarious situation or are influenced by third party financiers. This does not at all evoke more trust than a random internet person. Trusted source is pretty subjective, but for me "official" fact checkers don't have too much of that.
leovingi 2y ago
> I haven't seen a single discussion be worse off due to fact checking The idea that there is some official governing body that has access to undisputable facts and they have the power to designate what you or I or anyone else can talk about is preposterous and, frankly, anyone on a site called Hacker News should be ashamed for supporting it.
- bavell 2y ago
  A voice of sanity in a cacophony of madness. I hold no sympathy for Meta but it's laughable that so-called "fact-checkers" are anything but "status-quo enforcers".
- hmmm-i-wonder 2y ago
  >The idea that there is some official governing body Platforms were encouraged to create their own departments, and have. There is no "one" or "governing" body here, so this is more hyperbole in this already flagrantly absurd discussion. >have the power to designate what you or I or anyone else can talk about is preposterous No one is stopping you from posting bullshit, fact checkers simply post the corresponding challenge or facts that allow others to see the lack of truth in your statements. The idea you can say whatever you want, lie all you want, and be unchallenged as some form of right is absurd. Claiming because you can be challenged is censoring you or preventing you from talking is also completely absurd. >and, frankly, anyone on a site called Hacker News should be ashamed for supporting it. Frankly anyone on this site should be able to separate hyberbolic strawmen from reality.
  - leovingi 2y ago
    > Platforms were encouraged to create their own departments, and have. There is no "one" or "governing" body here, so this is more hyperbole in this already flagrantly absurd discussion. > Finally, in the midst of operating or considering up to three different avenues of “misinformation reporting” (switchboarding, EI-ISAC, and the “misinformation reporting portal”), by early 2020, CISA had dropped any pretense of focusing only on foreign disinformation, openly discussing how to best monitor and censor the speech of Americans. That's a quote taken directly from the House Judiciary report on "disinformation", page number 31 - https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/EIP_Jira_Ticket_Staff_Report_11-6-23_Clean.pdf https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-j... Here's another one > The EIP repeatedly used its fourth category, in particular, to justify the censorship of conservative political speech: the “Delegitimization of Election Results,” defined as “[c]ontent that delegitimizes election results on the basis of false or misleading claims.”166 This arbitrary and inconsistent standard was determined by political actors masquerading as “experts” and academics. But even more troubling, the federal government was heavily intertwined with the universities in making these seemingly arbitrary determinations that skewed against one side of the political aisle. So please, let's not pretend that the fact-checking organizations, the information streams they themselves depended upon and the pressure that was applied to all of the social networks was organic "encouragement" meant to challenge bullshit posted online - it was a censorship campaign by the United States government, plain and simple.
kcplate 2y ago
Exposure to many viewpoints, including wrong ones, provides a counterbalancing effect. When you actively try and suppress information you create a “forbidden knowledge” effect where people seek out silos where extreme and wrongheaded information gets passed without the “sunlight is the best disinfectant”—-it grows faster…becomes more wrong, more extreme, and more dangerous. Seems to me in my experience after decades of watching and participating in online discussion extremism really only became more problematic when fact checking and active efforts to suppress took hold. Whatever the good intentions may have been, the results were worse.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  There's some academic research to the contrary; banning /r/fatpeoplehate and /r/coontown on Reddit reduced incidents of hateful speech across the platform. https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/6zg6w6/reddits_bans_of_rcoontown_and_rfatpeoplehate/ https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/6zg6w6/reddits_ban... / https://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf https://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf "Sunlight is the best disinfectant" is a great pithy slogan, but modern society needs bleach and chlorhexidine sometimes.
  - naasking 2y ago
    > There's some academic research to the contrary; banning /r/fatpeoplehate and /r/coontown on Reddit reduced incidents of hateful speech across the platform. That does not imply it reduced hateful speech overall, maybe the censorship just increased antipathy and drove that speech underground or to other platforms where it couldn't be seen.
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      "Off Reddit" is a win. Recruitment in neutral-ish venues like Reddit is critical for extremist groups; people aren't starting on Stormfront.
      - naasking 2y ago
llm_trw 2y ago
You must have slept walked through covid then. Citing the simple fact that every western government ignored their own pandemic plans and did adlib bingo instead was enough to get you banned of Twitter, Facebook and reddit for close to two years.

quantadev 2y ago

The problem with "Fact-Checkers" was that since they're human they're going to impose their own biases, and their own sense of morality. For well over a decade the majority of them were also left-leaning (per Silicon Valley), and so even true things that conservatives were trying to say got "censored" because these left-leaning folks believed their own sense of truth and morality were superior.

intended 2y ago

When you say this, what are you referring to? Was this about the general vibe of online conversations, or are you talking about specific incidences or traits?