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It's ending because the government that encouraged fact checking is ending. The new one has made it clear they despise fact checkers
by aprilthird2021 2y ago
It's ending because the government that encouraged fact checking is ending. The new one has made it clear they despise fact checkers
- insane_dreamer 2y agoRight. And you know what type of government really despises fact checkers? Autocratic / oligarchic governments (Russia, China, etc.)
- gitaarik 2y agoI think Russia would love to have control over a group of supposedly "fact-checkers" to manipulate their citizens.
- aprilthird2021 2y agoSure, and that's the gov't we have now. The previous one was also suppressive but in different ways
- insane_dreamer 2y agoThat's simply not true.
- infamouscow 2y agoExactly! They simply used lawfare in an attempt to bankrupt, sieze the assets of, and imprison their main political opponents rather than keep the scale balanced (for the sake of democracy) /s
- aprilthird2021 2y agoYou know lawfare can only be used against you (in the US) to seize your assets, bankrupt you, and imprison you if you commit major crimes right?
- gitaarik 2y agoOr they are more realistic, or less corrupt. Seems to me that if some authority is determining what are facts and what are not for me, that I am easily shapable and foolable. Community Notes at least don't claim they have the facts. So that leaves you more with a responsibility to make up your own mind. I know this isn't for everyone, there are still a lot of people that like to have leaders tell them how they should live. But nowadays there are more and more people that like to have more independence. You will have to live with that too.
- aprilthird2021 2y agoNone of this is to do with anything about what people want. It's to do with the government. Meta has always, by necessity to some degree, gone with what the current US administration wants re: content moderation. This is the same thing. Do you really think the company which has openly admitted it wants to create AI profiles that post as if they're humans and not tell you they are AI care at all about facts or what you think or believe?
- gitaarik 2y agoWell yeah true, the decision is probably mostly made because of the change of government. The fact checking was pleasing the left, and now that the right has the power, this left-wing-propaganda thing has to go. But then is community notes right-wing? They could also have kept the fact checking system, but just alter the facts to please their agenda. But they didn't do that, they are replacing it with Community Notes, which isn't some small group supposedly figuring out the facts for everyone, but a community build information system. To me that seems a lot more fair and less prone to corruption. So regardless of the real motivation behind the move, I think it will have positive effects for society. At least a step in the right direction. Still a long way to go.
- aprilthird2021 2y ago> The fact checking was pleasing the left, and now that the right has the power, this left-wing-propaganda thing has to go. Yes you understand. Meta, due to its problems with moderation over the years, both legal and political, has largely ceded direction of that to the government. Previous government wanted things like fact-checking, an oversight board for moderation decisions, and censorship of certain issues. Current government doesn't want any moderation at all, like X, the social media owned by Trump's biggest ally, which he personally loved so much that he created his own Twitter clone when he was booted off of Twitter. So in that environment, the easiest, simplest thing is to treat Meta platforms like X. That's all there is to it. It signals commitment to the new administration, it heaves political and legal pressure off Meta, etc. much more than your suggestion, that they keep fact-checking but bias it towards the right (which would need to be explained to the administration, etc.) Just saying "We're like X now" gets the point across most cleanly, and it's cheaper