7 ms·
Fact checking, Community Notes, whatever you want to call it, is inherently political.
by jimbokun 2y ago
Fact checking, Community Notes, whatever you want to call it, is inherently political.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jnwatson 2y ago[flagged]
- nearbuy 2y agoConservatives believe the truth supports conservative beliefs, and liberals believe it supports liberal beliefs. This type of comment is about the same as just saying "I am a liberal", which almost by definition means you think liberal beliefs are true. It doesn't add much to the conversation.
- DonHopkins 2y ago[flagged]
- ChocolateGod 2y agoTrump and his antics are not mainstream conservative thought, especially not on a global or even 'western' level. He does however have a knack for attracting people disenfranchised from politics.
- davidw 2y agoSure they are. People like the Cheneys or Mitt Romney are not mainstream conservatives in the US any more.
- ethbr1 2y agoAccurate. It's difficult to argue that the mainstream US Republican isn't a populist now. Twice is not a fluke. And ever since the 70s there's been a tension between the blocks of the Republican party: fiscal business conservatives, foreign policy hawks, and rural/religious conservatives. After couple decades getting the final group fired up, they decided they wanted to drive. And the primary system rewarded them.
- defrost 2y ago> the final group fired up, they decided they wanted to drive. And the primary system rewarded them. I've been an outside observer of US politics for many decades, I'd characterize what happened not so much as the primary system rewarding them but more as a consummate grifter and snakeoil carpetbagger fooling them into thinking they've won. They got fired up, they got the candidate they voted for, I'm not sure the expected rewards will follow as hoped and expected.
- ethbr1 2y agoI think folks undersell Trump's intention to deliver. Just, to him, there's no objective reality outside of the message and the public reaction. So he says "We'll build a wall!", then throws up a few miles of fencing, then takes some photos and says "We built the wall!", and people believe him? That's job done. Sure, there are a lot of interests around him, but I honestly don't think he's playing a master plan. He just lives inside messaging.
- the_gastropod 2y agoHe's been the undisputed head of the "conservative" party in the U.S. for 10 years now. And just won his second election, this time winning the popular vote. If that's not mainstream, I don't know what is.
- jimbokun 2y agoJust because one political party is obviously worse doesn’t mean you should take everything said by the other political party as gospel truth.
- roenxi 2y agoStatistically, most US seems to believe that the Democratic party is obviously worse at the Federal level. They just lost an election on every metric, although they did win the lost-to-Trump-twice award after almost a decade of opportunities to come up with an effective counter-Trump strategy.
- mewpmewp2 2y agoI am on the US left by any survey measurable by my principles, while not from US, this logic also sounds juvenile. Stooping to the level that a single person should be able to represent a whole side, did you see Joe at the debates?
- the_gastropod 2y agoOh boy. Are you trying to do the "both sides" thing? Joe was pretty bad at the debates. His voice was weak. He stuttered. He misspoke. It was bad. And then what happened? He stepped down as the party's candidate, and the rest is history, as they say. That is quite different from making up wild stories about immigrants eating cats, fabricating nonsense about widespread election fraud / stolen elections, suggesting injecting bleach is a sufficient remedy for coronavirus, sharpie-ing atop hurricane maps to prove previous incorrect statements were totally real because... look: sharpie! And this man has never had more widespread support. These. Parties. Are. Not. The. Same. By the way, it wasn't just one man making this "immigrants are eating our pets" thing. In addition to Trump, other prominent Republicans such as J.D. Vance, Marc Molinaro, and Laura Loomer also repeated this lie.
- moomin 2y agoI have definitely heard conservatives complain that reality has a left-wing bias. Not in quite those words, but close enough that you wonder if it’s possible to die of cognitive dissonance.
- immibis 2y agoWell, no. It means when facts are tested by objective means, more of them align with liberal beliefs than conservative beliefs. Unless you believe that facts can't be objectively tested?
- nearbuy 2y agoIf you comment with evidence showing that, you might be enriching the comment section. Simply having a bunch of people leave unsubstantiated comments like "truth has a conservative bias" or "truth has a liberal bias" is only adding noise. And it shows a certain lack of self-awareness.
- jimbokun 2y agoClassically liberal, sure. Modern progressives shut themselves off from any ideas they don’t already agree with, making it impossible for them to discern whether what they believe is true or not. Of course this is also true of many religious conservatives. It’s just now equally true of those on the far left.
- singleshot_ 2y agoIs it universally true that every truth test requires leveraging the existence of false claims/things I don’t agree with? For example if Socrates is a man, if all men are mortal, what false fact would you need to draw the logical conclusion? Or am I missing your point? I’m not reflecting this idea, of course, because I’m a progressive. It does seem a bit imaginary, though.
- pstuart 2y ago"Modern progressives" -- that's a wide net you're casting. I consider myself to be a progressive and am more than happy to critique "lefty stuff" all day long. I know I'm not alone in that regard. Try me.
- Henchman21 2y agoPlease provide one example of your assertion.
- avarun 2y agoNoah Smith’s entire twitter feed is dedicated to pointing out progressive lies.
- Henchman21 2y agoApologies I have no idea who this is or why I should respect their authority on this subject?
- dgfitz 2y agoSeems like legal vs. illegal immigration is low-hanging fruit.
- dabbledash 2y agoI guess it depends Is climate change driven by human activity? Do males have a natural advantage in sports? Do vaccines cause autism? Does rent control make housing more available? The major political tribes are full of BS, because politics mostly isn't driven by disagreements about facts but by conflicting material interests. Partisans believe whats convenient.
- oblio 2y ago> Do males have a natural advantage in sports? Do vaccines cause autism? I won't argue about the other two, BUT. We have facts for contact sports and for speed and strength sports, we've had these facts for millenia. For the vaccine one, we also have facts. You're more likely to win the lottery than to get autism from them. I think they're probably the same odds as dying from a potted plant falling on your head while walking but anti vaxxers don't seem to be wearing helmets everywhere, that's so weird...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mewpmewp2 2y agoI am not saying vaccines cause autism or anything, but where are you pulling your odds out from?
- dabbledash 2y agoI don't think any of these are ambiguous. My point is that sometimes right wingers take the nonsense position and sometimes left wingers take the nonsense position. Neither side reliably follows the evidence or "believes the science" so glib lines like "reality has a liberal bias" are shallow and silly.
- tsimionescu 2y agoThe point of the phrase "reality has a liberal bias" is not "liberals never take a nonsense position", it's "more of the facts that liberals [just as tribalistically] believe in happen to also be true, when compared to conservatives". That something like this might happen is not surprising. If you have two political groups and you assign both beliefs from a bag in a purely random process, odds are that one of the groups will end up with more true beliefs than the other, through no virtue of their own but through pure chance.
- bluescrn 2y agoLiberal as in classical liberalism, or as in progressivism (which is becoming increasingly authoritarian)?
- Henchman21 2y agoCould you give an example of increasing authoritarianism from progressivism?
- portaouflop 2y agoThis was a thing in the 2010s when “cancel culture” and other SJW shenanigans were prevalent. As far as I can tell the culture war is over since end of the pandemic - now the class war has begun, it’s going to be interesting
- HideousKojima 2y agoLandlords in NYC can be fined up to $250,000 for misgendering tenants, i.e. compelled speech: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/transgender-pronouns-fine-nyc/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/transgender-pronouns-fine-... And Canada has similar (and far more widespread and severe) laws punishing people for expressing wrongthink about trans issues.
- SyzygyRhythm 2y agoTim Walz claimed there is "no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy." That's false--the First Amendment has no such carveouts for those things. So it's concerning that Walz would think otherwise. Hillary Clinton has made similar comments, saying "But I also think there are Americans who are engaged in this kind of propaganda, and whether they should be civilly, or even in some cases criminally, charged is something that would be a better deterrence, because the Russians are unlikely, except in a very few cases, to ever stand trial in the United States." But again, there is no First Amendment carveout for propaganda, Russian or otherwise. There are some limits to protected speech, but they're rare and mostly limited to direct incitement of a crime or other threat.
- lo_zamoyski 2y ago
- lo_zamoyski 2y agoIf you begin with liberal blinders on, then that might be the picture you receive. (I define here "liberal" and "liberalism" not in the lazy, colloquial partisan sense, as in "own the libs!" or "left wing", but the philosophical definition in the tradition of Hobbes, Locke, and others. In this sense, "we" are all liberals in the liberal West.)
- DrillShopper 2y agoOnly if everything you don't agree with is "political"
- jimbokun 2y agoCensorship, moderation, what kind of speech is acceptable, what does or doesn’t constitute a “fact”, are all political topics.
- jjav 2y ago> what does or doesn’t constitute a “fact”, are all political topics. It clearly is not. A fact is a fact by definition, regardless of what anyone happens to feel about it. There are facts that are known to be true beyond all possible doubt. If it is uncertain or in doubt, then it's not a fact and shouldn't be corrected by fact checkers.
- Aeolun 2y agoI disagree with gravity though. It makes life a lot easier when you can fly.
- ikiris 2y agoIt’s just intelligent falling. They want to keep you in the dark.
- sampo 2y ago> There are facts that are known to be true beyond all possible doubt. The problem is that some people believe a fact is one way beyond doubt, and other way believe it is the other way. Epidemiology: Respirator masks help prevent infectious diseases Economics: Rent control is always a bad idea
- somenameforme 2y agoThe way Community Notes usually end up working in practice is comments that provide sourced context that may be [arguably intentionally] omitted in a topic. For instance if it happens to be that there have been 27 different studies showing no statistically significant reduction in spread of infectious diseases with healthy individuals wearing masks, then that would likely be a community note on the first one. And vice versa if rent has been demonstrated to keep rents below the surrounding means in the cities of Blah, Bleh, and Bluh, then that would often end up a community note on the second. It basically helps reduce the hyperbole/echo chamber effect of such comments/topics. Vice/versa if those topics were "Respirator masks are useless." and "Rent control is always good." then the community notes would tend to go in the opposite direction. It's just a really good idea. For that matter I think a similar algorithm would also work well on general upvote systems at large. I'd also add that one of the biggest issues with "fact checkers" was not only sometimes questionable checking, but also a selection bias - where the ideological bias becomes rather overt in both directions. Whether that be in deciding to "fact check" the Babylon Bee (in an overt effort to get it deranked), or in choosing not to not fact check statements from the lying politicians that one happens to like.
- tptacek 2y agoTo be clear: I absolutely do not dispute this. But in 2025 it seems pretty clear that you cannot run a mainstream large-scale social network without some kind of moderation, so every platform is going to do something. And all I'm saying is: what Facebook was doing before was bad, just as a product experience. Just wretched. Solved no problems, mostly surfaced stuff I wouldn't have paid attention to in the first place.
- oraphalous 2y agoHow does an average joe evaluate the claim that their content moderation was bad? Cause folks on the left seem very upset that it's being replaced by notes, and folks on the right seem very glad that it's going. How do I judge this for myself?
- numpad0 2y agoNot a huge problem so long it remains a means to indicate that the post is hallucinatory. Content of checks/notes don't matter, it's tone policing.
- PaulHoule 2y agoPeople are going to believe it is political whether or not it is. I've been working at hard at talking about difficult issues in a depoliticized frame. It's hard. Lately I've been talking with a lot of people trying to help find answers and something I am learning is to delete all the duckspeak from my vocabulary (there was an otherwise good article about "placement poverty" in medical education that I didn't post last weekend because but "X poverty" is duckspeak) If I say anything at all to anyone about this or that and get a negative response about the words I use I take it very seriously and most of the time resolve to use different words in future.
- seadan83 2y agoWhat are more examples of duckspeak and is it context dependent?
- lodovic 2y agoOrwell defined it as thoughtless or formulaic speech.
- PaulHoule 2y agoThere is an essay at the end of Orwell's 1984 https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt called "The Principles of Newspeak" that coins the word. The slogan "My Body My Choice" has some of this character. It rolls off the tongue and stops thought. There is no nuance: the rights of the mother are inalienable. Opponents will talk about the inalienable rights of the fetus. There is no room for compromise but setting some temporal point in the pregnancy is a compromise like Solomon's that makes sense to the disengaged but gives no satisfaction to people who see it as moral issue. [1] Note that this phrase turned out to be content-free and perfectly portable when it got picked up by anti-vaccine activists. "Illegal Alien" is a masterpiece of language engineering that stands on its own for effectiveness. I mean, we all follow laws that we don't agree with or live with the threat of arrest and imprisonment if we don't. It's easy to see somebody breaking the law and not getting caught as a threat to the legitimacy of the system. "Undocumented Migrant" has been introduced as an alternative but it just doesn't roll off the tongue in the same way and since it is not so entrenched it comes across more as language engineering. (Practically as opposed to morally: Americans would rather work at Burger King rather than get a few more $ per hour to get up early for difficult and dirty work which might have you toiling in the hot or the cold. An American would see a farmhand job at a dairy farm as a dead end job. A Mexican is an experienced ag worker who might want to save up money to buy his own farm. Which one does the dairy farmer want to have handling his cows?) My son bristles at "healthcare" as a word consistently used for abortion and transgender medicine to the point where he shows microexpressions when reading discussions about access to healthcare in general. This poster burns me up https://www.pinterest.com/pin/741405157385448245/ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/741405157385448245/ in that teaching small children the alleged difference between two words will make a difference in the very difficult problems that (say) black [2] people have in America trivializes those problems. It trains them to become the kind of people who will trade memes online as opposed to facing those problems. In the meantime I've heard so many right wingers repetitively talk about "Equality of opportunity" vs "Equality of outcomes" which is a real point but reduces a complex and fraught problem to a single axis. [1] There's a great discussion of this https://www.amazon.com/Rights-Talk-Impoverishment-Political-Discourse/dp/0029118239 https://www.amazon.com/Rights-Talk-Impoverishment-Political-... although that book has a discussion of the Americans with Disabilities Act that hasn't aged well [2] Bloomberg Businessweek has a policy to always say capital B when they talk about "Black" people. Do black people care? Does it really help them? What side of the barricades are they on when they write gushing articles about Bernard Arnault and review $250 bottles of booze and $3000/night hotel rooms.
- khafra 2y agoWhat I've read of the Community Notes algorithm casts it as far more neutral than any hiring decisions about professional content moderators could possibly be. If it's "political," it's in a similar way to comparing the GDP of various countries is political--reality gives the verdict, the politics is in whether that verdict was the optimal one to ask reality for.