And the whole idea of publishing "Fact Checks" like this sounds and feels Orwellian.
I don't mean to say that I don't trust those media fact checkers who dig into claims made by competing media sources, but I don't trust them 100% and I've seen blatant spin in too many "Fact Check" claims to not have to fact check them too.
Hell, I don't even trust Google search results anymore.
You think it’s Orwellian for there to be an objective truth separable from political spin? Because I’m pretty sure it’s the other way around: a big part of /1984/ was how the government ignored truth altogether in favor of whatever ‘facts’ best fit the political agenda of the moment. “We’ve always been at war with Eastasia,” etc.
I know, I know, you’re claiming that Snopes is acting like the government in that analogy… you’d say they’re establishing what purports to be objective truth, and what Google and others are now promoting as such, but in fact may be tainted by political bias…
But I don’t buy it. You say yourself that you consider fact checkers valuable: then it shouldn’t be seen as Orwellian to promote them, even if they’re not 100% infallible. If anything, what’s Orwellian is the actual government, as currently headed by a president who has (as president) made assertions as blatantly false and disprovable as anything about Eurasia and Eastasia.
I think it is "Orwellian" for me and everyone else to have blind faith in them just because they sport a "Fact Check" moniker above their statements.
How well do they choose sources to trust? When "fact checking" claims that Obama paid for the release of hostages from Iran, they used Vox as a primary source.[1] Surely we all agree Vox is biased.
The story originated in claims by Iranian officials, and lacking direct evidence to support either claim, any objective observer would admit there was no way to know whether Iran or Obama was telling the truth. Snopes, not being objective, confidently rated the story "FALSE".
Snopes is most useful when they're able to trace a story back to an admitted satirical source. When they attempt to judge the truth of disputed claims, they don't know more than anyone else. They shouldn't attempt to rate those disputes at all, but the temptation to use the platform to promote opinions is the Shakespearean flaw in fact checking.
1: http://www.snopes.com/obama-bribed-iran-400-million-to-relea...
- They do the research, things like finding the relevant statistics buried in some government website, as well as supplementary/background information to provide context for the claim. You or I might know how to use Google well enough to find the same information after spending enough time on it, but I’m not going to do that for every claim I feel like questioning; that’s their job.
- Most of the time there’s at least one interview with a relevant expert - indeed, even when that would seem semi-unnecessary, like when they’ve already found statistics proving something false, but still get an expert confirmation of “yeah, that‘s bogus”. I don’t know how often Snopes does this, but it definitely bolsters credibility.
- And they reason through the claim, consider different angles, and ultimately decide on a rating. This is the most subjective element, of course, and the easiest to challenge with claims of bias. Certainly I’ve ended up disagreeing with a decent fraction of their ratings, even as a sort of moderate liberal, pretty close politically to where you’d imagine PolitiFact to be. (Usually in a minor way, though, e.g. thinking something rated False should be Mostly False.) Nevertheless, I find their perspective valuable: more analytical and details-oriented than traditional publications tend to be, even the ones I like. Your mileage may vary.
Again, I don’t know how well Snopes holds up by comparison - if nothing else, PolitiFact seems to make it much more clear what exact statement is being checked. And certainly no outlet is perfect, as demonstrated by your link. But at least what I’ve read I believe to be far, far better than nothing, if you care about finding the truth rather than throwing around political slogans.
I agree fact checkers are valuable, but it's important to consider them critically because I've yet to find one truly "separate from political spin." Politifact specifically I find is usually right as a general barometer, but sometimes they reaaally stretch what makes a statement a lie/truth. Ultimately they're still a media news site and that includes some bias. I first knew Snopes as an urban legend verifier, and at least in my experience their political fact checks retain a more objective voice and tend to be less editorialized. Politifact seems to abuse their "scale of truth" to regard some politicians more critically than others. "Politician X lied, but it's only a SORT OF lie, but politician Y from the other side is ON FIRE with lies." Regardless, Snopes still uses completely biased sources at times and requires canny evaluation itself.
There's no getting around it - to have an informed opinion, you need to really understand what's happening in the news, educate yourself, and be able to critically evaluate the advice you get from sources like fact checkers. Unfortunately, it seems like that's becoming an impossible task in 2017. I think that's an opportunity for something better, maybe.
What I don't like is that a lot of the "Fact Checks" are just clickbait titles.
> "Was a Chinese Man Arrested in New York for Selling Hot Dogs Made from Dog Meat?"
Just give me the answer. I didn't click through, I'm assuming that they're trying to trigger a bias.
There's actually another one that is good:
> "Bernie Sanders' projection of 'thousands' of deaths from lost health coverage is well-supported"
For sure. Hiding the panel was done within minutes of realizing that Google didn't provide a way to either redefine/block who fact-checks or remove the panel altogether. That doesn't change the point that Google should have provided a way to hide the panel for those who don't want it.
- Being able to choose who checks facts is pretty much the same as being able to decide your own (alternative?) facts, which is the problem they're trying to solve.
They're trying to solve a problem I didn't ask them to solve. I'll do my own fact-checking.
I read the full details. There were several situations in which I thought they were being too diplomatic regarding the Clinton email scandal (meaning they were being unnecessarily harsh on Clinton).
http://www.snopes.com/monsanto-suppressing-evidence-of-cance...
I was especially impressed by the note at the bottom:
> "NOTE: This story has been updated based on discussions with a number of scientists in the field. It was originally listed as a MIXTURE, but we have now reclassified it as FALSE in response to concerns that our original narrative might have led viewers into taking the results of an activist group’s lab analyses as a scientifically rigorous addition to the debate."
Here is "Food Babes" response to their "Fact Check". Look into it and follow up on what she says:
https://foodbabe.com/2017/02/24/do-you-trust-snopes-you-wont...
The argument is just that glyphosate isn't dangerous at the doses found in food, and that seems to be true based on Wikipedia's summary of the existing research[2].
That's distinct from the argument that glyophosate is safe for the environment or that it's safe for workers handling it in large quantities.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Agency_for_Resea...
We really do not know the long term effects of exposure and to dismiss that aspect ignores the cautionary principal which has been ignored far too much in this debate.
We can look at DDT as an example of what can happen when ignore and dismiss long term results. It is true DDT didn't affect those who wallowed in it and that was used to "prove" it was safe, but it is also true it affected their children, especially females, and not until they were adults did those effects become apparent.
It is also true that eating food is not the only source of exposure for everyone. And it's also true that homeowners and farmers don't always follow the instructions and laws for using these products.
So, if we read Snopes "Fact Check" on this issue it's very easy to come away thinking all those who've done independent research are wackos and glyphosate is "Safe" and may even lead some of them to say they believe it's "Safe to drink a quart of it" and therein lies the problem.
Per their stated rating system [1], 'Mostly False' is defined as "This rating indicates that the primary elements of a claim are demonstrably false."
The slim kernel of truth in it is that the fake letter references a real court case involving the Supreme Court and Gorsuch - which seems like why it was only Mostly.
The claim: Hillary Clinton successfully defended an accused child rapist and later laughed about the case.
What's true: In 1975, young lawyer Hillary Rodham was appointed to represent a defendant charged with raping a 12-year-old girl. Clinton reluctantly took on the case, which ended with a plea bargain for the defendant, and later chuckled about some aspects of the case when discussing it years later.
What's false: Hillary Clinton did not volunteer to be the defendant's lawyer, she did not laugh about the case's outcome, she did not assert that the complainant "made up the rape story," she did not claim she knew the defendant to be guilty, and she did not "free" the defendant.
The language used is already terribly biased. Young Hillary reluctantly defended this child rapist and she merely chuckled - not laughed - chuckled!
Snopes verdict: Mostly False. What?
What worries me is that when Google and others use Snopes they're not looking at what Snopes reports, just the "verdict". If I read that "Hillary Clinton successfully defended an accused child rapist and later laughed about the case." is "mostly false", I'm not going to assume that it's mostly false because she chuckled instead of laughed, I'm going to assume it's mostly false because she did not defend an accused child rapist.
Is X true? You have to go dig around and find the answer (time and energy), or you can accept someone's opinion that you trust (shortcut).
I would say that. In fact, I trust them even less than the outlets they cover. Most "fact checking" is opinion disguised as analysis making it just a boring op-ed.
I have seen very biased fact checkers - their information is accurate, but their selection of things to factcheck were highly partisan.
But I've also seen fantastic fact checkers.
So some judgment is still needed. But on the whole, I wouldn't put fact checkers down. The good ones are far better than any news site I've been to.