Comment by Chathamization | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Chathamization | Hacker News Reader

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> Are there techniques that can be applied to help folks who lack high cognitive abilities to see and understand that they’re being manipulated?

Or to help ourselves see that? I think it would be a mistake if everyone who read this assumed it was simply a problem with the other side (“See, I told you they were all idiots”). Nate Silver has made a good case that the media's focus on the Comey letter non-story was one of the main factors for Clinton's loss, and it's hard to not see a connection between their refusal to look at their own reporting and their sudden focus on "fake news." Just this week I ran into an NPR fact checker claiming "It’s true that an immigrant can sponsor extended family members for visas"[1] (in context, talking about immigration visas), when that seems to not be the case at all[2].

It's true that shoddy journalism is different from intentional manipulation, but the line between the two is often blurred. You also have the same issue with both - even when people are presented by the facts, they won't reconsider their positions. I've run into this issue in the past - when you present the original source and show how it contradicts a news report, it's not uncommon to get the reply "that can't be true, or else the media would have said so."

[1] https://www.npr.org/2018/01/30/580378279/trumps-state-of-the... [2] https://www.uscis.gov/family/family-us-citizens

The same Nate Silver and 538 who were hilariously wrong about Trump the whole time? His team didn't seem to have any clue what drove people to support Trump. Giving Clinton 95% win percent even at point where anyone actually following the race could see it was going to be neck and neck at best.

Or as Nate declared there is no path to 270 for Trump. Not quite sure how he declared that as predicting Trump when Nate and 538 predictions were the butt of jokes among Trump supporters.

I'd be cautious about their predictions and would point out anyone that they might be vulnerable to fake news.

>Just this week I ran into an NPR fact checker claiming "It’s true that an immigrant can sponsor extended family members for visas"[1] (in context, talking about immigration visas), when that seems to not be the case at all[2].

How do you figure? The USCIS page talks about the program mentioned by NPR, where a limited number of visas are available for extended family of US citizens.

Here[1]:

> A U.S. citizen can file a petition for the following relatives: • Husband or wife; • Children, married or unmarried A U.S. citizen who is at least 21 years or older may also petition for the following relatives: • Parents; • Brothers or sisters.

From my understanding (and from everything I can find on the USCIS site and all other immigration sites), a U.S. citizen can sponsor immediate family members. They can not sponsor extended family members (cousins, uncles, in-laws, etc.).

[1] https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/A1...

The USCIS refers to "immediate family" as parents, spouses and children, as seen on your first link, so "extended family" would involve siblings. One of those situations where a term can have a legal meaning that's different from how it is commonly used. The NPR part also links to another article that explains who can be sponsored right away.

good explanation but I can't help but wonder, wouldn't your immediate family's immediate family by extension also be your immediate family? at least within the same generations that your immediate family cover (aka your siblings are the immediate family of your parents and they are the same generation as you so wouldn't it make logical sense to refer to them as immediate?)

not trying to cast shade on any arguments made already or anything im just legitimately curious about it from a logical perspective

These are legal terms, certain people are defined as your immediate family for these forms and you can't extend it without changing law.

oh right I sometimes forget just how arcane and distanced from reality legal terms can be, thanks for the clarification :)

The problem here is that “immediate” and “extended” family in US immigration do not mean that same thing as those terms mean in any other context, and both are what would be considered immediate family of the sponsoring citizen or permanent resident in other contexts (parents, spouse/fiance, children, and siblings, and nothing further.)

“immediate family” in US immigration refers to a spouse or fiance of a US citizen, certain minor children of US citizens, and parents of adult US citizens.

“extended family” refers to children (including adult children) of US citizens not considered “immediate family”, adult siblings of US citizens, and spouses and children (including adult children) of permanent residents.

This creates and immense opportunity for lying by way of equivocation, where a statement which is accurate only because the definition of a key term in the context of the statement is different than what the audience understands it to be is used to convey a message which depends on the audience interpreting the statement according to a different definition of that term.

It creates an opportunity for lying by way of equivocation, but it is also just an unavoidable part of language and communication. The statement NPR made doesn't drastically change if "extended family" contains cousins or not, and they link to more information right next to the statement. It's hard for me to see malice in the action.

> The statement NPR made doesn't drastically change if "extended family"

I disagree. They're fact checking this statement that Trump made:

> Under the current, broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives.

In response they write:

> It’s true that an immigrant can sponsor extended family members for visas — but only after he or she becomes a U.S. citizen.

The vast majority of people reading the statement and response to it would be unaware that the only "extended family" they can sponsor are their siblings. If anything, it seems to confirm the false statement that "a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives," simply adding some caveats about the process being difficult and taking years.

Stopping the NPR response at that point is far more misleading than their use of "extended family." If there's a strict cap on the number of visas on offer, bringing in 100 siblings is basically the same as 100 siblings or cousins.

> The statement NPR made doesn't drastically change if "extended family" contains cousins or not,

Not only does it change, but the specific NPR statement is false in both the technical and general senses; but I was responding to the general back and forth on HN about “extended family”, not the specific issued with the NPR claim.

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