Comment by paulddraper | Hacker News Reader

Comment by paulddraper | Hacker News Reader

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Example 1: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mass-shootings-in-2018/

Q: Were None of 154 Mass Shootings in 2018 Committed by a Black Man, Illegal Alien, or Woman?

A: Mixture.

The answer should be entirely false. If you measure by suspects, two-thirds of shooters in the 154 shootings were black men. If you measure by convictions, there were zero mass shootings in 2018. By any measure you choose, the claim is incorrect, and probably by a very wide margin.

Example 2: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/united-states-lower-death-...

Claim: Between 2009 and 2015, the United States had a lower mass shootings death rate than several European countries.

Rating: Mixture

The analysis is extremely muddled, and claims that the European shootings were "outliers" and therefore presumably should not be counted, rather than relying on the law of large numbers.

> If you measure by suspects, two-thirds of shooters in the 154 shootings were black men. If you measure by convictions, there were zero mass shootings in 2018.

But they literally say exactly this. Do you immediately stop reading after just the one word next to the graphic? Do the rest of the words mean nothing?

Yes, they do literally say this. And that's literally what I said.

Yes, it's still marked as "Mixture". This is an example of where a different slant is given than what the facts.

"According to Snopes, it's somewhat true that none of 154 mass shootings in 2018 where committed by a black man, illegal alien, or woman."

"According to Snopes, it's somewhat true that Jews and Americans did not die in the Holocaust."

I’m pretty sure the first one is “mixture” because the claim names three groups and only one of those groups is actually present. If I say that there are no yellow, purple, or blue apples, the fact that there are yellow apples shouldn’t just result in a rating of “false.” By pure logic that would be correct, but it won’t convey what it should.

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