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Comment by taborj | Hacker News Reader

They mention archiving a bunch of Trump stuff, but are they just focusing on conservatives? There's a bunch of misinformation on both sides, and if they're really after the truth, they should be paying the same amount of time and attention to both right and left.

Somewhat related: it's sad but perhaps not inevitable that everyone basically has to do their own research to find out what's actually going on. These days, I don't trust any one source; I find out what that source used as their source, and go read that. And if that source has a source, I look at that. This means I oftentimes find myself looking at the raw numbers of, say, gun deaths or immigration numbers, etc. It's extremely time consuming, but immensely illuminating.

If only there were some organizations that would do this for me, without adding in some bias or interpretation. We could call them "news organizations."

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> These days, I don't trust...

The goal of the new style autocrats and their advocates is not a particular propaganda line but to create doubt in reality based information sources. Individuals can follow rabbit holes until the find the story that matches their previously held world view and so guarantee supporters never defect.

For example, you can always find an obscure website "proving" climate change is a hoax. If you now distrust reputable sources and weight every site roughly equally, you could easily convince yourself that no one knows if there is climate change or not.

> For example, you can always find an obscure website "proving" climate change is a hoax.

But according to the assumption then you check their own sources and their validity. Also while the "climate change is an hoax" is little more than a conspiracy theory in terms of validity, some prediction have been proven false. All together climate change is an undeniable truth, singularly each prediction is far from undeniable on average.

> If you now distrust reputable sources

Considering the frequency of retractions on reputable sources (especially in bombshell articles e.g. the last scoop on Kavanaugh where the NYT forgot to mention that the main witness apparently did not remember the event) you are better off with a weighted average of various source where you try and factor in each source bias.

That main witness "bombshell" is not remotely what is written in the NYT. It is what Fox news _says_ the NYT wrote knowing the audience will never actually read the article. And is in fact a rather blatant example of undermining reality based media as an "enemy of the people"

>Considering the frequency of retraction

What, even approximately, is the rate of retraction?

And more generally, note the irony that if honest journals correct errors, it is portrayed as proof of conspiracy yet those outlets that don't (or "double down") are considered reliable. Perhaps the NYT should follow politicians and the lower grade media and aggressively deny anything that makes them look bad.

> What, even approximately, is the rate of retraction?

On RussiaGate? pretty high. On the Covington MAGA-wearing kids? A lawsuit. But naked numbers means nothing. We agree that trump tweets a lot of nonsense, if he were to add 10 time more tweets that were true it would not dilute the nonsense of the others.

> That main witness "bombshell" is not remotely what is written in the NYT. It is what Fox news _says_ the NYT

I read the NYT article (do not remember the exact wording, but I have never opened the fox news one) and the clear picture was that they were reporting the content of a book and that the book was reporting that as facts; what I criticize in the NYT article is the omission about the witness apparently not remembering the story (an omission they had to correct indeed).

(As a philosophical aside: I do not want to convince you that "the mainstream media lies", that is not a proposition to me, in the sense that I do not know What a proof or disproof looks like. What I am trying to do is to point out the viewpoint of your outgroup.)

They have an archive of "330bn web pages" (quote from article). I'm sure those are not exclusively conservative. One or twenty might even be dictionary entries for "example".

They can also choose not to include stuff in their archives, sometimes in ways that assist folks who've been spreading misinformation. For example, they've manually excluded all Snopes' content from the archive, effectively helping them memory-hole old versons of their fact checks. I discovered this after Snopes falsely claimed that an EPA rule tightening asbestos restrictions in the US was actually allowing prevoiusly-banned uses to be approved for sale and convinced a bunch of HN readers of this. A month or so later, the EPA pointed out that the very document Snopes had linked said that only uses which were previously not restricted at all could be approved for use and that the previously banned uses remained unconditionally banned.

Rather than correct their error, Snopes deleted the part of the article which claimed the ban was being removed, pretended they'd never said that, kept their original now-unfounded conclusion, and wrote a blog post accusing the EPA of lying for claiming that they'd made an error in the first place. Good luck finding the original article with the error online now. (There should be a copy on archive.is, but they're having uptime issues now.) The Internet Archive basically helped one of the trusted sources we're meant to rely on to spot misinformation rewrite the past to gaslight the US government.

The Internet Archive also took the decision not to allow government websites to block content from being archived or removed around about the time Trump took office. So they're very selective about who gets to hide their past errors like this and whose pasts are permanent public record for all to see.

Did they make the decision, or did Snopes ask them to blacklist their website?

Presumably Snopes asked them, although the notice doesn't say. They don't automatically exclude stuff from the archive for just anyone who asks them though - they're quite happy to refuse if they think it's politically important enough.

It feels dishonest to me honestly. Snopes has had some fact checking mistakes that they have silently deleted. I wish publications would own up to it when they make a mistake. Retractions are dying, instead stories just get 404ed.

This reminds of when Salon published an article which was criticized for being too sympathetic to pedophilia, and when called out on it, simply deleted it and pretended they never published it. Salon has since started actively thwarting archiving services.

[1]: https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/833835031328124928

I'm mainly asking the question because the article implies[1] that they're mainly archiving Trump stuff, not in general archiving misinformation.

[1] yes, I know it doesn't say it outright, but I don't think it's a stretch to get the gist.

So you're criticising the article for making an argument that you realise is happening entirely in your head?

Articles can be written in such a way as to imply meaning that's not specifically stated, and this is one example.

From the article: """ Separately, as part of the effort to document the 45th president’s often-contradictory statements, the organisation is cataloguing Mr Trump’s tweets. """

I would say not entirely in his own head.

>There's a bunch of misinformation on both sides, and if they're really after the truth, they should be paying the same amount of time and attention to both right and left.

Why the same amount? Shouldn't the amount of time be in proportion to the misinformation originating from each side?

> Somewhat related: it's sad but perhaps not inevitable that everyone basically has to do their own research to find out what's actually going on. These days, I don't trust any one source;

I hale from the pre-Internet era. I can't think of any day where trusting one source was a good idea. The Internet (and online ads) has just made it easier to dig deeper.

> The Internet (and online ads) has just made it easier to dig deeper.

Also easier to make sensational headlines, easier to issue silent retractions, easier to make shadows edits to already published stories, easier to copy minutes old news in a journalistic game of telephone, etc.

>This means I oftentimes find myself looking at the raw numbers of, say, gun deaths or immigration numbers, etc.

Data is meaningless without context and context is inevitably political and subject to bias.

Context is data. All you're saying is that data is better when there is additional relevant data. Yes...

Context is often not data, e.g. knowledge of past events, which can be subject to incomplete information or bias (i.e. history is written by the victorious).

Good rhetoric to have on speed dial when encountering data that contradicts one's beliefs.

Okay, explain to me how data in isolation communicates meaning.

The word "meaningless" is defined as "lacking any significance". The claim that data lacks any significance until someone extracts meaning from it seems most useful, apart from philosophical discussions, as a rhetorical attempt to make data secondary to interpretation and ergo something that can be waved away by belief systems.

But sometimes it is true, for example in the sense that data alone does not tell much about what is being measured and its significance.

For example high levels of cholesterol are negatively correlated to heart infarction, mostly because the population at highest risk is under medication and has so extremely low cholesterol. In this case the data itself is meaningless as it does not contain its own significance. This does not mean that we can freely discard data we don't like, it is important and useful, just not necessarily intrinsically meaningful.

A good analysis is made so that it is obvious to justify this layer of interpretation.

What gives you the impression that they're "focusing on conservatives?" Do you have evidence for this statement?

You mention archiving Trump's tweets. Do you think that they might do this because he is the President of the United States?

(I don't have a dog in this fight) From TFA: "The result is Trump and Brexit!" and generally the lack of anything disparaging toward the left. The article and the Internet Archive plainly isn't "focused on conservatives", but it sort of undermines its purported mission (commitment to preserving the truth) in the implication that conservatives are unique in espousing misinformation, even if the implication is unintentional.

Yes, for an organization that should be above it all, why would you even mention any political preference. They are are a machine that sucks down data. They should have no opinion of the data (as an organization).

Wouldn't it be up to X side to submit links to IA? Also if a site opt-out and their historical data is wiped, that isn't IA's bias, it's the site choosing to opt-out.

Per the article, we're discussing IA's efforts to flag "misinformation".

"...the archive began several new projects. One of these was the Trump Archive..." Specifically having a project for just Trump. Do they have one for whoever is the current president?

I mention this because of these choice quotes from the linked story:

"“We’re bringing up a generation that turns to their screens, without a library of information accessible via screens,” said Mr Kahle. Some have taken advantage of this “new information system”, he argued — and the result is “Trump and Brexit”."

...

"After President Trump’s election, and as the existence of disinformation campaigns that sought to sway voters came to light, the archive began several new projects. One of these was the Trump Archive, a collection of the US president’s television appearances that now contains more than 6,000 videos, including from before he took office. Separately, as part of the effort to document the 45th president’s often-contradictory statements, the organisation is cataloguing Mr Trump’s tweets."

The fact that they call it the "Trump Archive" and not the "Presidential Archive" speaks volumes.

One of the defining aspects of both the Brexit campaign and Trumpism is blatant disregard for facts and the delibirate spread of misinformation that is heavy on one side, and an order or two of magnitude less on the other side. That just is the way of it, however sad that is.

It is not the first time that states use misinformation as effective attacks on other states, but that doesn’t mean it should be left unchallenged.

This is coming from a citizen of neither the US nor UK and as such a bit of an outsiders perspective, mostly free from domestic politics.

that is heavy on one side, and an order or two of magnitude less on the other side

I disagree with this assertion. I think both sides are equally guilty of this, but on different topics, which can make apples to apples comparisons difficult.

For example, take a look at the numbers behind gun laws and deaths in the US, and you'll find misinformation propagated by the left. If you look at climate change information, you'll find misinformation propagated by the right.

I agree but I specifically mentioned the topics of Brexit and the admittetly broader ‘Trumpism’. On these topics the asymmetry is phenomenal. Take the recent ‘sharpiegate’ as an example for how little regard, contempt even, Trump has for the truth and facts.

(By the way, I didn't downvote you) I agree that Trump has no great respect for truth and facts. I also think the left is doggedly pursuing him in its own anti-factual aspirations. I see your sharpiegate and raise you the Covington Catholic affair (the most prominent news outlets in the country overtly slandering children, ostensibly on the basis of their race and gender) or the Google memo (same idea) or the sokal squared hoax (moderate academics submit patently absurd papers to leftist academic journals and the journals publish them). I could go on and on and I'm sure you could too--that's my point. I would alledge that Trumpism's mirror image is progressive social justice culture.

A fair point and I certainly agree that the ‘woke’ SJW culture is a terrible idea.

I do see the examples you mentioned as legitimate differences of opinion, somewhat like the abortion debate or other controversial and digficult topics. Everyone succumbs, at least occasionally, to making a bad faith argument in support of their stance on those issues.

In contrast, and that was in part why I chose that example from the other 1000 this month, Trump’s sharpie drawing shows an utter disregard for facts, no consideration for spreading misinformation during an emergency, and complete ignorance of and/or indifference for the law. All to ‘save face’ for such a tiny idiotic non-issue.

There is real asymmetry here.

While I agree that Trump has no qualms in lying to cover his mistakes, the left and the media have no qualms in misinterpreting what Trump says and does.

Some try their best to be fair, I'd like to name the Economist as one. It is unfortunate however that the nature of media monetization encourages inaccurate exaggerations if they make Trump seem even more of a buffoon than he really and truly is.

However, we really should put much more pressure on elected officials to be truthful and show of integrity, than we should put on the media or people in general.

> However, we really should put much more pressure on elected officials to be truthful and show of integrity,

On this I entirely agree.

> than we should put on the media or people in general.

Here I agree less.

In Italy Journalist is a professional certification, with a selective state exam (I know it is unthinkable in the cultural context of the US) and the possibility of losing it if you violate certain professional values.

In this sense, let's look at Boris Johnson. I consider (ethically speaking) his lies as columnist worse than his lies as a politician. Because as a published journalist you hide behind decades of reputation of your news agency.

We have a generation of young people that essentially live in a clown world [1] where nothing make sense anymore. While I respect the professional behavior Obama had, populism is needed as a balancing force (that needs not to go out of bounds).

[1]: https://img.ifunny.co/images/4be9baf89f4a5d7df72a992f8f942a7...

It's more, from what I've seen, that one of the definining aspects of the war on misinformation is that it's a tactic against both Trump and Brexit - and that caring about the other side's disregard for facts is therefore spun as helping the spread of misinformation. For instance, the Washington Post quite rightly dinged Bernie Sanders recently for misrepresenting stats to make it look like his flagship policy on healthcare would save hundreds of thousands of Americans from bankrupcy. Sanders doubled down on his original claim and attacked the fact check. Parts of the press sided with him, claiming that the fact checkers were the one attacking facts by making such a big deal about this: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/11/democrats-fact-che... One even accused them of harming democracy itself: https://www.wgbh.org/news/commentary/2019/09/18/fact-checkin...

Seems like it's Forbes that's doing that, not IA.

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