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Comment by jevoten | Hacker News Reader

I think the more salient factor is which facts they choose to check. Better to leave some stories un-checked, so they can be dismissed as only reported by right-wing sources.

In one instance, PolitiFact requested NewsBusters to prove a chart on illegal immigration they posted was true, with the implied threat of labeling it false. When NewsBusters complied within the 14 hour window given, proving their claims true, PolitiFact did.. nothing. No post telling NewsBuster's claim was proven true.

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2021/04/21/p...

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You're being downvoted for no reason I can tell, other than the fact that NewsBuster is a source popular with right-wing audiences. There are people on HN who basically will downvote anything they perceive as being supportive of their political enemies, with no regard to the content of the message. Message to those downvoting this:

If your position on free speech changes depending on who is doing the moderating, you don't have a position on free speech.

I had the oddest experience in trying to upvote his comment. I’m on mobile so it may just be be that. But, when I upvoted, there was a small delay but it seemed to register a downvote. So I unvoted and tried again. Same thing. Anyway, assuming HN mods do not have some switch that turns every vote into a downvote on particular comments. I think it’s fine to space out the upvote/downvote buttons. Users shouldn’t be losing minutes of their life trying to convince themselves that their vote was properly registered.

If you frequently vote against the prevailing opinion, then your votes get disabled and/or inverted. I have spoken with Dang about this multiple times to confirm. Some call it an echo chamber, others call it "consensus". There will always be a contrived justification.

what?

> If you frequently vote against the prevailing opinion, then your votes get disabled and/or inverted.

Um, what? I don't believe that for a second - that sounds crazy. Is there evidence for this? I'm willing to be educated. Er, fact-check please. (And the strange phrasing "I have spoken with Dang about this multiple times to confirm" sounds like Dang didn't 'confirm' it.)

Use the email link at the bottom of the page.

So, that's a "no" - there's no evidence. (I looked at your recent comment history, came across this[0] which I consider completely deranged, so I'm not too interested in doing what you say. Chomsky & Herman's seeing no atrocities in Cambodia, and you seeing them everywhere in Australia, seem some kind of dual.)

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28834724

I deliberately post against the consensus on HN, and what you see is the result. I invite you to email Dang as I have, but I will not post the transcript of what began as a private conversation.

It's a war for mindshare and the culture we live in. And the way that's done is with marketing and appearances. Seeing something down voted has a very clear effect, like seeing a product rated with bad reviews.

Sure, but give examples and you often start to find that the topics are so far afield from reality that they don't merit the cost of a fact-check.

Snopes has fact-checked claims that Donald Trump said Earth is flat (false) but not whether Earth is flat, and they won't fact-check that any time soon.

They won't fact-check that if Donald Trump claimed it?

No, they won't fact-check "Earth is flat" because it would be a waste of resources; the evidence Earth is a globe is overwhelming.

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