For example, there's been multiple incidents of that here on HN where people post something that's incorrect by all definitions. It statistically does not align with reality. The best way to counter the deluge of low effort, low accuracy claims is with a medium-effort, medium-accuracy source. Usually in these cases the poster simply vanishes because they did not intend to actually follow up a factual counterclaim.
except we now live in a world with phrases like alternative facts. if someone doesn't want to believe in something because it does not align with their ideals, then you will not be able to convince them regardless of how incontrovertible your facts may be. sure, the more "solid" the fact, the more bizarre the counter is, but there will always be a counter.
And it's not even the 'how many died in WW2' kind of data, but simple public records like 'tax revenue for 2020', 'road accidents in october'.
It's as if being able to find information so easily, has made it less trustworthy. Being flooded with fake and twisted news certainly feels like one of the causes.
there are certain people that whole heartily believe that what the person on their TV is telling them is without a doubt true. anyone trying to convince them otherwise is just part of the opposing forces. even when shown where, for example the fox news hosts, have admitted in sworn testimony the did not believe the big lie and knew it to be false, it is rebutted as fake.
Fake News and Alternative Facts have to be the worst combinations I've ever known. they may even be some of the most dangerous as well.
it's classic cult control. when i was a kid being forced to weekly attendance at my mom's church, it was often heard that you can't go listening to other preachers, reading other books of thought, or similar as that's the enemy's weapon to confuse you and tempt you away. as i got older and actually started paying attention, these things really started sounding like nails on a chalkboard. it wasn't just the one church either.
so by only listening to the one source and ignoring all others, they are actually doing good by what they have been told. those of us reading multiple sources are just twisting in the wind so to speak with no real convictions (or some such as i've been told).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflective_equilibrium
One could alter the perception of the "facts" in order to feel comfortable about them.
It's more to show others that they're incorrect for XYZ reasons and to prevent that detritus from accumulating. Over time if you just let them post without counters or some form of moderation eventually it becomes the norm.
The best way to counter any claim is with openness, empathy and the ability to be wrong. That is how you change minds, don't let emotions separate you. Granted that is far easier said then done as I may disagree with someone then they often turn to insults if they think "I've turned against them" because I may have a different opinion. Some people have such high defense you really can't get through to them.
That's not an effective counter at least as far as my observation goes.
These jerks win not by backing up their asinine claims with sources. They win by diverting everyone else's energy away from debating their asinine claims to making the debate one of sources. Heck, a good chunk of the time they do it you don't even need to find other sources because they're just using junk journalism where the title says A but the article says B. If being "proven wrong" was actually detrimental to their causes they would modify their behavior.
I'm sure one of our resident link-spewers will be along shortly to disagree with me and then edit his comment five times adding subsequent links to garbage that nominally back up his assertion...
> In the absence of a single, universally-agreed definition of "terrorism," it is a matter of subjective determination as to whether the actions for which Rosenberg was convicted and imprisoned — possession of weapons and hundreds of pounds of explosives — should be described as acts of "domestic terrorism."
Seems pretty political to me. Everyone here agrees that showing up with hundreds of pounds of explosives is terrorism.
Why a terrorist, looks like a run of the mill armed robber, further down the article a few references to armed robberies
I fact checked you using the article you provided. I’m confused.
No conviction, charges dropped, didn’t admit it
I on the other hand, have another opinion. It is often important to have people who have contextual knowledge stand up and say "that input claiming to be fact is in fact (hah) rubbish" and the politicisation here, is because a very specific arc of engagement is CONSCIOUSLY intruding "fake news" as a tactical approach to dealing with it's concerns.
That it overwhelmingly becomes labelled as a left-right or big-oil/green split, or Russia/Everyone-else or Trump/Biden.. is also something to reflect on.
Exxon (as an example) had material facts to hand, in the 1970s regarding the future impact of CO2 and they made a decision (however informally or not) to surpress those facts, and participate in greenwashing messages, despite the consequences. Now, we could dive into a debate of the form "thats a lie! thats fake news" or not. I don't much care.
In context, I think it informs the quality of the question "is fact checking important" and "is it political" and "is it just about rubbishing dissent"
I think it is important.
I think it is very political.
I do not think it is just about rubbishing dissent.
On the left hand side of the page is a list of "testimony" of events. Who said what happened and when, along with any supporting evidence such as photos or video. (Without a journalist interpreting or crafting a story)
On the right hand side of the page is commentary from interesting folks from both the left and right. (Pulling together the testimony, looking for insight, greater meaning, or identifying trends. )
Scientist? Journalist? Professor? Librarian? Doctor? It was only a matter of time before "fact-checker" got the same treatment as these other people. None of these people or careers are beyond reproach, but there is a difference between good-faith attempts at finding the truth and bad-faith accusations of bias.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-smash-phon...
Read it.
The point of the claim is that Hillary Clinton had her phones destroyed. This is true, but the Fact Checkers cannot allow this to be true, so what is an honest Democrat-leaning Fact Checker to do?
Easy, you muddy the claim and add to it: the Right-wing Trolls aren't claiming Hillary had her phones destroyed. No, I've decided that they're claiming that she personally destroyed them with a hammer! AHA! Got you Right-wring Trolls! That's definitely not entirely true.
Verdict: MIXTURE. Clinton did not personally, with her own hands, use a hammer to destroy phones.
So you see, this is what Fact Checking is. When the truth needs to be denied, you muddy the waters, you add irrelevant details to the claim that no one really cares about, and then use those details to claim that the original statement is not true.
And look, the issue isn't that this is being done, it's that it's being presented as fact checking, which is why I distinguish between fact checking and Fact Checking.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blm-terrorist-rosenberg/
> In the absence of a single, universally-agreed definition of "terrorism," it is a matter of subjective determination as to whether the actions for which Rosenberg was convicted and imprisoned — possession of weapons and hundreds of pounds of explosives — should be described as acts of "domestic terrorism."
It should go without saying that there’s no single, universally agreed upon definition of anything, thus giving a convenient way to dismiss any inconvenient claims.
I don’t think I’ll find the answer in an article about Hillary’s cell phone.
that’s the tweet. I don’t think there’s a significant difference between “hillary smashed her phones with a hammer” and “hillary had someone smash her phone with a hammer”, especially when a 128 character limit is a factor.
I could say “I fixed my iPhone’s screen last weekend” when I really just got it replaced at an Apple store. The fact that I personally didn’t replace the screen doesn’t matter.
If the debate was “is hillary clinton strong enough to smash things with hammers” and this was used as evidence, it’d be misleading. The debate was “is hillary clinton suspicious”, and having her phones smashed with hammers is suspicious regardless of whether she did it herself or had someone else do it for her.
That’s not the same as describing them as a monolithic group who all act that way.
Scientists: https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2023/01/23/woke-lancet...
Professors: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/just-how-liberal-are-c...
Librarians: https://nypost.com/2022/09/10/librarians-go-radical-as-new-w...
Doctors: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/boston-childrens-hospit...
> are you insinuating that "the American right" don't like scientists, journalists, professors, librarians, and doctors?
I actually don't think this. I know conservatives, they will generally believe scientists who are studying black holes but when climate change gets brought up they accuse them of bias. Similarly they will seek out doctors for their condition but when a doctor treats a trans patient they will accuse them of bias. It's not a dislike, and not of individuals, it's more of a distrust of institutions.
As to who I'd personally vote for next election, I'm currently undecided as these things are highly nuanced. I have issues with both major parties in the US and time will still tell in which direction each develops before the next election. I don't take kindly to you trying to literally paint every single politician on the Republican side with a massive brush of "Nazi supporter". It's exactly for reasons like this that I feel it's important to continue to support them in some fashion to prevent the absolute nonsense that you're perpetuating here.
A couple of decades ago we had people wearing literal swastika arm bands goose stepping through jewish neighborhoods. We survived that perfectly fine. A lot of people seem to want to massively inflate how bad things actually are right now compared to history. Driving division in this country is one of the primary aims of foreign Russian and Chinese propaganda and one of those ways is through rabid partisanship.
[1] - https://news.gallup.com/poll/394283/confidence-institutions-...
Most of which you won't have seen, of course.
One of the fact checkers given a prominent position on the front page of Google News is polygraph.info. Polygraph.info is run by Voice of America, official propaganda organ of the US, which was until a few years forbidden by law from targeting US citizens.
Now I ask you: do you think it was for reasons of popular pressure, or maybe market forces, that Voice of America became a featured fact-checker for Google News?
Also, do you think I could get them to fact check claims like, "The CIA considered concrete plans to assassinate Julian Assange"? You think that would ever happen, that they honestly promoted a little known fact which was deeply embarrassing to the US government?
I find no good faith there.
Maybe they have the luxury of less actual lying, because as a hegemonic propagandists, they can just stonewall when someone asks them an awkward question. Pretend they didn't hear it, because no one will report it.
Underdog propagandists like RT don't have that luxury, so it's more efficient to conjure up a shitstorm of mutually incompatible lies for them. But their role is the same.
It's deeply politicized by nature. Fact checking is just spinning a narrative.
You cant nor should not want some publication to process information into conclusions.