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Comment by gitaarik | Hacker News Reader

Well I think what you are calling fact checking is actually journalism.

The concept of fact checking is a very recent movement, with the idea that we could filter out the "fake news" on the internet, which is also a recent concept.

But it turned out that the so called "fake news" wans't always so fake, and that the fact checkers weren't always so factual.

So it turns out that you can't trust any group to determine what the facts are for the rest of the people.

You can fact-check for yourself, but don't put your "facts" on other people like they're real facts. Leave other people in their respect, and let them think for themselves. You can of course share your knowledge, but you should let the other person ultimately decide what they believe for themselves.

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It sounds like you are disagreeing with the concept of facts, but facts do exist. If someone claims that a politician said a particular thing in a speech yesterday, and the politician gave no speech yesterday, then the claim is factually false. It's not a matter of respect or disrespect to say so, and it doesn't matter what you choose to believe on that topic.

> The concept of fact checking is a very recent movement, with the idea that we could filter out the "fake news" on the internet, which is also a recent concept.

Again, this is not accurate. Look at the job sub-editors have been doing for a century or more. Their main role is to save the newspaper from getting sued or looking silly by striking out or questioning any claim that can't be proven to be true, or corroborated by multiple sources. Fact checking is not a new discipline.

Well it has a lot to do also with the way you say things, how you interpret the words. Maybe the politician did give some kind of speech, but maybe it wasn't an official speech. There's always more to the story, and multiple ways of interpreting things.

Of course some facts are less flexible than others. Like most people wouldn't argue whether a football is round. Although it matters if you're talking about an American football or a soccer football. So context also matters, and that can be confusing sometimes.

So the facts that the fact checkers were called in to tackle, were so flexible that it turns out it's not doable in a secure way.

And newspapers also don't always have the correct facts. Often things in the newspapers are wrong. And no they are not always being sued for that.

Again, you can fact-check for yourself, that is totally fine, and I would even encourage it. Then you make up your own mind and you are more independent and less shapable by others.

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