Hacker News Reader

Comment by kazinator | Hacker News Reader

Didn't Zuck recently announce that he's getting rid of fact checkers, on the pretext that the parties hired to do fact checking are biased and introduce censorship and unfair false positives that get accounts shut down?

Was it just a cost reduction: fact checking takes effort and those checkers have to be paid? With the result being situations like this?

View on HN

Yes, which makes this claim more extraordinary. (And to be fair, I don't think there's extraordinary evidence presented here.)

It doesn't; it makes the ban more likely if anything. See how on certain topics the censorship immediately increased as Musk took over Twitter.

Their phrasing was "mainstream discourse" wouldn't be censored.

I guess Linux needs to go mainstream first.

I'm pretty sure we're entering the year of the Linux desktop :)

I've been using Linux as my full time desktop since 2022 now, having used it at a prior employer as my main OS for dev work for about 6. Windows has hit my limit, I only use it if an employer provides it.

> Was it just a cost reduction

No, it was clearly an attempt to court Trump, unfortunately 'not enough ass kissing, yet' according to the trump team.

Both. Clearly both.

There is no such thing as unbiased information. So FWIW, I think fact checking is really just a fight for censorship. Official lies and half truths instead of lies from everywhere intermixed with truths.

There are so many ways to do it wrong even if you tag info as true or fake and in principle you do it with good intention. For example it was the case that certain information was tagged as fake and when claimed for a correction the administrators "could not do anything" (Spain cases researched by Joan Planas by doing requests himself personally for the biggest official agency in Spain, called Newtral, which is intimately tied to the Socialist Party in Spain... really, the name makes me laugh, let us call war peace etc. like in 1984). But they were way faster in doing it in the other direction or often found excuses to clearly favor certain interests.

Now put this in the context of an election... uh... complicated topic, but we all minimally awake people know what this is about...

whats the bias on "1+1=2"?

the decision to include the information or not include it in the discussion in the first place, regardless of whether it's objective information

Bias towards base 10 numbering? How did you know 1+1 wasnt wanted to be calculated in binary?

1+1=2 has a correct interpretation in any base 3 and higher.

How we know that it wasn't to be calculated in binary is that the digit 2 occurs.

We have to have a reason to suspect that it was intended to be binary, otherwise we are inventing an inconsistency that isn't there in order to find a false or not-well-formed interpretation.

I was going to say something but the other two replies illustrate well enough things, especially the one of what information to hide or show. Others: where a headline goes, how fast information is corrected, what is the protocol to correct and if that protocol has a neutral appearance that favors someone more than others.

In fact I believe neutrality does not exist as such. No problem with it, objective information and multiple sources with their biases are ok to get an idea as long as facts are shown. But an official truth? Come on, what is that? It is dangerously similar to a dictatorship to have the monopoly of truth.

Your point doesn't hold together because it seems to be conflating fact checking with bias elimination.

They are obviously different and mostly separate.

A presentation of facts can be biased.

E.g. a news agency can have a characteristic political slant, yet not make up facts to suit that narrative.

When a bias is severe, such that it leads to behaviors like concealing important facts in order to manipulate the correct understanding of a situation, then fact checking can find a problem with it.

We have repeteadly found fake news in the fact checking as well as official truths in the case of Spain and I am pretty sure the pattern is replicated in other places. The funds that bought the newspapers, etc. in Spain are all the same around Europe.

They might not be the same, but they are interrelated sonce this is a fight to monopolize the truth and bias and lies are what you end up seeing. Many times they say sorry and get away with it,, but they are not saying sorry: they are working for some interests.

What happened to Biden's son in Ukraine. They totally disappeared before an election, for example. Why? Why it did not get through and went viral? I do not give a hell from these agencies. They are everything but seeking the truth. Yes, for some irrelevant info they might be ok but we all know who they work for.

Remember part of the leakages that Musk showed when he bought Twitter also with the mail exchanges of what to censor. Only a retarded would believe those agencies at this point.

Not to say fake news do not exist though.

Kowtowing to the king

Reply on news.ycombinator.com