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Comment by CaptainZapp | Hacker News Reader

She said Wynn-Williams’ allegations about Kaplan are false, and in a Thursday statement, she called the book “defamatory” and alleged that Wynn-Williams had skipped “the industry’s standard fact-checking process.

(emph, mine)

This, coming from a Meta spokesperson, is rather rich.

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It was fact checked: in Texas

I’m curious what would be considered the industry standard for fact checking in tech. Does Google Search, Apple App Store, TikTok, Snapchat, Amazon store, etc. apply fact-checking to the content posted by users/sellers?

Or more abstractly, is fact-checking the responsibility of authors and content editors, or of platforms and infrastructure that spread the content?

Wikipedia is the gold standard. Good enough is asking Grok.

A Youtuber I follow got in an argument a couple of days ago with someone who kept claiming the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948 was primarily voluntary (not by force or a response to threats to their safety). The Youtuber kept asking him for sources (providing his own to the contrary), and the contrarian kept, I shit you not, asking Grok and then citing Grok as his source.

We are fucked.

I’ve seen people smugly post ChatGPT screenshots without commentary with the intent of ending a conversation in a “I’m right and this proves it” way.

Of course, the wronger the answer is the more likely they are to have that attitude.

> Wikipedia is the gold standard.

LOL thanks for the laugh. The co-founders of Wikipedia have sounded the alarm that you cannot trust Wikipedia anymore. The inmates have taken over.

I mean if you're publishing a book, especially a tell-all one, you'd go and talk to sources familiar with the matter who can independently verify whether the statements are true or not to shield you against defamation lawsuits.

Publishing anything dodgy about the biggest tech executives on the planet without that would lead your company getting nuked from orbit

My goodness, the audacity.

> skipped “the industry’s standard fact-checking process."

And the industry in question has compromised its host culture. What is Truth now?

This billionaire corporate sociopath suggested "Facebook remake the news ecosystem with the company at its center."

How is the corporate propaganda business working out socially and politically? I see the stock valuations — perhaps they are a measure of what has been lost in stability and community.

> "I’ve seen him face so many choices and lose touch with whatever fundamental human decency"

Including the rush to dismantle fact-checking in his corporation's product, which has become THE news source for millions of citizens.

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