[colordrops]

The problem is that often these "fact checking" organisations are posting long subjective arguments for whether something is "true" or not. That is not an objective fact - that is an opinion piece. As long as they are citing verifiable sources for atomic black and white facts then it's OK, but that is often not the case.

[TheAdamAndChe]

There can also be tons of bias in how something is presented. How will google handle a post that has factually correct information presented in a biased way?

[Chaebixi]

Also, aren't a lot of "fact checking" organizations actually explicitly partisan advocacy organizations?

edit: I'm not saying all of them, downvoters. I can't be the first one to think a partisan "fact check" could be an effective political tool.

[Karunamon]

I find that usually the people checking one side's arguments are their partisan opposites. It makes for pretty comprehensive coverage given the adversarial nature, but it also leads to stupid shitflinging when they just cant resist inserting their own opinions into it.

Which the other side checks, and does the same thing.

Basically, politics is an ouroboros.

[lukejduncan]

for snopes and politifact the answer is no.

[wavefunction]

Could you provide a few examples of left-leaning bias for Snopes or other 'verifiers'? I am genuinely interested in considering items from a political viewpoint that is likely different than mine.

[wavefunction]

Never let a poster's earnest and polite request stand in the way of a down vote

[jnordwick]

I'm going to go through the list, but I think that often, I'll use Politifact, skew the results. What a Dem might get a neutral or slightly false will get a Repub a pants on fire or complete lie result. Here is one interesting quote (I only understand the econ stuff so that's where I pulled from:

"Trump’s 100-million figure of "out of work" Americans is highly misleading. This number -- in reality, a bit lower at 94 million"

The overall rating on this was completely false. Really? 7.4% off is "highly misleading". The article speaks to a quote Trump made where he did make a mistake in how the unemployment rate is calculate. He did, but his general point was that those not looking for work aren't represented in the unemployment numbers. And tht is a true claim. Trump put it tht they were considered employed, which is clearly wrong.

The article then veers into territory it should tread lightly on where they build their model of who is really out of work but still wants to work. It isn't very good. They aren't good economists, and more importantly at this point it becomes an opinion piece.

Trump's major sin was confusing the different status of recently unemployment people. I would have given him neutral to somewhat false.

There was on of Bernie being off in his numbers too and he god a mostly right rating. I've seen some real disasters where the statement by a Dem was completely unfactual and that was excused because the opinion-based non-factual analysis behind it was deemed to be true. That is no longer fact checking at all.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/apr/...