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by tshaddox 1788 days ago
> The problem is who decides.

The problem is the poorly-considered but extremely widespread epistemology that goes something like "whether a claim is true depends on how convinced certain people are of that claim."

> Once you create a fact checking entity, it will decide for itself what are object truths.

No, it will just make claims, which may be true or false. There's nothing mysterious or troubling about this. They're not "deciding" what's true.
1 comments
13years 1788 days ago
It is exactly what they are doing. You are playing with semantics. The public as well as private companies use the claims as an argument for validation of truth.

The troubling aspect is it comes with some level of authority backing the claims. There are consequences for not aligning with the positions of the claims.

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tshaddox 1788 days ago
It very well may be an explanation of the truth, and there's nothing wrong with that. If that's what you mean by "validation" then that's great! But if you mean that whether a claim is "valid" depends on any one person or source's position on the claim, then you're back to that bad epistemology I described.
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13years 1788 days ago
> But if you mean that whether a claim is "valid" depends on any one person or source's position on the claim, then you're back to that bad epistemology I described.

No, I'm not asserting that view. However, what you are stating I think is the viewpoint of most people. They will accept the claim as valid.

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tshaddox 1788 days ago
> However, what you are stating I think is the viewpoint of most people.

Do you think that most people think that whether a claim is true depends on Facebook's stance on that claim? That would be extremely shocking to me. My impressions is the opposite: that there is mainstream repulsion to Facebook (and Twitter, etc.) being so bold as to take any stance on factual issues.

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13years 1788 days ago
People do leverage Facebook's claims when they align with their own. You are probably right in that it doesn't directly change anyone's opinion that disagrees.

However, it does reinforce confirmation bias. Those that align with Facebook's viewpoint will be less likely to listen to other user's opposing viewpoints as the feel emboldened that they viewpoint has some official support.

So I think it has an indirect effect in that it weakens user to user influence.

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