[darawk]

I love the idea of this article, but it doesn't address the reason things are the way they are. Facts get checked for literal accuracy because that's what's easy to actually do in a reasonably unbiased way. We stop there not because that's all we want, but because everything after that is too messy to even come close to systematizing.

If they've got a well thought out framework for systematizing high quality contextualization, i'd love to hear about it, though.

[_Nat_]

As a stop-gap, it may help to aggressively denounce things taken out-of-context as being out-of-context.

In usual communication, we focus on fact-checking things in the context in which they're most valid, with the presumption that any contextual ambiguity'd be understood/resolved. In such scenarios, it can make sense to fact-check something literally, in the context in which it's claimed, then handle the contextual-migrations appropriately in discussing inter-related points.

But Twitter-like platforms destroy this -- short blurbs in a relatively context-free space make it difficult to be honest even for folks who'd want to be, and seems to be a playground for folks who'd want to lie under pretense of factuality.

The appropriate reaction to claims removed from context would seem to be to deny them. Not to say that the claim is false (at least, not in a context in which it'd be true), but to note that the claim isn't relevant to the current-context (at least, not without a basis for connecting it to the current-context).

---

To note it, a problem with allowing folks to declare claims as being out-of-context (if they're not required to support it) is that it gives everyone a free-pass to weasel out of acknowledging anything that they dislike. So, it's unsuitable for adversarial contexts or otherwise unreliable exchanges.

Which is what I think makes debates, politics, etc. on platforms like Twitter basically garbage: it's too easy to lie if context isn't observed, and it's too easy to dodge stuff if it is.

So while Twitter-like platforms might workable for non-adversarial exchanges (like sharing pictures, announcements, etc.), adversarial exchanges on such platforms would seem structurally predisposed toward undesirable behavior.

[zimpenfish]

> But Twitter-like platforms destroy this

At least there is the chance that someone providing context on Twitter/etc. will have that context seen by the recipients of the out-of-context info.

When someone on, say, Fox News, InfoWars, OANN, etc. does this, there is basically zero chance those people will see context provided on MSNBC/CNN/whatever because they just don't watch those channels.

[guerrilla]

> As a stop-gap, it may help to aggressively denounce things taken out-of-context as being out-of-context.

People already try to do this on Twitter and it's always rejected (sometimes with hostility.) I think you're underestimating how bad it is on there. Almost everyone one there is engaging in bad faith, many knowingly, and I'm not really sure how much that specifically even has to do with the platform (other than maybe it encourages tribalism.)

[throwaway22032]

Well, if we talk about the big issue of the past couple of years, we can certainly contextualize in the context of that because we have an end goal for the communication, which is to attempt to convince an individual to take action A over action B.

So you can easily show high quality contextualisation - it's showing that the case against is less preferable, e.g. arguing against yourself.

For example, Government posters can say "if you go outside, you have an x% change of having coronavirus, an y% chance of passing that on to someone, who then has a z% chance of being seriously disabled or dying, and they have an a% chance of not obtaining that disease via some other mechanism".

You take the opposing viewpoint and try to dismantle it. This is the role of the media, to inform, not to latch onto micro-facts like "lockdown saves lives" and push them because they're easy wins.

[pbhjpbhj]

>"Government posters can say "if you go outside, you have an x% change of having coronavirus, [...]" //

Couple of problems with this. People suck at maths. They also such at comparative risk analysis.

Also, you fight pandemics at the country/region level. Like some people will vote for whoever reduces their tax bill regardless of the actual outcome, some people will go out and mix with others in a pandemic if their own personal risk is low (or appears to them to be low).

Then you have the problem of trusting government. For example, here in the UK evidence suggests ministers in the Tory party used mask buying to funnel > £8Billion extra to friends and associates by having them pretend to be PPE suppliers and then sending them money for orders that were either simply not fulfilled or were fulfilled with unusable product (did they send it back, no, because it achieved the goal!). Now, you want us to trust those same people bit to lie on posters that modify human behaviour at a country-level?

Epidemiological responders only hope is to simplify and be cautious, try to prevent the government perverting the message to their own ends too much.

[kkjjkgjjgg]

All the "fact checking" sites I am aware of are heavily biased. It seems very unlikely that they actually try to be unbiased in their checking. It already starts with selecting the facts they check (cherry picking).

[mensetmanusman]

Fact checking has poisoned discourse because it has an underlying assumption that preferences of one sort or another can be proven true, when in fact they cannot because they are by definition preferences.

People would hope to just recognize that they have different preferences about how others should behave, some of those preferences get condensed into laws and some are argued about indefinitely.

[guerrilla]

This is it but then then they cant wield the sledgehammer of "objectivity" and normativity over the other side. Whichever side gives that up first probably loses out, so I predict neither will.

[darawk]

I don't entirely disagree. I suppose I should have said "less biased". Imagine how biased "context checking" sites would be. Facts at least sort of have an appeal to an objective reality outside of politics.

[medstrom]

I would ask you to please identify the ones to which you apply this criticism, for epistemic hygiene.

[commandlinefan]

Not OP, but Snopes used to be very trustworthy but has since become nearly completely useless.

[michaelcampbell]

How so; do you have any concrete examples of the lack of use? Bias, omissions, lying, lack of context, deliberate miseading, etc?

I see some shade thrown at Snopes from time to time, but it's usually of the of "But they're LIBERAL!" variety which is not of much value.

[naasking]

There was some discussion of this above:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30170584

[kkjjkgjjgg]

I mostly encounter the ones in Germany, so I doubt it would be much use to you. For example correctiv.org or even https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/ which is from the public TV network (government funding). I remember trying to verify the claims about "Trump lied x zillion times" at some US fact checking portal (I think from some major newspaper, maybe NYT or Washington Post), and all the supposed "lies" were also bullshit, like taken out of context, misinterpreted in extreme ways and so on in typical "fact checker" fashion.

Really it doesn't matter what sites I list, because they are all shit. The very act of calling themselves "fact checkers" should give it away. Just pick any of them and read their "checks" with a critical mind. Anybody can call themselves a "fact checker", it is a fake claim to authority.

Isn't Snopes also a renowned "fact checker"? I think some scandals regarding their founders came to light recently, but I don't remember the details.

[_ea1k]

> Isn't Snopes also a renowned "fact checker"? I think some scandals regarding their founders came to light recently, but I don't remember the details.

Yes, and despite this, snopes is still one of the better ones. Their articles are well sourced and easy to verify. I'm sure they've made some mistakes, and there've been a few cases where I disagreed with their conclusion or approach, but overall they do a good job.

[pstuart]

Trust but verify comes to mind.

I expect bias in all sources (including myself), but the key thing is to be prepared to be wrong in one's assumptions, as well as being able to update one's understanding of things as new data arrives.

[_ea1k]

I agree, and that's one of the reasons that I respect Snopes. Even the few times that I've disagreed with them, the article was well sourced enough to use the article to reach contrary opinions.

[kkjjkgjjgg]

I guess a system of enemies trying to debunk each other might work better than sources trying to be neutral. Enemies might work harder at finding flaws and errors.

[ZeroGravitas]

And your research let you come to the conclusion that Donald Trump wasn't, even by politician standards, a liar?

Possibly you've commuted in from a parallel dimension, and that's why you are suspicious of these fact checkers claiming "the sky is blue" and other obvious lies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veracity_of_statements_by_Dona...

[kkjjkgjjgg]

It seems unlikely to me that those claims of thousands of lies and the "firehose of lies" have much merit.

Wikipedia does not really have any bearing on it, as it only cites other sources.

Maybe instead of claiming thousands of lies, his enemies should focus on a couple of especially severe lies and scandals and make a good case about it.

However, most of the times when I looked into such stories, they turned out to be bullshit. So what am I supposed to believe? Obviously I can't fact check 30000 claimed lies. If I read Anti-Trump stories, I would expect his enemies to bring up the worst they have. If those turn out to be bullshit, what is left?

How is the Russian collusion accusation coming along, anyway?

[mandmandam]

You're 100% right. An unbiased perspective would call the arms, pharma, media, agricultural and oil industries out far more.

The bias is so widespread many people don't see it, like fish not realizing they're wet.

Whole shelves of books get written about the illegal wars media cheerleads; and about the unconscionable and unimaginable atrocities regularly committed by big agriculture and fossil fuel.

Yet we drown in pure distraction; "debating" whatever clown shit Ben Shapiro or Trump or Biden just said, or tilting at such windmills as trying to cancel Joe Rogan for having conversations with people.

"We live in a time when all elites, whether on the left or the right, believe in rigid rules that say there is no alternative to the present political and economic system." - Adam Curtis

[prometheus76]

There's no such thing as an unbiased perspective. That's what perspective means. It's a report from a certain point of view. If you tried to be an "unbiased perspective" you'd have to include all details of every part of everything, because the mere act of choosing what to include and what not to include is a result of a perspective, and a perspective is the result of telos. Action towards a purpose.

Have you ever been friends with someone who includes too many details in their story and they lose track of what they were saying? That's what happens when someone tries to be "unbiased". They include too much and it starts to lose purpose. You won't read a book written this way. Perspective and narrative structures are what engage our attention and help us understand the purpose of the story.

[mandmandam]

You may benefit from looking up the term "enlightened centrism". Or "pedant".

If you think pro-war corporate media's constant military cheer-leading is as valid a perspective as independent media, I have nothing polite to say to you.

[prometheus76]

I was intentionally drawing attention to phrases that we, as a society, use frequently, but are taken for granted as being valuable, or even attainable. This "detached perspective" of being disembodied and floating somewhere above everything and "including everything" is a myth of modernism and a myth of "scientific objectivity".

I have no problem with trying to be balanced or nuanced, but that's very different than feigned "objectivity" that basically just tries to use handwaving and gaslighting to distract you from considering that every perspective comes from a structure of presuppositions.

If you want to call me a "pedant" for making a distinction between implied, but impossible "objectivity" and balance/nuance, I'm fine with that label, because it's still a point worth making.