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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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.