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by insane_dreamer 528 days ago
Fact-checking and censorship are two very different things.
4 comments

Indeed. This was more censorship than fact-checking.
Deleting isn't fact-checking. Whereas "community noting" actually can make a case for being fact-checking.
Fact checkers weren't deleting posts and didn't even have the right to do so. They are separate journalistic orgs tagging posts. Deleting is done by Meta moderators, which is something else entirely.

I think you also just proved my point that if HN users can't even get basic facts about an event right, how do you expect the average FB user to do so? Goes to show that even on HN "community noting" would be a disaster.

The problem with "fact-checking" is that if it's done by humans at all then it will be heavily biased.

With Silicon-Valley people being in charge of "fact-checking" for the past decade there's been countless examples of them doing mass cancellations calling things lies that we all know ended up being true.

> countless examples of them doing mass cancellations calling things lies that we all know ended up being true

really? like what, exactly? please give concrete examples or this is just hot air

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/may/27/facebook-...

"Facebook lifts ban on posts claiming Covid-19 was man-made (2021)"

It is not known to be true of course, but it always obviously a possibility.

I mean, we can’t be correct retroactively can we?? I dont think all the doctors that came before antibiotics should be blamed for not knowing Germ theory.

IS this a reasonable expectation of fact checking?

I’m very curious now, I actually would love takes on this. I feel we are implying that the standards of fact checking validity weren’t met, but the standards haven’t been stated.

The reason censorship is generally undesirable is because it assumes the person doing the censoring is always correct, and that they're infallible perfect arbiters of truth incapable of letting their political motivations dictate their censorship decisions...which is of course false. They're very often wrong, and always make decisions based on their political leanings, even when it contradicts the evidence.
Sure. But we aren’t sure of a lot of things.

People regularly say “let me know the full facts, even if they aren’t confirmed.”

This is a common claim from people when it comes to medicine or nutrition, for example.

I think you can acknowledge that people have contradictory impulses - because you’ve experienced it.

All reporting on developing situations will be inaccurate, and yet people want it.

So how would you reconcile this? This need for the best effort information and the need for perfect information?

If you're wanting to claim that `Cancel Culture` never happened, then I'm afraid, at this point in history, the burden of proof is on you, not me. lol.
I made no claim.

But the OP did make a claim that "calling things lies that we all know ended up being true"

I challenged that with a request for actual examples. Feel free to link to them.

No one needs proof Cancel Culture was real. Everyone knows at this point. So you can pretend you need proof if you want, but you're not fooling anyone.
Handwaving is not providing examples. Please try again.
Suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop scandal by heavy censorship of any post about it on Facebook. For instance.

There's a high probability that heavily influenced the presidential 2020 election outcome.

https://judiciary.house.gov/media/in-the-news/facebook-execs...

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/republican-led-us-house-pan...

There was a long period where people were getting banned from Twitter and Meta platforms for posting (true) claims about the Hunter Biden laptop story (which was, of course, extremely politically consequential)

Is that your example? It's not a very good one.

If you read the article you linked to, you find that 1) Twitter blocked tweets about the WP story, not banned users, and 2) they reversed that decision and unblocked the tweets 24 hours later as they realized their mistake.

It took the corporate media (CNN, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, PBS, etc) a full 3.5 years to admit the laptop was real. It wasn't just some little thing like you're trying to portray it as. It made the difference in the 2020 election.
People do not care about that laptop. They even voted for Felon to be president. Why is it such strong topic for you?
I don’t think anyone thought the laptop wasn’t real though.

It was definitely real, it was mostly seen as a politicized fight.

The Hunter Biden laptop story had no meaningful political consequences.
Yeah other than the minor thing of swinging an election. lol.
peaceful protests?
That sounds like a line from the CCP.