[quantadev]

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.

[insane_dreamer]

> 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

[emmelaich]

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.

[intended]

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.

[quantadev]

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.

[intended]

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?

[quantadev]

Free Speech has nothing to do with whether information is correct or not. It's only about stopping Tyranny. No one should be allowed to control another person's speech because speech is the most basic form of freedom and if you can remove speech freedom you can remove all other freedoms too.

Removing Freedom of Speech is the first thing Tyrannical gov'ts do to control people. Look at what Trudeau tried to do to Canadians, and look at the UK also. People are now being put in JAIL for being rude online. Luckily conservatives all around the world are fed up and finally fighting back.

[quantadev]

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.

[insane_dreamer]

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.

[quantadev]

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.

[insane_dreamer]

Handwaving is not providing examples. Please try again.

[quantadev]

You can go to the wikipedia page. You don't need to be spoon-fed.

[wtcactus]

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...

[wyager]

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)

[insane_dreamer]

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.

[quantadev]

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.

[timeon]

People do not care about that laptop. They even voted for Felon to be president. Why is it such strong topic for you?

[quantadev]

People finally figured out which party's policies are destroying the country. That's what the election was about.

[nailer]

Yes, people would care that the presidents adult son is pointing a gun at a prostitutes head on video.

Your attempt to minimise this as “people don’t care about a laptop” is either incredibly ignorant of this matter or deliberately misleading framing of the question.

[intended]

I don’t think anyone thought the laptop wasn’t real though.

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

[wyager]

> I don’t think anyone thought the laptop wasn’t real though.

I heard nominally credible commentators claim the laptop story was a "russian disinformation" campaign at least 50 different times.

[quantadev]

Big Tech, Mainstream Media, FBI, the Deep State, and every Democrat politician claimed that laptop was fake for 3.5 years. Sure, lots of them knew it was a lie, but the majority of the actual public was completely hoodwinked, because they hadn't yet realized there was this big left-wing cabal of power conspiring to lie as much as it takes to push the left-wing narratives.

[kiitos]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/12/x-twitter-jd...

[kiitos]

The Hunter Biden laptop story had no meaningful political consequences.

[quantadev]

Yeah other than the minor thing of swinging an election. lol.

[oguz-ismail]

peaceful protests?