[regenschutz]

Because intelligence agencies generally have a vested interest in spreading subtle propaganda, such as by distorting facts.

Now, I have yet to see any cases of the CIA doing this to the World Factbook, since that would tank its credibility, but I also don't browse the Factbook too often.

[dragonwriter]

You are looking at the trees, and missing the forest. The subtle propaganda that the Factbook exists to spread is “the CIA is a neutral and trustworthy gatherer and purveyor of facts”.

[otterley]

I think that’s a secondary or even tertiary goal. The primary goal is to provide a public service to public and private parties who want to become better informed and to show the American people that their tax dollars are at work and reduce the risk of having their funding get cut.

[dragonwriter]

The part before the “and” is the how of the propaganda I described, the part after the “and” is one of the outcomes the propaganda is intended to influence; neither is an alternative to the propaganda function.

[kulahan]

I think the problem is people are acting like propaganda is inherently bad, so this subconsciously comes across as “the CIA is problematic because they have a source of factlettes for people to peruse”.

[bluGill]

They have multiple competing interests. One of their interests is telling the truth to their local military and politicians - getting caught in a lie to their side is the worst that could happen to them.

The world factbook was mostly things that the military or politicians might care about the truth of, and data they need anyway. Mostly what is there were things where there wouldn't be much value in spreading lies - and what value that might have is outweighed by you can fact check everything (with a lot of work) so lies are likely to be caught.

Not saying they are perfect, but this isn't a place where I would expect they would see distorting facts help them.

[Supermancho]

> One of their interests is telling the truth to their local military and politicians - getting caught in a lie to their side is the worst that could happen to them.

It's definitely not the worst that can happen. Happens fairly often - google: CIA lying to congress. Getting audited is the worst that thing that happens to the CIA. ie The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) last actively audited the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the early 1960s, specifically discontinuing such work around 1962.

[bluGill]

The worst that can happen is congress gets interested in a way that cuts their budget. An audit is one potential step on that path.

[Supermancho]

Fair

[constantius]

I wrote about one such case in another discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46901003

[notahacker]

I remember a few amusing examples which weren't strictly inaccurate but were pretty blatant official lines, like how the US uniquely got to stress a "strong democratic tradition" as its political system, whereas everywhere else in the Western world was just "parliamentary democracy" or "constitutional monarchy" and at least the Cold War era versions had a "Communists" line item which purported to identify how few people in democratic societies were members of Communist parties...