It doesn't make it authoritative or a trust symbol. They're just saying the type of article, such as an editorial or fact check. I don't automatically trust fact checks as being the truth.
The need for sites like snopes and all the other fact checking sites shows that most people do in fact believe everything they read on the Internet, especially if it aligns with their existing biases.
That's one of the reasons why the Coen brothers included the "this is a true story" thing - they wondered how many people would believe it the film was true if they put a simple bit of text at the beginning.
I'd bet that most people who 'fact-check' something (political) on the internet are seeking to disprove it, because they disagreed. Most people seem to react to things they agree with by saying "see? That's just what I thought!"
Funny that google found it. I both manually scrolled through NBC's twitter feed (what a nightmare) and used twitter's advanced search looking for "FACT CHECK" and couldn't find it either way.
Here's the text behind the link (which I recommend!):
The Claim: Trump says Clinton 'acid washed' her email server.
The Truth: Clinton's team used an app called BleachBit;
she did not use a corrosive chemical.
Maybe I'm missing your point, but that seems legitimate to me. It seems inane to us, but there are plenty of people out there who probably believe actual chemicals were used, so clarifying that wasn't the case makes sense.
And Donald Trump himself clearly did believe that. This comment[0] from yesterday has his full quotes explaining it all, so I won't bother repeating it here.
'Fact Check' articles are often just as biased by what studies they cite, whose projections they choose to use, and what information they supress, as any other article.
I would venture to say that the majority of 'Fact Check' articles are more biased than average articles, as they were specifically written to push or to punish a point of view.
I wonder which sources Google will bless with this new trust symbol? Just kidding! We all know.
It can help to fight Russian lies (called «propaganda» or «informational war»[1] in Russia), but, IMHO, they will just create their own «true fact checking network» instead, with their own facts about «double standards of Western governments».
I was puzzled by their tactic for long time until I found answer in Russian book for FSB newcomers: they use massive campaigns of FUD to break trust in victim country (their troll tasks are labeled like «inspire more suspects about government [in target country]», etc.) and to quickly hire agents in enemy organizations. Even USA cannot protect their own citizens from Russian «propaganda» (see case of John Demianuk[2]).
Are you seriously this naive, or are you astroturfing?
The corporate media in the west is a lustily willing tool of neocon and neoliberal propaganda itself, no Russians needed. If you have ignored that fact for the last four decades, I wonder how you continue to ignore it in the face of the contents of the daily WikiLeaks dumps?
I am already in Russian kill list, since 2008, so I'm not naїve anymore.
IMHO, you are mismatching regular propaganda with Russian propaganda (AKA Informational War). Please, read linked book above, it contains in depth explanation of the topic by European Union.
John Demjanjuk? What the hell does a Nazi guard have to do with Russia?
As for your other link. I did look at it. Here's a paragraph talking about Russian Television News.
The underlying message is simple: the United States is engaged in a selfish, ruthless bid for world
domination. By implication, anything Russia or any other country can do to resist this is commendable
and justified. It portrays the foundations of modern Euro-Atlantic security—including NATO enlargement
to former communist countries and Western support for Ukraine—as hypocritical and unjust.
I gotta say dude, I agree with Russia here. Putting Nukes on their border when we freaked out (rightly so) when they put nukes on ours in the 60's, is fucking hypocritical and unjust.
Putin made two points about this in June, 2016[0]. First, it's not possible to verify what's in the warheads of anti-ballistic missiles. Second, defense and offense are part of a single set of capabilities. If you remove the opponent's ability to retaliate against a first strike, that is just as dangerous to them as if you had increased your offensive capability. I'm well out of my depth in terms of judging if these statements are true, but this is what he said.
The issue isn't the tactical implications of putting ABM launchers in Poland. The issue is the false claim (propaganda?) that the US put nuclear weapons in Poland.
I'm actually talking about Romania, which isn't technically on the border, if we now insist that Ukraine is not Russia affiliated, but still damn close, missile fly time wise.
And yes, they are Nukes. They were moved there after the Turkish 'coup'.
FBI confirmed, after death of Demianiuk that the single evidence against USA citizen was probably faked by KGB[1]. Despite that, USA deported Demianiuk twice: to Israel, where Supreme Court If Israel declared him innocent, then to Germany, where he died before end of court.
They tried to kill me in december of 2008, but I was lucky. Then few more attempts were made. One was almost successful - my friend with same name was killed by mistake instead of me. I hired retired policemen to investigate and he jailed few of them, then Russians killed him too. Assassination of political opponents is common practice in Russia since 1917.
That's a bit of a false equivalence. There is an actual group of people paid by government in Russia, sitting at a table saying "what should be broadcast on the 8pm news that would undermine the dutch elections".
There is – conspiracy theories notwithstanding – no such group in the west. Sure, there's propaganda, but they can't write the article themselves. They have to work journalists using the same methods as corporate PR instead of faxing over the article they'd like to see.
Are most journalists supporters of the status quo? Yes, of course – because they're a product of that status quo, i. e. society. If you grow up in a western country nowadays, and you get some perspective and your mother didn't drink too much while pregnant, you can't escape the conclusion that despite all flaws, the current system is pretty much the best we've had.
journalists don't ask "the big questions" in every article because we've achieved a level of stability and safety where "asking the big questions" is a losing proposition: Just like I would not agree to have 10% of my genome scrambled, I don't take anyone serious who wants major changes in "the system": the system is sufficiently optimized to make entropy more of a risk than a chance, and even if we may be caught in a local maximum, I'd rather try a bit of hill climbing than subjecting my life to a risky exploration of state space.
I like your last paragraph. It sounds smart. A really smart lobster in a slowly heating pot might end up saying the same thing, but in his case, he would be wrong.
Oh, I'm feeling the heat. I'm just saying we shouldn't make Donald Trump head lobster, even though he has a wonderful red face – and he's is the exact product of nebulous conspiracy theories about the media and the elite and how they are all controlled by some secret cabal.
That just distracts from the actual causes of problems, and actual ways to solve them. It mistakes failures on outcome for flaws in the system. An example: I am fundamentally opposed to the PATRIOT act and warrantless wiretapping. But I don't think it was passed because the Military-Industrial complex controls congress. I believe it was passed in a completely legitimate way by democratically elected politicians voting for something they actually believed in. I also believe that at the time the PATRIOT act would have received overwhelming support from the public. I just think those congressmen are idiots, and the american public is largely idiotic enough to deserve them.
So it doesn't help screaming obscenities at NYT and WSJ reporters. You have to make your actual case to actual people to change anything.
Imagine that this existed right before the Iraq war. If a news article said that Saddam Hussein had WMD's, how would Google's 'fact-check' algorithm work?
1. on the one hand, official reports suggested that Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction
2. on the other hand, those reports were fabricated or based on false evidence
Any 'fact checking' is limited by the information currently available to everyone. Further, not all evidence is presented equally well.
The most interesting part of those reports is that they were not based on fabricated or false evidence. Most intelligence agencies in the world said it was very likely that Iraq had some WMDs. This brings up many questions about what methods they used for estimating the likelihood, and what should have been the minimum level of certainty to trigger a military response.
For answers to the first question, I suggest you read Tetlock's masterwork on prediction, "Superforecasting". I am still unsure what the answer is to the second question.
Intelligence services didn't have bad intent, they had bad intel.
Specifically, they used an informant (Curveball[0]) who was later discredited.
However, this still supports my argument that Google's "fact-checking" algorithm will not tell us what's true or not, it will tell us what the prevailing belief is. But that's not what people want -- they want the truth.
Intelligence agencies usually rely on many unreliable sources, a few reliable ones, and interpretation of publicly available data; the interesting part is how they evaluate and interpret information from these different sources, which is one of the things Tetlock addresses.
I am not sure that people actually want to know what is the truth; maybe one or two percent of the voters want to know the truth, but I very much doubt the number is much higher than that. People probably want to be told that what they believe is the truth when they go to these websites. There is a great deal of work on the subject of political ignorance (and self-deception), but I recommend the recent (and very readable) book "Against Democracy" by Jason Brennan for its summary of current evidence, and a proposed solution.
The first is that some of the intel those agencies were acting on wasn't baseless. (See Operafion Avarice.)
The other is that Hussein's deliberate strategy was to make the world believe he was in possession of WMDs. (Specifically Iran.)
True or not, it worked. So whether it was suicide by cop using a real weapon or a realistic looking fake, it was ultimately still suicide by cop on a global scale. And the more we learn as things become declassified, the more it's looking like his position wasn't entirely a bluff.
(Leaving aside the extraordinary incompetence displayed by SECDEF Rumsfeld, the WH, and numerous other senior officials.)
"extraordinary incompetence" This goes back to the great-great-etc grandparent. Was it actually bad intent? There were plenty of instances that certianly were, but overall?
So there are three possible outcomes of a fact-check: "true", "false", and "don't know". Surely all three outcomes have merit. E.g. "don't know" could lead to a request for further proof.
The sanctions werent looking like ending anytime, and ramping up production would be visible as restocking an army is going to involve a lot of activity.
Is there any Google News guy here? May I ask why WikiLeaks in not trending in Google News? They have been publishing Podesta emails for weeks, but neither WikiLeaks / Podesta / DNC / HRC is in "Top stories".
64 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 144 ms ] threadExpect copious amounts of this: http://i.imgur.com/1Y0sN6b.png
They're not saying "Other Opinions", they're saying "Fact Check".
The need for sites like snopes and all the other fact checking sites shows that most people do in fact believe everything they read on the Internet, especially if it aligns with their existing biases.
That's one of the reasons why the Coen brothers included the "this is a true story" thing - they wondered how many people would believe it the film was true if they put a simple bit of text at the beginning.
Just use ClaimReview and my-agenda-is-the-truth.com can be put in front of the eyes of millions of people who only read the title.
Mirror: http://archive.is/JBUzM
And Donald Trump himself clearly did believe that. This comment[0] from yesterday has his full quotes explaining it all, so I won't bother repeating it here.
[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12711892
But then you notice a trend of similar things happening over and over and over and over and over...
Trump: "Hillary washed her money."
Media: "Wrong! Hillary laundered her money."
I would venture to say that the majority of 'Fact Check' articles are more biased than average articles, as they were specifically written to push or to punish a point of view.
I wonder which sources Google will bless with this new trust symbol? Just kidding! We all know.
http://web.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-hillary...
Enough of this nonsense. Try reading the actual blog post:
> Publishers who create fact-checks and would like to see it appear with the “Fact check” tag should use that markup in fact-check articles.
Perhaps you should go and check your own "facts" first.
You know they won't, but fake outrage is proven effective, isn't it?
I was puzzled by their tactic for long time until I found answer in Russian book for FSB newcomers: they use massive campaigns of FUD to break trust in victim country (their troll tasks are labeled like «inspire more suspects about government [in target country]», etc.) and to quickly hire agents in enemy organizations. Even USA cannot protect their own citizens from Russian «propaganda» (see case of John Demianuk[2]).
[1]: http://cepa.org/reports/winning-the-Information-War [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Demjanjuk
The corporate media in the west is a lustily willing tool of neocon and neoliberal propaganda itself, no Russians needed. If you have ignored that fact for the last four decades, I wonder how you continue to ignore it in the face of the contents of the daily WikiLeaks dumps?
IMHO, you are mismatching regular propaganda with Russian propaganda (AKA Informational War). Please, read linked book above, it contains in depth explanation of the topic by European Union.
As for your other link. I did look at it. Here's a paragraph talking about Russian Television News.
I gotta say dude, I agree with Russia here. Putting Nukes on their border when we freaked out (rightly so) when they put nukes on ours in the 60's, is fucking hypocritical and unjust.[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqD8lIdIMRo
And yes, they are Nukes. They were moved there after the Turkish 'coup'.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/us-moves...
[1]: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4056137,00.html
There is – conspiracy theories notwithstanding – no such group in the west. Sure, there's propaganda, but they can't write the article themselves. They have to work journalists using the same methods as corporate PR instead of faxing over the article they'd like to see.
Are most journalists supporters of the status quo? Yes, of course – because they're a product of that status quo, i. e. society. If you grow up in a western country nowadays, and you get some perspective and your mother didn't drink too much while pregnant, you can't escape the conclusion that despite all flaws, the current system is pretty much the best we've had.
journalists don't ask "the big questions" in every article because we've achieved a level of stability and safety where "asking the big questions" is a losing proposition: Just like I would not agree to have 10% of my genome scrambled, I don't take anyone serious who wants major changes in "the system": the system is sufficiently optimized to make entropy more of a risk than a chance, and even if we may be caught in a local maximum, I'd rather try a bit of hill climbing than subjecting my life to a risky exploration of state space.
Personally, I think we're being slowly boiled.
That just distracts from the actual causes of problems, and actual ways to solve them. It mistakes failures on outcome for flaws in the system. An example: I am fundamentally opposed to the PATRIOT act and warrantless wiretapping. But I don't think it was passed because the Military-Industrial complex controls congress. I believe it was passed in a completely legitimate way by democratically elected politicians voting for something they actually believed in. I also believe that at the time the PATRIOT act would have received overwhelming support from the public. I just think those congressmen are idiots, and the american public is largely idiotic enough to deserve them.
So it doesn't help screaming obscenities at NYT and WSJ reporters. You have to make your actual case to actual people to change anything.
1. on the one hand, official reports suggested that Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction
2. on the other hand, those reports were fabricated or based on false evidence
Any 'fact checking' is limited by the information currently available to everyone. Further, not all evidence is presented equally well.
For answers to the first question, I suggest you read Tetlock's masterwork on prediction, "Superforecasting". I am still unsure what the answer is to the second question.
Specifically, they used an informant (Curveball[0]) who was later discredited.
However, this still supports my argument that Google's "fact-checking" algorithm will not tell us what's true or not, it will tell us what the prevailing belief is. But that's not what people want -- they want the truth.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curveball_(informant)
I am not sure that people actually want to know what is the truth; maybe one or two percent of the voters want to know the truth, but I very much doubt the number is much higher than that. People probably want to be told that what they believe is the truth when they go to these websites. There is a great deal of work on the subject of political ignorance (and self-deception), but I recommend the recent (and very readable) book "Against Democracy" by Jason Brennan for its summary of current evidence, and a proposed solution.
The first is that some of the intel those agencies were acting on wasn't baseless. (See Operafion Avarice.)
The other is that Hussein's deliberate strategy was to make the world believe he was in possession of WMDs. (Specifically Iran.)
True or not, it worked. So whether it was suicide by cop using a real weapon or a realistic looking fake, it was ultimately still suicide by cop on a global scale. And the more we learn as things become declassified, the more it's looking like his position wasn't entirely a bluff.
(Leaving aside the extraordinary incompetence displayed by SECDEF Rumsfeld, the WH, and numerous other senior officials.)
I suppose until 2015 it would have worked the same way fact-checking anything else classified usually does: badly.
In the 2000's, we were told that Saddam still had WMD's and was still using them. Today the evidence suggests these claims were false.
This makes me wonder, would it be possible for a group of fact-checkers to successfully sue politicians based on their statements?
Political maneuvering and pivots are one thing, but dredging up UFO type conspiracy theories is really dangerous.