TLDR: It reduces the virality of misinformation by ~8% and increases article deletion.

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[–] 103 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

the fact that fact-checking has become a point of contention (since the emergence of trump--coincidence? lol) illustrates just how far society has fallen.

the idea that fact-checking "infringes upon freedom of expression" is laughably absurd on many levels. for one thing: no, it fucking doesn't. you're free to lie through your teeth day in and day out. what is fact-checking doing to stop that? also, this position implies that your freedom of expression to tell lies outweighs my freedom of expression to call those lies lies? excuse me, but fuck that shit.

2 years ago i would have said i can't believe this article needed to be written (supposedly--equally likely generated), but today i'm not even surprised. fucking fact-checking is under attack, because of course it has to be.

also the claim that fact-checking "has no meaningful impact on the circulation of misinformation" is mind-bogglingly stupid. fact-checking is the ONLY thing that has ANY meaningful impact on the circulation of misinformation.

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  • [–] 30 points 9 months ago (13 children)

    I give less shits every day about the "freedom" of allowing harm to others.

    And Zuck's business RUNS on engagement. If fact check leads to less engagement as the article says, they are disincentivized of any reason to go forward with it. The danger of abusing "fact check" is very real. We pass a fact check law, and suddenly the US gives a billion to an Elon Musk startup "Fax Chex XxX" or whatever and it just labels stuff as woke and deletes anyone who says Trump is on the Epstein list.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (12 children)
  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago (9 children)

    Are shits countable? Does it depend on if they're metaphorical or physical? 🤔

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (8 children)
  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago* (7 children)

    Fewer engagement is grammatically incorrect. Fewer shits is colloquially incorrect. If they want to be a pedant, they should at least know what the fuck they are talking about. If I were to try to improve it, I would change "less shits" to "less of a shit" but it's all slang anyway. Anyone suggesting such a correction is a wanker.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (3 children)

    Fewer shits is colloquially incorrect.

    Not in my area. Fewer shits is correct.

    If you want to use less, say "less of a shit".

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 child)

    Used in a sentence:

    Fewer and fewer people cared for Prescriptivism, as they are aware that it's an outdated model of linguistics and that it's seen as a waste of everyone's time.

    Language is living and breathing, not frozen in amber

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  • [–] 22 points 9 months ago

    Wohoo, 8%.

    Pretty sure they could get it to 80% by just blocking a bunch of obviously fake news websites and taking down the accounts of those intentionally spreading them.

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  • [–] 17 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    Yes, but the fact that it doesn't immediately solve all problems everywhere means that it's useless and we should instead just sling vitriol at each other and advocate for civil war and mass executions.

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  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    People are downvoting the weirdest things today. I wouldn't have thought your comment needed a sarcasm tag, but here we are.

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  • [–] 14 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    Is this about Twitter? Fuck Twitter. Is this about Facebook? Fuck Facebook.

    Shall I continue?

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago

    It's mostly about Facebook, probably because Twitter already ditched anything other than raw, unfettered Musk-directed propaganda right after he bought it, and also because Facebook ended their fact checking immediately after Trump won, as a visible bending of the knee and kissing of the ring.

    As far as I know, there are no fact checking capabilities in any Lemmy setup, which could be useful, so the study is not pointless even in a federated context

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    There’s a big difference between actual fact-checking, and the “fact-checking” industry which is controlled by powerful interests to help sell their narrative.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    The "fact-checking" industry, lol. Fact-checking things is a skill anyone could develop, you don't need an industry.

    You won't find the sources for every thing out there, but you can find out a lot if you know how to critically examine information for yourself. Which is better than depending on someone else to fact-check for you, IMO.

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  • [–] -2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (16 children)

    My only issue is that even facts can be spun. If there's going to be fact checkers, they themselves need to be routinely checked and their biases listed.

    Also OP, I've checked your post history and can see a fair few news articles about conflicts over the world but zero mention of Gaza in any of them - is that your bias?

    Edit: Yeah, I've now been shown some decent enough confirmation that OP is a Zionist and promotes disinformation. Case in point, agenda driven fact checking is an issue and we cannot trust random sources who proclaim to be such.

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  • [–] [S] 13 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    What in the whatabotism is this? There are scholars and posters that can focus on specific regions. I have deep knowledge about Sahel, Syria, and Ukraine, and I have posted credible articles about said regions and INDOPAC. I can talk about misinformation by a number of actors surrounding the Gaza war but I am not as proficient in the topic as some of my acquaintances are and in general I don't like to believe popular vote based forums are conducive to any kind of appropriate discussion on the topic. I don't understand the anti-scientific combativeness in your attitude, do all scientists have to cover all topics? I can also see your comment history but I think this is not the place for such a discussion. I do believe in highlighting Africa as a region that is deeply ignored despite JNIM and ISWAP causing more that 10x the deaths of all other terrorism in the world combined, Sudan war, etc.

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  • [–] -1 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    It's a visceral reaction to .world and "fact checkers". Your account is concerning in that you present yourself as a fact checker, yet we have no idea what your motives are.

    I am not anti-scientific, I am anti-gatekeeper.

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  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Your account is concerning in that you present yourself as a fact checker, yet we have no idea what your motives are.

    It's funny you should bring that up deceptichum...

    Seriously, could your usernames possibly be more on the nose? This feels like a setup.

    I feel like I should definitely ignore both of your posts and let the article speak for itself.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (7 children)

    There are many competing fact checkers. Compare their fact checking.

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  • [–] -3 points 9 months ago (6 children)

    If we have to manually fact check the fact checkers ourselves, it defeats the purpose of them in the first place.

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  • [–] 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

    If we have to manually fact check the fact checkers ourselves, it defeats the purpose of them in the first place.

    what follows from this statement is that you should be skeptical of everything you read or hear

    and yes, you should. does that take more work? yes, it does. especially under a technochristofascist authoritarian government who tells you that anyone considered "expert in their field" is not to be trusted since they advocate for vaccines while we [the government in charge of running the country], for some reason...don't.

    does everything about this fucking suck? also yes, it does. what else do we have? between being skeptical of fact-checkers and eliminating fact-checkers (the direction the party is pushing you towards), sorry, i choose fact-check the fact-checkers

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  • [+] 6 points 9 months ago* (1 child)
  • [–] 8 points 9 months ago

    My solution would be to teach people to be skeptical, how to recognise biases, and how to fact check on their own.

    you're talking about critical thinking, which is also under vicious attack by the GOP, but yes, i agree: when the fact-checkers belong to the very people who are spreading not-facts, then what do you have?

    does this mean we should dismiss fact-checking as a thing people should do? because--make no mistake-- the end goal here is for you to have the mindset that "whatever dear leader says is absolute truth, and anything else is fake news"

    you can literally see this in trump supporters.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    This assumes that there is an objective and 100% contextualized truth, which is never the case. Getting a free frogurt seems unquestionably a boon, until you learn it's cursed and contains potassium benzoate.

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  • [+] -8 points 9 months ago

    The reason it's an argument is b cause we can't agree on what a "fact".

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