That is historically inaccurate. It only took off as an "industry" around 2017.

I think you're missing the point. Checking facts is not what I'm talking about. I'm referring to the industry of "fact checking" companies/services that often work in tandem with social media companies, often in order to censor unapproved ideas. Too often these so-called "fact checkers" have been found to push propaganda (political opinions) over facts, which means they aren't "fact checkers" after all. This is the central point here.

You do not seem like you are interested in a reasoned discussion, so I'm going to stop engaging with you. Try to stop using the term "lol" in your posts so much if you want to have a legitimate conversation with someone, which I was trying to have with you.

Peace.

With the advent of social media, lies and misinformation are spreading further and faster than ever before. It's a lot of work debunking bullshit.

I mean I'm with you on the basic concept that "fact-checking" as a term, industry, or part of the general lexicon is relatively new.. maybe 2017, idk.

And I would also agree with antithesis on what I think they're saying..( that the basic idea behind factchecking, essentially verifying whether or not something is true or a lie, has most likely existed for as long as lies have existed.... Basically forever.)

But your meme.............. Idk.
You seem to be implying that truth suddenly became inconvenient for the powerful in 2017... which I do not think I would agree with.

I actually agree with you somewhat. The meme has a seed of truth to it which makes it interesting to ponder, but should not be taken literally or at face value. Perhaps I could have worded it differently. The point I hope to make is that the "fact checking" industry quite often pushes propaganda that powerful people want you to hear, and to silence those with unpopular opinions. As we have seen, time and time again, those "unpopular opinions" turn out to be tomorrow's "verified facts".

"the "fact checking" industry quite often pushes propaganda that powerful people want you to hear, and to silence those with unpopular opinions"

I'm not sure I would necessarily agree with that either. Out of however many millions of fact-checked things there's probably only a handful that you would say even qualify. Maybe 0.001%?

Now..... what % of that sliver of specific sus fact-checked items have actually been proven to have been "powerful people" intentionally pushing propaganda? Any? Unpopular opinions turning out to be verified facts don't necessarily prove widespread corruption and propaganda.

I would also tend to think there might be some negativity bias going on as far as your perception. For example if you ate at McDonald's a total of 10 times last year and they were all generally pleasant except for one where you ordered a Big Mac and a large coke but they ended up giving you a salad and milk...... well I bet that trip might stand out more in your memory than the other 9 where they got your order correct.

And the fact that they f*cked up your order doesn't necessarily mean it was intentional. But if you thought it was, you might go around telling people how they quite often screw up your orders.

I disagree. What of the key things you have to understand is that once fact checkers get even one story wrong, they lose credibility. After all, a fact checker supposed to be the last line of defense of truth, and when it fails, it means there needs to be a fact checker for the fact checker. Otherwise, how do we know that the fact checkers are *ever* right?

And yes, as it turns out, fact checkers are wrong at times, particularly in regard to socio-political stories. Notably, the things they're wrong about often, if not always, benefit the left side of the political spectrum. Is this surprising? No, it's not.

As for bias, fact checkers can reveal bias not only by incorrectly labeling as false things that are true, but also in what they choose - or not - to fact check.

But at the end of the day, the true threat of these fact checkers is that their errors can lead to the the censorship of people. In other words, people can be censored for expressing truth. Do you want to live in a society in which people are punished for telling the truth?

Ok so you seem to be shifting the goal posts a bit... Before you were claiming fact checkers "quite often push propaganda"........... now you seem to be toning it down talking about "even IF they get one story wrong." ??

Humans are not infallible, so expecting 100% accuracy seems a bit much. And if you would trust any part of the internet 100% I mean.. have fun with that. But if you talk about anything here without sources, you're basically saying hey... Take my word for it. Sure I'm just some random anon on the internet who has nothing to back up what I say, have zero risk of losing my job, nor any personal credibility associated with my identity but..... believe me! Believe me bro. Lol

Personal bias ties back into being human... (And does not necessarily mean Soros or the Koch bros or whoever is up in the rafters pulling the strings. )

In any case maybe I'm wrong about this but it seems like you're ranting about fact checkers, when really you're against the power that social media companies have to control what is allowed on them.

For example look at trump's website.. Truth Central or whatever. Do you think "fact-checkers" had even the slightest influence over them censoring Jan 6th stuff or anti-trump stuff on their website...? No. At the end of the day, they censor what they want, just like Facebook, etc.....

The government directly censoring or controlling those websites would be more of a concern to me... And I understand they can scratch each other's back but still.

And on the opposite end of the spectrum.......... a media site with completely unlimited "free speech" devoid of censorship or punishment would also definitely be a concern. I'm pretty sure we tried that already. Are you familiar with the "dark web" at all? That's what unlimited free speech is. Think fentanyl, ghost guns, child pornography, murder for hire, Nazis, ISIS terrorists..... all the worst sh*t. That's what truly unlimited, unpunishable free speech looks like.

I think you misunderstood my comment. Yes, fact checkers quite often push propaganda. They may do this through false claims, misleading statements, or choosing to be more aggressive with one side than the other.

The part about getting "one story wrong" was to show that the fact checking industry as a whole loses credibility even through a single error. As it stands, they've committed more than a single error.

"Humans are not infallible, so expecting 100% accuracy seems a bit much". If you think that no one can provide 100% accuracy, then you are saying that fact checkers can be wrong, which then means there has to be a fact checker for the fact checker. Perhaps even another layer of fact checker for this one. And on and on.

So anyway, the larger issue here is that fact checkers have been given too much institutional power, and they are using it to promote a particular side's agenda. Not always, but enough to make the industry lose credibility.

To be honest, considering you were claiming that it happens quite often, I assumed you were going to rattle off at least a couple specific examples but it seemed like you actually went the other way... No examples and you mentioning even one would be problematic.

And sure...anyone who says 1 or multiple things shown to be false loses some amount of credibility. However.. your logic as far as infinite layers of fact-checkers seems faulty because pretty quickly there are obvious diminishing returns. Nobody's going to bother 3rd and 4th layer fact-checking the 10 or however many "quite often" falsehoods/propaganda.

I think I disagree once again. I don't think fact checkers have really been given any institutional power. Their only "power" is their own perception of truth. So if they're losing credibility as you claim, they are diminishing their own power. However as I already stated when it comes to censorship, at the end of the day social media companies and the people who own them have all the power regardless of fact-checkers. Take Trump for example... would you say he was censored on Twitter because of the institutional power and agenda of fact checkers?

https://youtu.be/61fsW4xxkZE
:P

You're right that I haven't given examples, as so far we were discussing theory. Also, as I have said before, part of the propaganda is in what is and what is not fact checked in the first place. However, a few examples of fact-checkers run awry:

https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2635/rr-80

https://thefederalist.com/2021/05/21/politifact-quietly-retracts-fact-check-of-covid-19-wuhan-lab-theory/

https://dailycaller.com/2018/01/09/googles-new-fact-check-feature-almost-exclusively-targets-conservative-sites/

https://twitter.com/PhilWMagness/status/1552666185761800198?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1552666185761800198%7Ctwgr%5E7683d3c80a625347f45f040747c41373f9d1f052%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdailycaller.com%2F2022%2F08%2F01%2Fphillip-magness-facebook-recession-fack-check%2F

I disagree with your claim that these fact checkers do not have institutional power. I think it's clear they do since social media companies are relying upon them to determine who to censor or not. I think the deeper issue it that the people who run these fact check sites - most likely journalists - are given the ability to definitively declare what is "true" or "not true", even if these journalists don't fully understand the topics they're covering, or if they bring a partisan attitude toward their coverage. It's quite dangerous.

Anyway, I'm going to disengage from this conversation now. Thanks for the discussion.

You mean, you decided to call it an industry in 2017 because that's when they started annoying YOU?

No, it's called an "industry" after Democrats started falsely claiming that Trump conspired with Russia to throw the 2016 election. Social media companies complied with what Democrats pushed for, and they started replying upon approved "fact checkers" to determine which information became publicly available, or censored.

Whenever information is censored, you should be very concerned. The problem is that many on the left actually champion such censorship.

You've not actually said that I was wrong. They started annoying you and that's when you decided to call it an industry.

Huh? No, that's not it. This isn't a political issue to realize that the "fact checking industry" really took off around 2017. The fact that it really took off during that time reflects the political push by the left to push their narrative within the news cycle to an extreme degree.

Be aware that he is a bot troll. Nothing good will come from lecturing him.

Yeah his truth, not reality.

Kinda hard to agree with you when you have people who in their truth man can be woman and woman can be man, man can bear children, and firmly believe socialism and communism works. You are also entitle to your opinion, which is all you provided withbyour statement "be aware that the 'bot troll' is telling the truth....
'lecturing him' = lying to him" that is not a fact, there is nothing there that us measurable, it is but your opinion.

I guess we can agree to disagree. Cheers, you are not worth my time mate.

meh another mentally unstable users who has to delete all their posts after proven wrong.