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

  • WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@piefed.world
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    2 days ago

    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.

  • U7826391786239@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    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.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      The existence of the article alone is either deliberate or organically emergent bad-faith, even if it’s pushing back against a supposed movement against fact-checking, it is legitimizing the argument by saying there’s “sides” in the issue.

    • shane@feddit.nl
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      2 years ago i would have said i can’t believe this article needed to be written (supposedly–equally likely generated)

      You obviously didn’t read the article. 😥

    • shane@feddit.nl
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      2 days 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

  • BossDj@piefed.social
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    2 days ago

    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.

          • realitista@lemmus.org
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            2 days ago

            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.

      • gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        2 days ago

        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

  • Rimu@piefed.social
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    2 days 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.

  • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    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.

    • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
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      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.

  • vlad@lemmy.sdf.org
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    2 days ago

    The reason it’s an argument is b cause we can’t agree on what a “fact”.

  • it_depends_man@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Most fact checkers I’ve seen so far have had pretty poor methodology. Mostly a “here are three people on the internet that confirm my point of view, therefore it is fact and because we drew ourselves as the chad wojack first uh… because this is a fact checking site it’s the truth”.

  • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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    2 days ago

    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.

    • FactChecker@lemmy.worldOP
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      2 days ago

      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.

      • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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        2 days ago

        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.

        • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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          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.

          • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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            2 days ago

            My name is a play on the Transformers Decepticons.

            But hey, go do whatever the fuck you want mate.

            • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              Oh I caught that, totally. But that doesn’t change what it literally says… That shits funny!

              “Believe me, those people shouldn’t be trusted!” -Ronald McLiar

    • Gsus4@mander.xyz
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      2 days ago

      If there’s going to be fact checkers, they themselves need to be routinely checked and their biases listed.

      Isn’t this what editors used to do?

      • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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        2 days ago

        Somewhat, many of them also inserted their own biases - e.x. headlines.

        The news/information landscape is pretty fucked, a handful of mainstream sources that all proliferate the same information. It became painfully apparent how biased these groups were with the genocide in Gaza and their attempts to suppress or distort the facts.

        Luckily there are amazing independent or small scale journalists, who do real investigative research and deep dives but they’re so poorly funded.

        Lie factories like Facebook need to be dismantled, and funding needs to go to prop up high quality news sources.

      • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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        2 days ago

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

        • U7826391786239@lemmy.zip
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          2 days ago

          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

          • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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            The burden of proof and discovery makes the goal of information too complicated for many. The more complex a system, the more it’s likely to fail.

            And when it’s a technochristofascist authoritarian government or it’s media allies being the ‘fact’ checker? We cannot rely on institutions or arbiters as the gate keepers of accuracy.

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

            • U7826391786239@lemmy.zip
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              2 days 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.

        • frongt@lemmy.zip
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          2 days 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.

          • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Personally, I think it’s annoying that this got down votes. It’s short and dismissive, but it’s correct. Sometimes it’s just not worth longer answers.

            Also, some arguments should be dismissed, just ask a judge.