Fact-checking reduces the circulation of misinformation – we should not get rid of it
TLDR: It reduces the virality of misinformation by ~8% and increases article deletion.
https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/fact-checking-reduces-circulation-misinformation-we-should-not-get-rid-itOpen linkView original on lemmy.world538
Comments38
I was gonna say, is anyone with good intentions suggesting we get rid of fact checking?
You obviously didn't read the article. 😥
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.
Fewer
Are shits countable? Does it depend on if they're metaphorical or physical? 🤔
He meant fewer engagement
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.
Looked at their profile, the funnier thing is that basically every post they make is grammatically incorrect
I know, I was joking.
Not in my area. Fewer shits is correct.
If you want to use less, say "less of a shit".
Yes I think "less of a shit" is the right way (as I mentioned in the comment above).
Where do you live? UK?
I live on the Isle of Quibble.
Used in a sentence:
Language is living and breathing, not frozen in amber
counter point: Stannis "the one true king" Baratheon
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.
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.
People are downvoting the weirdest things today. I wouldn't have thought your comment needed a sarcasm tag, but here we are.
The overall score is still positive. People can dislike what they dislike.
Yeah, it's better now. When I commented, you were at around 4:2.
Is this about Twitter? Fuck Twitter. Is this about Facebook? Fuck Facebook.
Shall I continue?
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
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.
AKA do your own research? On Facebook and TikTok?
Yeah, gotta watch out for multi billion dollar authoritarian industry of Big Objective Facts^tm^
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.
I didn’t invent the term. Not my fault you don’t know it.
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.
It's not a war, it's an occupation
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.
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
Isn't this what editors used to do?
There are many competing fact checkers. Compare their fact checking.
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.
No
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.
The reason it's an argument is b cause we can't agree on what a "fact".
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 firstuh... because this is a fact checking site it's the truth".