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Who fact checks the "fact checkers"? Update: Zuck firing them all

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by AroundTheWorld, Aug 13, 2021.

  1. fchowd0311

    fchowd0311 Member

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    Help me. Guide my hand.
     
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  2. Ubiquitin

    Ubiquitin Member
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    I’ll call you by your name.
     
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  3. TWS1986

    TWS1986 SPX '05, UH' 19

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    [​IMG]
     
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  4. Ubiquitin

    Ubiquitin Member
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    fchowd0311 likes this.
  5. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Member
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  6. JuanValdez

    JuanValdez Member

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    I remember Snopes from way back in the early days of the internet. I'm just impressed they have enough revenue to have a COO and an outside HR consultant. Like Clutchfans, Snopes seemed like a hobby that just got way out of hand. Don't know if they even had any journalism background. Not that they can get away with plagiarizing, but I'd say I'm unsurprised if they were less than professional circa 2014-2016.
     
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  7. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Member
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    fact checking the fact checkers

    USA Today reporter slammed for playing ‘victim’ after false Biden report

    https://nypost.com/2021/09/04/usa-today-reporter-slammed-after-false-biden-report/

    excerpt

    Funke originally reported in a “fact-check” Wednesday that accounts of President Biden checking his watch during the solemn transfer ceremony honoring the 13 U.S. service members killed at the Kabul airport terrorist attack was “partly false.” Funke insisted that it occurred “only after” the ceremony.

    But the next day USA Today issued a correction admitting Biden checked his watch “multiple times” during the ceremony, as The Post accurately reported on its front page. However it changed its ruling from “partly false” to “missing context.”

    Funke then took to Twitter on Friday offering an apology — of sorts.

    “As many of you already know, this story has been corrected. Biden checked his watch multiple times during the ceremony. I regret the error,” Funke wrote. “Journalists and fact-checkers are human (yes, even me!) We make mistakes. When we do, we correct them and try to make it right.”

    [​IMG]
    Daniel Funke had a mix up when it came to fact-checking Biden’s watch fiasco.
    Twitter

    After sharing a link to USA Today’s fact-checking guidelines explaining the “principles we try to uphold,” Funke wrote, “It’s easy to dunk on journalists when we get things wrong. I get it – to many, we’re just another name on a screen. But behind that screen is a person trying to do their best.”

    Some gave Funke credit for his mea culpa. But others suggested it was another liberal-media attempt to protect Biden.
    more at the link
     
  8. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Member
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    and apparantley Snopes re- fact checked itself too:

    https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-check-watch-13/

    key excerpt:

    Recent Updates
    1. CORRECTION [3 September 2021]: This article was changed from Mixture to True after a photograph was uncovered showing Biden checking his watch for a second time during this ceremony. The article originally addressed the claim that Biden checked his watch 13 times but was changed to "multiple times" to better address the most common rumors about this incident.
    • Published 1 September 2021
    • Updated 3 September 2021
    original article at the link
     
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  9. Buck Turgidson

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  10. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Member

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    You're still obsessed about fact checkers when I'm playing 4d fact chess
     
  11. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"
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    hot damn i miss hearing new stuff from them but this was almost as good! Chuck D forever.
     
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  12. Buck Turgidson

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    P.E. forever, indeed.

    They taught my suburban whiteboy 80's ass a lot of things...
     
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  13. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Member
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    AroundTheWorld likes this.
  14. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Member
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  15. Invisible Fan

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    It's an interesting case. The details do matter because they're the basis for these mandates.

    I don't see a better alternative here. Algorithms might give a veneer of impartiality, but they're heavily gamed and people catch onto them quicker than the algo geeks can keep up. Using an aggregate of "fact checking" commissions was the next step

    Keeping trillion dollar multinationals in check is an issue as is finding common ground to resolve polarizing statements. I think Stossel is a fossil looking for relevance or past glory, but more power to him, where ever it leads...
     
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  16. Buck Turgidson

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    Kickin wicked rhymes like a forture teller....
     
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  17. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Member

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    Good ol Covid time capsule dug up this nugget from Oct 2022...

    I didn't realize Stossel was 75yo. Still remember him doing his characteristic whiny bits on 20/20 almost channelling the likes of Andy Rooney.

    John Stossel Loses His SLAPP Suit Against Facebook And Fact Checkers
    First, the court notes that for the “fire” video, while Stossel claims that the video defamed him, the fact check was about the entire video not just the claims made by Stossel, and the fact check is accurate regarding other claims made by people in the video:

    Second, nothing in the text associating the “claim” that “[f]orest fires are caused by poor management[,] [n]ot by climate change” with the Fire Video implies that Mr. Stossel himself made such a claim. On its face, the challenged text implies or asserts that such a claim is made in the video. A reviewer could reasonably conclude that such a claim is made in the video. For example, the video includes the following passages:

    Shellenberger: Climate change is real. It’s not the end of the world. It’s not our most serious environmental problem.

    Stossel: And it’s not the main cause of the California fires.



    Stossel: If not climate change, what is to blame?

    [Cartoon clip of Smokey the Bear saying, “Only you can prevent forest fires.”]

    Stossel: Foolish policies. . . .



    Stossel: Climate has made things worse. California’s warmed three degrees over 50 years. But—

    Shellenberger: You could have had this amount of warming and not had these fires and the reason we know that is because the forests that were well managed have survived the mega fires.



    Stossel: It’s about time. Bad policies were the biggest cause of this year’s fires, not the slightly warmer climate. And while climate change is a problem, Shellenberger’s new book explains, it’s not an apocalypse.


    But, of course, there’s a larger point: it’s all opinion. Opinion is not defamatory:

    Even if the Court assumes, without finding, for purposes of this motion that this is so, the disputed attribution nevertheless is not a statement of objective fact about Mr. Stossel or his reporting, but rather the reviewer’s subjective interpretation of the Fire Video’s contents. A reviewer’s assessment that Mr. Stossel was sympathetic to, or endorsed, the views expressed by Mr. Shellenberger or otherwise in the Fire Video, and intended the video to communicate to his viewers that “poor management” caused the fires, “not climate change,” is the kind of assessment that is protected by the First Amendment as a statement of opinion

    The same is true of the other video:

    the Alarmism Article is a classic example of viewpoint expression, or opinion, based on disclosed facts. See Yagman, 55 F.3d at 1439 (“A statement of opinion based on fully disclosed facts can be punished only if the stated facts are themselves false and demeaning.”); see also Herring Networks, 8 F.4th at 1159. The article identifies multiple examples of false statements or factual inaccuracies in the Alarmism Video and explains why the reviewers judge the statements to be false or inaccurate. See, e.g., Dkt. No. 28-3 (identifying statement made by Professor Legates that sea levels have been rising for 20,000 years and probably will continue, and observing that this is “imprecise and misleading, as it implies sea levels have continued rising since then and current sea level rise is just a continuation of past natural fluctuations”; identifying statement by Patrick Michaels that “hurricanes and other storms” are not “getting worse” and that “there is no relationship between hurricane activity and the surface temperature of the planet,” and that Michaels is “cherry-picking a single measure of hurricane activity and ignoring the broader corpus of scientific research.”) Mr. Stossel identifies no facts in the Alarmism Article that he contends are false. Defendants’ critique of the Alarmism Video reflects a subjective assessment of the contents of the video and is not capable of being proved true or false.


    The court doesn’t even need to get to the fact that Stossel was unlikely to ever be able to show actual malice. It also doesn’t even need to get to the Section 230 bit, which Meta raised in defense of its fact checking efforts. Because why bother when the fundamental complaint is so SLAPPtastically ridiculous?

    So, on to the anti-SLAPP argument. Here, the defendants argued that the case was a SLAPP suit and the court agrees:

    For the reasons described above, Mr. Stossel cannot show a probability of success on the merits of his defamation claim because he fails to state a claim for defamation under the Rule 12(b)(6) pleading standard

    I’m pretty sure this means that the defendants could ask Stossel to pay their legal fees now…

    Stossel also asked the court to allow him to amend the complaint if the court was going to dismiss it, but the court says there’s basically no way to turn this into a legitimate complaint:

    He does not describe the amendments he proposes to make. In any event, even if he had, the Court is not persuaded that Mr. Stossel could make any amendments that would remedy the critical deficiency the Court identifies above—i.e., that the challenged statements are not actionable as false statements of objective fact. The record before the Court includes not only the allegations of the complaint, but also the videos in question and the entirety of the challenged statements, all of which are incorporated by reference in the complaint. For this reason, the Court finds that any amendment of the pleadings would be futile because no additional allegations could alter the nature of the underlying statements challenged as defamatory.


    Stop filing bullshit SLAPP suits folks.

    https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23131348/govuscourtscand385450670.pdf
     
  18. VooDooPope

    VooDooPope Love > Hate

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    Primus, Anthrax and Public Enemy 1991 tour was off the charts.

     
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  19. Xerobull

    Xerobull ...and I'm all out of bubblegum
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    You can spot the elusive Homo Sapiens Boomer by their prominent mustachios .
     
    #60 Xerobull, Feb 1, 2023
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2023
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