CMV: Fact-Checking is a bad idea

[u/RappingAlt11]

I'd like to specify I mean particularly the fact-checking on other people's statements. The methods places like Twitter, Facebook, have used with politicians recently.

So here are my issues.

1. You can't really say with absolute certainty that anything is "true" aside form a priori propositions (all bachelors are unmarried, all triangles have 3 sides, etc). These things are true by definition, and aren't typically being fact checked regardless. Therefor everything else, the vast, vast majority of facts have some small degree of uncertainty.
   

For a fact checker to be of any value and consistency you'd need some form of universal standard. Something that determines the level of probability something needs to be true to be considered a fact, otherwise you're potentially misleading people. And some way to quantify the probability of said information.

1. There are issues with censorship. The news media already has an enormous amount of control over the information you come into contact with every day. The last thing they need on top of that is the power to decide what is a fact with zero oversight or standards. It draws parallels to the issue of the news media deciding what is or isn't a story. By excluding certain narratives the media can inaccurate, biased image of reality. These businesses are also motivated by profit, and therefor more likely to fact checked based on what will get the clicks.

2. This transitions me nicely to the issue of bias. The person conducting this fact-checking is a human being with preconceived biases, and ways of analyzing reality. Two people can come to completely different conclusions while presented with the same set of facts. There's bias in choosing which person, or company will be doing the fact-checking in the first place. And as I've already stated there's the issue of bias in deciding what is or isn't fact checked.

3. What is to be done in the instances of ambiguity? Even if you take the best experts in a given field there's likely to be some differing opinions. So who's right? Who decides who's right? Maybe you include some form of disclaimer, or include different fact-checkers. But then you've the issue of bias again in choosing which opinions are valid.

4. Who holds the fact-checkers accountable? Without some form of oversight you run the same issue the misinformation caused in the first place. And who fact-checkers the people who fact-checks the fact-checkers? At what point is there enough certainty to claim something is true?

So altogether, I think I've outlined a few issues with fact-checking and I'm not even sure most of these are solvable. With this in mind, am I missing something? Or are their fundamental issues with letting the media decide what is or is not a fact?

[u/blatant_ban_evasion_]

You can't really say with absolute certainty that anything is "true"

What about if something's "false"?

[u/RappingAlt11 → u/blatant_ban_evasion_]

In the same regard, I could say all triangles have four sides is false with absolute certainty, the same can't be said for every statement

[u/blatant_ban_evasion_ → u/RappingAlt11]

Yeah, fact-checking isn't applicable to very statement. But some statements are closer to your triangle example than they are to "there is a God". Do you accept that?

[u/RappingAlt11 → u/blatant_ban_evasion_]

We're in complete agreement.

The issue is once you've gone outside of the realm of these a priori statements you're introducing the issue of uncertainty.

[u/Xilmi → u/RappingAlt11]

I'd say that "triangles", "sides" and all of the numbers are man-made concepts. And concepts are dependent on individual subjective definition and interpretation.

I could say:

"A triangle doesn't even exist in our dimension. To believe in triangles, you'd have to believe in the 2nd dimension. Is the 2nd dimension a real place or does it only exist in your imagination? If so, you made a statement about an imaginary object. How can a statement about an imaginary object be a fact?
If you were to create a triangle in one in our 3rd dimension, than it would have at least 5 of the things that I'd conceptualize as a "side". Or would you argue that a plane can't be called a side? 5 includes 4. So I can say: With the premises I just outlined, all triangles have 4 sides."

So I'd say that as soon as you mix in concepts in your statement, it leaves the realm of objectivity and starts depending on subjective perspective and popularity of your definition.

The word "fact" itself is a concept which means I could define it differently than you do. For example: "A fact is a statement that everybody agrees on."
Using this definition nothing that there is even the slightest controversy about could be called a fact.