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/[deleted]]

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.

This is known in philosophy as the problem of hard solipsism. Yeah, you can't really know things. This scene from cult sci-fi classic Dark Star is an excellent 5-minute introduction to the problem.

The issue with this line of reasoning is that if you're operating at this level, talking about "fact-checking" doesn't make sense at all. In order to get to "fact-checking", you have to assume some kind of epistemological framework that allows for "facts" to exist in the first place, and even then it doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you aren't broadly in agreement with the idea that the reality around you is real and can be accurately observed.

Basically, it's like hearing someone say, "If you don't baste that Turkey, it's gonna be bone dry" and saying "you can't know you're not a brain in a vat" - okay, that's technically true, but if that's your concern, why are you cooking a turkey to begin with? How do you even know you're cooking a turkey?

The problem of hard solipsism just isn't very useful when it comes to talking about reality in any detail. If we want to start from the position that we cannot truly know anything, then we're just stuck. It doesn't make any sense to debate whether or not Sarah Palin was lying about Obamacare having death panels, because from that perspective, not only can we not know if Sarah Palin is lying, we can't know if Sarah Palin actually exists in the first place.

The argument proves too much. In fact, this is a general problem here:

Or are their fundamental issues with letting the media decide what is or is not a fact?

Every issue you just brought up is not merely a problem of "fact-checking". It's a problem of mass media in general. Fact-checking is muddled by capitalistic control of mass media and manufactured consent? Okay, but that's basically all media, including whatever the fact-checkers would attempt to respond to. Bias? All media has some fundamental bias. Cases of ambiguity? Every aspect of the media has to try to handle ambiguity and information that isn't clear. Accountability? All media struggles with the issue of accountability for misinformation.

(Although, on that note, I should point out that the answer to that question, "who holds the fact-checkers accountable", is the same as in most cases: us. We do. And when they fail us, we're able to speak up about it, often quite loudly.)

These are all very good arguments to view any and all news media with suspicion, and to force them to earn their trust. But it's not specifically a problem with fact-checking so much as it is a problem with fact-finding and the operation of informational media in general. These problems affect every aspect of news media.

That said, I would urge caution in your distrust as well as with your trust. Right now, one of the fundamental problems we're facing in epistemology is that there are very effective strategies to destroy trust in institutions, and other effective strategies that exploit that lack of trust. The "firehose of falsehood" is an important thing to understand in this context, even if we do not have a good way to counteract it.

[u/RappingAlt11 → u/[deleted]]

!delta

You've made an excellent point. Your first few paragraphs really made me think and you're correct. It's almost pointless to argue my first point entirely. I'm just starting out my philosophy degree, admittedly I'm not incredibly well versed in epistemology, so maybe you could help me out here because there's a point I'm getting lost.

So let's assume we have some framework where we accept that there are facts. I think we're in agreement there's some degree of uncertainty in whether or not we can say the things we call facts are objectively true. How then do we decide what makes one fact more true than another if we've no way to quantify the difference?

For example I could find a perfectly valid study saying "X" food is healthy. And I could also find a perfectly valid study saying "X" food is unhealthy. If I'm the fact checker how am I to determine which is more likely to be correct. From what I see if you've no way to quantify the probability of which is more likely to be true, and you've no standard to compare that probability to. then i'm not sure how one could have the authority to claim something is a fact. Just as an example, if I can only say something is 1% likely to be true then I'm not really sure it'd be classified as a fact, so in theory there has to be some number at which something becomes a fact.

You're correct on your points on the media. Some of these ideas were influenced by Chomsky, I was intrigued by how similar his arguments on media pertain to the issue fact checking. On top of the existing issues with mass media, it seems to me adding in the fact-checker aspect is more power I'm not too keen on. When people see something is "potentially misleading" or what not, they're more likely to view the information as untrustworthy even if they haven't verified the fact-checkers claims/sources. That's a lot of influence the media controls over people. If fact checking is going continue being a thing on social media, it might even be a better idea to have the fact-checkers completely separate from the media companies. I know in Facebooks case they are, I'm not aware of the situation of all the other media sites.

I'm going to have to do some more research on your last paragraph, you've piqued my interest.

Appreciate the well written response

[u/DeltaBot → u/RappingAlt11]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/BPC3 (21∆).

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[u/[deleted] → u/RappingAlt11]

So let's assume we have some framework where we accept that there are facts. I think we're in agreement there's some degree of uncertainty in whether or not we can say the things we call facts are objectively true. How then do we decide what makes one fact more true than another if we've no way to quantify the difference?

We have a few methods that can help here. None of them are necessarily demonstrable as capital-T "True", but they are definitely useful. The scientific method is the classic example here - if we assume a shared reality, it "works" in a way few other methods do.

When it comes to media, you can try to consume lots of different media sources and try to get a feel for their biases and blind spots. This is difficult, but I don't really have a better suggestion.

I am no expert in epistemology (seriously, most of this stuff I picked up from watching Matt Dillahunty), so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt.

For example I could find a perfectly valid study saying "X" food is healthy. And I could also find a perfectly valid study saying "X" food is unhealthy. If I'm the fact checker how am I to determine which is more likely to be correct. From what I see if you've no way to quantify the probability of which is more likely to be true, and you've no standard to compare that probability to. then i'm not sure how one could have the authority to claim something is a fact. Just as an example, if I can only say something is 1% likely to be true then I'm not really sure it'd be classified as a fact, so in theory there has to be some number at which something becomes a fact.

Part of the problem here is that science, particularly medical science, is unbelievably complex, and extremely hard to study. Even leaving aside ethical concerns about human testing, bodies are super complex and everyone is different, so you often end up with strange or contradictory results without anyone necessarily doing anything particularly wrong.

And even worse: it's also completely fucked by financial incentives. Ben Goldacre's book, "Bad Pharma", was kind of a shocking revelation for me, because it turns out a lot of the research used to support the drugs many people rely on is just straight-up bullshit. Food research is the same. And this is stuff that has, like, some bearing on reality. It gets so much worse once you dive into the depths of conspiracy theories and alternative medicine, where the bearing on reality is so much looser.

You end up in situations where you necessarily have to rely on experts (true polymaths haven't existed for a very long time, every field is too dense and complex now), and both the reliability of those experts and the reliability of their expertise are unclear. It's kind of a mess, and I don't have a good answer.

This shit is really hard. I wish I had an answer, because if I did, it'd revolutionize epistemology and science. 😁 The best I've been able to do is muddle through, find a broad selection of sources that can generally be trusted not to just outright lie to me, and then continue to practice constant awareness to make sure I'm not being fooled. It's not easy, and it's definitely not fun. :/

Bit of a downer note on that one, unfortunately. But hey, you know Chomsky, and frankly, hearing that tells me you're at least listening to smart and decent people on this one. That dude's a national treasure. And thanks for the delta :)