Today, Everybody's a Fact Checker

Hugh Pickens points out an article by David Zweig at The Atlantic about the rise of fact-checking sites on the internet, and the power they give to journalists and average internet denizens to sniff out fiction parading as truth. Quoting: "Since the beginning of the republic (not the American republic, I'm talking the Greek republic) politicians have resorted to half-truths and bald-faced lies. And while tenacious reporters and informed citizens have tracked these falsehoods over the years, until now they've lacked the interconnectivity and real-time capabilities of the Web to amplify their findings. Sites like the Washington Post's Fact-Check column and FactCheck.org, which draws hundreds of thousands of unique visitors each month, often provide fodder for public fascination with fact-checking. ... Perhaps the masses don't care about inaccuracies. Many Democrats and Republicans alike will believe what they want and ignore or disregard the truth. ... But there are enough experts within a variety of fields rabidly conversing about errors that content-creators—be they politicians, journalists, or filmmakers—are now forced to be on their toes in a way they never have been before. And that's a good thing.'" Zweig also points out Snopes, Prochronisms, and Photoshop Disasters as useful tools for spotting errors or misrepresentations.

Comments

In Soviet Russia...

[reiserifick]

... facts check YOU!

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[Samantha Wright]

I hate to be crass, but... you may want to check your facts on that one.

truthiness

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be nice if there were a running tally on each politician for how many times they distorted or lied about something

I want to know ho much truthiness each of these clowns emit.

Re:truthiness

[CanHasDIY]

It would be nice if there were a running tally on each politician for how many times they distorted or lied about something

Oh, hell, that's an easy one to figure out - just tally up the number of times said politicians' lips move.

Re:truthiness

[Sir_Sri]

It's not just the number of lies though, it's the scale and scope. If you say "my plan will create 350 000 jobs at no cost to the taxpayers" and some independent analysis says "more like 300 000 jobs at a cost of 10 million dollars" versus "will cost 150 000 jobs, and cost taxpayers 100 million dollars".

have a look at, for example: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/aug/01/bill-clinton/its-typical-presidential-candidates-release-10-or-/

Which is rated as half true by politifact. Bill clinton claimed that it's typical to release 10 or 11 years of tax returns when running for president. Now here's the problem, lets take one datapoint. Barrack obama releasing only 7 years of tax returns (from 2000-2007 I think). But he didn't release more than that, because almost certainly the ones *before* 2000 are mind numbingly boring. He was a lecturer, then a senior lecturer, with no other appreciable income. So what are his tax returns going to have? A list of math mistakes he made that was corrected by the IRS and generic pointless stuff about earning a lecturer salary. So they kind of mindlessly ignore why he didn't release tax returns (- as in they weren't relevant-) and just count him as 7 years. Then they add up all of these numbers of tax returns listed out of context, and spit out an average saying bill clinton is exaggerating. Well sure, he's exaggerating, but the fact check itself is based on shitty data analysis that doesn't consider the quality of any of its data points. (other example, John Kerry's returns were only for the period he was with his current wife).

Lets take a trivial example. True. Sarah Palin, 1 in 7 families are on food stamps (http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2012/aug/02/sarah-palin/sarah-palin-says-1-7-american-families-food-stamps/ ). Ok... there's some trivial calculations to do there, but basically this is a single discreet fact that can actually be measured. So sure, she is telling the truth, but does it matter if the fact she is working from is true if her suggested solution isn't testable?

On the broad spectrum of minor spoken errors to complete disregards for the existence of reality politicians will have different degrees of lies on different topics, and you can always count on them to lie about each other. But lying about each other isn't actually policy, policy is what matters and trying to gauge the accuracy of proposed policy predictions is still well beyond the realm of most people, or even beyond all but the most specialized of bloggers (and then trying to figure out which specialized blog is correct and which isn't is beyond most people). To me, this gap, in trying to accurately assess credibility is the role the media should have, in finding experts who work with testable models that have track records and giving their assessments to the public. But that's not what happens. And as you say, you want to know how much truthiness these clowns emit, but in practice that's really freaking hard and no one with the capability to do it properly is rising to the challenge. Including, unfortunately, the long respected BBC, who have started to buy into the equal time for competing views even if one is discredited problem.

Re:truthiness

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

Even beyond just checking facts of a statement is the depth of understanding of the checker. It's been some years, but I remember a fact-check on Ron Paul in the 2008 election about his quoting how much money is spent on defense. The fact checker (it was either the Washington Post or Politifact) claimed he was off by miles, but that was because the person doing the fact checking knew nothing about how Congress makes budgets. For example, the Department of Veteran's Affairs is a separate budget item from the Department of Defense, but to claim that this is really a separate cost from 'defense spending' is ignorant, and Paul's numbers included not only the dollars specifically allocated to the DoD, but also all of the other items that fall under the general umbrella of defense spending.

What is particularly bad about this style of 'fact checking' is that it will then be cited in places like Wikipedia where people will look up this information and consider it to be solid fact, when it may actually be opinion or ignorance.

Re:truthiness

[jhoegl]

Said the old tymer not used to these new fandangled tools.
Sir, that joke got old when the internet was invented by Al Gore!

Re:truthiness

[CanHasDIY]

Joke?
What joke?

I take it you haven't been following American politics the last decade or so?

Re:truthiness

[techno-vampire]

So sure, she is telling the truth, but does it matter if the fact she is working from is true if her suggested solution isn't testable?

Yes. It does matter, quite a bit. It shows that the problem she's talking about is real; she's not just making up an imaginary problem to get people worked up. Her suggested solution may not be testable, or even possible (I don't even know what her suggestion is, so I can't guess.) but at least she's trying to solve a real-world problem.

Re:truthiness

[Uberbah]

The fact checker (it was either the Washington Post or Politifact) claimed he was off by miles, but that was because the person doing the fact checking knew nothing about how Congress makes budgets. For example, the Department of Veteran's Affairs is a separate budget item from the Department of Defense, but to claim that this is really a separate cost from 'defense spending' is ignorant

^^^^^This. The "official" number bandied about is ~600 billion dollars, but the real number is more than twice that much. They make it look smaller by, as you point out, excluding things like the VA from defense spending. Ditto for the GI Bill, interest on past military spending, Fatherland Security, military aid to countries like Israel, the Department of Energy managing our nuclear weapons, etc etc.....

The Real US National Security Budget: 1.2 Trillion

Re:truthiness

[Sir_Sri]

Sure, I'm not saying the analysis is completely useless, just that it's not really helping evaluate if she's suggesting anything sensible or not. Fact checking if 1/7 families in the US are on foodstamps is a problem a highschool kid could easily manage, fact checking any suggested solution is much harder.

Re:truthiness

[Sir_Sri]

Except for example, that wrongly counts health spending on the VA as 'defence' spending, which it sort of is and sort of isn't. It's an earned benefit from service, but much of that would still be an expense under medicare if it wasn't under the VA, and since civilized countries have healthcare it means the US defence budgets have this layer of spending that other countries have, but count completely differently. The DoE and DoD research budgets are kind of the same. I know a lot of civilian scientists who get money for projects that aren't specifically military in nature, but are funded by DoD or DoE. Moving the funding to some other agency but still paying it out would reduce the defence budget but not the actual budget.

From the article you linked

The National Priorities Project calculates that 39% of that, or $185 billion, comes from borrowing related to past Pentagon spending.

is an ideological position to come up with 39% of the interest payments. In fact there's no neutral way to honestly assess that, because it's not like governments borrow money or tax or spend in a particularly specific department by department manner. Sure you can estimate the percent of government spending that is defence, and then attribute that as the defence departments borrowing as part of spending, but that's nonsense. Borrowing because of Hurricane Katrina or significantly expanding spending as a stimulus plan (whatever you may think of those ideas) has nothing to do with defence spending.

I'm not sure anyone can even come up with an accurate figure that meaningfully reflects what defence spending is, or more importantly what you can change of it, typically things like the VA aren't counted in that, because regardless of what you may think of why they were there, those people are covered by VA now and you have to pay for it, so you can't cut the VA, but you can cut F35 purchases.

Re:truthiness

[Attila Dimedici]

Fact-checking a suggested solution is impossible. What would result from the solution is a matter of opinion, not of fact. If she said, "We should do this about the problem, because when a similar solution was tried over here, such and such positive result happened." You could fact check whether or not "such and such positive result" actually happened. On the other hand if she said, "We should do this about the problem, because I believe this is the best approach to the problem," there is nothing to fact check, except whether or not the problem is a real problem.
The fact of the matter is that politicians and political groups have spent years pushing solutions to problems that are fictitious and demanding those that don't like their proposed solution come up with an alternate solution. Some of those fictitious problems are no harder to fact check than Sarah Palin's 1/7 of families in the U.S. on food stamps.

Re:truthiness

[Uberbah]

Except for example, that wrongly counts health spending on the VA as 'defence' spending

"Wrongly counts"? Military compensation and care for military personnel isn't defense spending, how does that make sense in any kind of cognitive framework? Six figure salaries for Blackwater mercenaries, defense contrators, do they not count either?

The VA, like the GI Bill, is a great program. But of course they're defense spending.

is an ideological position to come up with 39% of the interest payments.

Again, how do you figure. Look at defense spending from previous years, see how much it factored into previous deficits, and then figure out how much it makes up our current national debt.

It's not ideology. It's math.

What a startlingly boring waste of time

[Anonymous Coward]

They utilize tools like Google Ngram viewer to bust Mad Men, for example, for using terms or phrases in dialogue that didn't yet exist.

Gosh, guess they've busted Mad Men as not a documentary.

Re:What a startlingly boring waste of time

[NatasRevol]

Think of it more as a verification of the systems.

A way to test the intelligence of the machine before applying it to current events.

Re:What a startlingly boring waste of time

[The Mister Purple]

Any anachronistic dialogue in Mad Men can be explained simply:

Don Draper was way ahead of his time.

Re:What a startlingly boring waste of time

[Wolfrider]

--Who cares, when... Christina Hendricks is on the screen?

Facts are facts... or are they?

[Sebastopol]

Political fact checking is actually a lot harder than it seems. I used to follow politifact.com and there were a large number of debates over their assessment of policy statements, largely due to the fact that emperical data for dollars spent or benefits from policy (in terms of dollars) are either not recorded, not part of public record, or are just estimates from various biased "experts".

There isn't even agreement on how to measure federal spending (e.g., when Bush administration purposefully excluded out the cost of the two wars when computing debt/deficit)!!!

Sigh.

Re:Facts are facts... or are they?

[dkleinsc]

The problem with Politifact, and in fact much of political reporting, is the cult of false equivalency. If they consistently portray politicians as liars and others as truth-tellers, then they'll be accused of partisanship and lose credibility. So the effect of this is that political figures who are regularly liars and only occasionally speak the truth end up looking no more dishonest than political figures who usually tell the truth but occasionally slip up.

Re:Facts are facts... or are they?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course political fact checking is hard. And people don't necessarily want to listen to the facts when discovered, no matter what conclusion might be implied. But the point isn't to come to some kind of absolutely final conclusion as an output of a "fact-checking" analysis. The real value is providing enough information that people can come to their own conclusion, and get the information they need to do their own evaluation. Politics is always going to be a biased process, but it's a hell of a lot easier than it used to be to get the information needed.

For example, if you are caught up in a seemingly intractable dispute like "Do we count the cost of two wars when totaling federal spending or not?", then the obvious solution is to calculate it both ways and let the reader make up their own mind. The point is, they've got the data to do so easily without having to wade through piles of old reports, newspapers, or microfiche in a library that might be miles away from their home. All they need is a computer, internet connection, and enough interest to care. Most people already have 2 out of the 3.

Re:Facts are facts... or are they?

[SomeKDEUser]

This. This is very important: the necessity to seem "non-partisan" for those sites makes it wayyy too easy for the liars. After all, if you get to lie all the time and the "fact checkers" feel compelled to scrutinise your opponents extra-hard just so they can say that both sides have about the same lying rate, it's win-win!

There are issues where there are two sides. But more and more, people fight over _facts_ and this means that one side is right and the other wrong, and if you claim otherwise, you are delusional. There is no middle ground to the debate on the shape of the planet. If you say that gay parents cannot raise a child, this is a statement of fact, not an opinion. If you tell me there is no global warming, this is a statement of fact, not an opinion. If you tell me that the gold standard is a good idea, this is a statement of fact, that reducing taxes will increase revenues, and so on, and so forth.

All things amenable to experimental verification -- and in many case which have been previously experimentally checked -- should not be debated. Journalists should just mock the politicians saying stuff which is obviously false.

Re:Facts are facts... or are they?

[sumdumass]

The costs of the wars were not a secret. The appropriation were pubic and congress certainly knew about the expenses when amending and passing the federal budget.

The reason they were and still should be off budget expenditures (emergency spending) is because when the wars and need disappear, so should the spending. With it being on budget, without an explicit law or rule in place (and there is not one) that stats the funding gets removed from the budget as the need for it decreases or the wars end, then congress can spend it on anything else they want despite it being almost completely borrowed.

Emergency appropriations can be accounted for within the budget to properly show debt/deficit. The debate was really about getting the funding on budget so it could be used for other thing after the wars died off. Congress clearly intended this to happen which is illustrated by objections to the wars often resorting to how the money could better be spent.

Re:Facts are facts... or are they?

[dynamo52]

The problem with Politifact, and in fact much of political reporting, is the cult of false equivalency.

You just nailed the greatest problem with political discourse in this country. Most of the major news organizations have decided that impartiality requires they provide an equal platform to both sides of any issue regardless of where the facts lie. Rather than informing their audience, this type of "balanced" reporting only clouds the debate by giving the appearance of credibility to science deniers and conspiracy theorists.

Re:Facts are facts... or are they?

[fermion]

of course there is a question about what is a fact and what is not. For sports, I think the facts are suitable developed at the moment of the action. That is, after all, why umpires are paid. To establish the facts based on objective observation and the rules of the game. It is the one value of sports, to teach kids that truth and facts are not the same. A sane person understands that calls are the game are practicle approximations to reality.

Unfortunately the facts of politics have much more far ranging implications, yet the facts are treated much more loosely. For instance, fact checkers have said that Romney does not pay less than many middle class americans. This is based on the supposition that Romney has released two years of tax returns. In fact we have one year of just under 14% and second year with approximate tax rate of 15-16%. The average middle class effective tax rat is 15-16%, with many paying up to over 20% before a refund. These fact checkers interpreted the facts to achieve a defensible yet invalid result.

Then there is all the debate over the deficit. Many look at %ofGDP which is a useful figure. In 1991 the debt was about 70% of GDP while in 2010 it was close to 90% of GDP, which is bad. OTOH the intest payment in 1991 were about 451B in 2010 dollars, while in 2010 the payments were 413B in the same dollars. Which of these are factual significant, of either, is subject of valid debate.

Re:Facts are facts... or are they?

[JoshuaZ]

The problem with Politifact, and in fact much of political reporting, is the cult of false equivalency. If they consistently portray politicians as liars and others as truth-tellers, then they'll be accused of partisanship and lose credibility. So the effect of this is that political figures who are regularly liars and only occasionally speak the truth end up looking no more dishonest than political figures who usually tell the truth but occasionally slip up.

I'm not sure how true this is. Michelle Bachmann's Politifact profile for example ahref=http://www.politifact.com/personalities/michele-bachmann/rel=url2html-11562http://www.politifact.com/personalities/michele-bachmann/>. Of the statements they've evaluated by her, more than half fall into the "false" or "pants on fire" category (of 53, 19 are "false" and 12 are "pants on fire"). Obama in contrast has around 17% in those two categories. http://www.politifact.com/personalities/barack-obama/, and Romney has 27% http://www.politifact.com/personalities/mitt-romney/. One can definitely see here different degrees of care with the facts, with most of the people really divorced from reality being people like Bachmann and Rush Limbaugh who manage to have more than half their evaluated statements as simply false. (One interesting exception is Jon Stewart who is on the left and has more than half his evaluated statements as false, but they've only evaluated three statements in total http://www.politifact.com/personalities/jon-stewart/ which says small sample size).

Re:Facts are facts... or are they?

[dynamo52]

The obvious failings of Politifact have actually caused me to consider what it would take to create a forum for debate where fact and substantive debate would drive the content. What I envision is a website where you could check the accuracy of not only public officials but also media broadcasts and other reporting.

As far as election debate, I could imagine each candidate for example having their own section. Within this section, it could be divided into broad policy areas such as Security, Economic, Social, and Environmental. Each of these could be subdivided as necessary and within these divisions every statement made by the candidate or campaign could be independently analyzed against on a set of predetermined measures of accuracy and level of content, Anybody would be allowed to provide feedback and analysis but this would be moderated and scored against some type of "reputation index" where authoritative sources are primary followed by respected scientists or leaders in the field all the way down to anonymous sources (whose voice will be heard but whose analyses would not impact scoring). The candidates would be allowed to expand and clarify their positions and even respond to the analysis and these responses would themselves be scored. The scores could then be aggregated and averaged to provide a wider perspective view.

Of course this is all total speculation. I neither have the time or resources necessary to realize a project of this magnitude but would be thrilled to provide feedback to anybody considering implementing something of this nature.

Re:Facts are facts... or are they?

[ArsonSmith]

IMO, outside of pure mathematics, there is no such thing as facts. Merely opinions based on observations backed by more or less evidence of varying quality.

Re:Facts are facts... or are they?

[kaatochacha]

The biggest problem isn't a false partisanship, or equality on these.
The biggest problem is ( and I say this after following politifact and fact-check for about five years now) that EVERYTHING stated in a debate/political speech is at best a huge bending of the truth, and at worse, and outright lie.
You get so glazed over from BOTH sides consistently never telling the truth.

Re:Facts are facts... or are they?

[tomhath]

Presidents always defer expenses to make their budgets look better. How do you think Clinton managed to show a surplus for a couple of years before the bubble burst?

Re:Facts are facts... or are they?

[Modroben]

The wiki Argumentrix is kind of along those lines: http://argumentrix.com/wiki/Argumentrix:Argumentrix_has_policies_and_community_pages - every statement gets a page (like http://argumentrix.com/wiki/Governments_should_recognize_both_opposite_and_same_sex_marriages) that examines any reason to believe or not believe it, and anything disputable in any way gets its own separate page.

Re:Facts are facts... or are they?

[TubeSteak]

This. This is very important: the necessity to seem "non-partisan" for those sites makes it wayyy too easy for the liars. After all, if you get to lie all the time and the "fact checkers" feel compelled to scrutinise your opponents extra-hard just so they can say that both sides have about the same lying rate, it's win-win!

[Citation Needed]

Re:Facts are facts... or are they?

[SomeKDEUser]

Politifact's "lie of the year" was not a lie, or at best a lie for a very very narrow definition of lie. They had to pick this particular statement and declare it a lie, because otherwise, they would have had to admit that the other party's line was pure fabrication.

And that would have made them "partisan".

Party A: We should do X, which is completely different than Y. This is our worldview.
Party B: Party A's plan amounts to Y

Either A is lying through their teeth, and their entire plan is a sham, or B's statement is a lie. If you are politifact and decide A is lying, you can basically resign, because you have declared their entire worldview to be a fabrication (which it is), and comparing a false worldview with the occasional fib is pointless, or you save face and declare B to have lied in this instance.

Re:Facts are facts... or are they?

[tinkerton]

It's called neutrality sometimes. I fully agree this hands-off reporting means the news organization isn't doing its job, or let's say isn't doing what we thought long ago should be its job. An official can tell outright lies and the paper won't call them out on it.

But to say it's the greatest problem? It's an aspect of the problem. Reporting is increasingly safe, cheap and interesting. This can be contrasted with what we would think to be an actual task of the press: to be difficult on people and organizations with power and to spend a lot of resources on investigative reporting. In other words, to get into trouble , make powerful enemies, and go broke.

Re:Facts are facts... or are they?

[LienRag]

This. This is very important: the necessity to seem "non-partisan" for those sites makes it wayyy too easy for the liars. After all, if you get to lie all the time and the "fact checkers" feel compelled to scrutinise your opponents extra-hard just so they can say that both sides have about the same lying rate, it's win-win!

There are issues where there are two sides. But more and more, people fight over _facts_ and this means that one side is right and the other wrong, and if you claim otherwise, you are delusional. There is no middle ground to the debate on the shape of the planet. If you say that gay parents cannot raise a child, this is a statement of fact, not an opinion. If you tell me there is no global warming, this is a statement of fact, not an opinion. If you tell me that the gold standard is a good idea, this is a statement of fact, that reducing taxes will increase revenues, and so on, and so forth.

All things amenable to experimental verification -- and in many case which have been previously experimentally checked -- should not be debated. Journalists should just mock the politicians saying stuff which is obviously false.

There are actually facts and opinions, but there are known facts and unknown facts...

Of the later sort what we have are opinions about these facts, which leaves room to political debate.

What a side usually calls a truth is usually a truth inside a system, and may be challenged by thinking outside of this system.

Most of your examples are debatable in this way... this is not the same thing as deliberately lying.

The problem is not that some people challenge the scientific consensus about global warming, to take one of your examples - the problem is that those who does receive disproportional coverage, thanks to energy corporations' lobbying.

Re:Facts are facts... or are they?

[SomeKDEUser]

No, sorry, we all live in the same universe, and you do not get to pick what is axiomatic truth. For example, I think the debate on health care in the US was so bitter because it attacked a fundamental tenet of truth in what you would call the conservative system: markets supposedly self-regulate.

Now this is a statement of fact, and can be explored experimentally [1]. But for a US conservative, this is axiomatic truth. Yet health care is the ultimate and definitive example of market failure. It is blindingly and obviously evident: there are countless examples around the world of working socialised system, and the US one is a dismal failure, no matter how you look at it. Yet as long as you can pretend that less regulations would fix it, you can hold onto your beliefs. If it were to be fixed by government intervention, this would challenge not so much cherished views about individual responsibility, but the very axis around which the conservative universe revolves.

When you debate with people, you must first make a compromise on what constitutes proof or evidence. You must agree on what is logic. You must decide on the meaning of terms. Finally, you must accept that there is no such thing as axiomatic truth, that is, that in the course of the debate, your entire worldview might be challenged and defeated based on the standards of evidence you have agreed to. Yet debating conservative always comes down to "X is true because X is true". You may call that another system, but I call that pure unadultered bullshit which should be pointed at with a mocking and accusatory finger.

[1] or theoretically, there is a formal proof somewhere that the efficient market hypothesis is equivalent to P=NP... Make of that what you will, but though I believe in capitalism, it is clear lots of interventions and rules are necessary to keep it on the straight and narrow.

Re:Facts are facts... or are they?

[DerekLyons]

You just nailed the greatest problem with political discourse in this country. Most of the major news organizations have decided that impartiality requires they provide an equal platform to both sides of any issue regardless of the fact that my side consists of angels and the other side consists of devils who kick puppies and eat babies.

There, fixed that for you.

Snopes Seems Desperate Using Shady Pop-Under Ads

[Ron Bennett]

Snopes has a lot of useful information, but they are a for-profit site that utilizes seemingly desperate ad tactics, including pop-unders of seemingly shady advertisers.

One has to wonder what other compromises Snopes is making; who is their master? Snopes is not the end all be all when it comes to authoritative information contrary to what many believe - no one source is.

"period piece television"

[broginator]

Honest question, please don't mod me down: You can't get through an episode of Deadwood without them saying "Cocksucker" enough times for it to lose meaning, did they really say "Cocksucker" back then?

Re:"period piece television"

[Anonymous Coward]

Comment meet sig.

Re:"period piece television"

[Culture20]

Perhaps, but it would have been in reference to being a geek (in the traditional, not modern, sense).

Re:"period piece television"

[cffrost]

Honest question, please don't mod me down: You can't get through an episode of Deadwood without them saying "Cocksucker" enough times for it to lose meaning, did they really say "Cocksucker" back then?

Probably not. Deadwood was set in the 1870s; MW claims first known use was ca. 1891.

Fact checking is one thing...

[RabidReindeer]

But too many people would rather only listen to facts that they agree with.

Re:Fact checking is one thing...

[evil_aaronm]

Exactly. Witness Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Keith Olbermann, etc, and their followers, to varying degrees of rabidity.

Re:Fact checking is one thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to say it again, but: exactly.

It's worse than the big media bullshit, though - crazed Democrats will quote 'facts' from no-name blogs, crazed Republicans will do the same, and crazed Independents will just get drunk and quote from blogs about kittens.

KITTEN FOR PRESIDENT.

Err, right. Anyhow, I don't buy into the 'everyone fact checks!' nonsense. Everyone does a quick search to find someone else - anyone else - saying something they agree with it, and insist it's a fact, regardless of whether it is or not.

Re:Fact checking is one thing...

[Penguinisto]

Or moveon.org, The Huffington Post, Democratic Underground, etc and their followers, to varying degrees of rabidity.

Either way, both sides are making even my puny Facebook page a rotten mess.

Re:Fact checking is one thing...

[swillden]

I can't hear you.

Bald-faced lies?!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know what a bold-faced lie is, but wtf is a bald-faced lie??
Idiots.

Re:Bald-faced lies?!?!?

[tranquilidad]

Uh, the correct term?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie#Barefaced_lie

Re:Bald-faced lies?!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent fact-checking!

Re:Bald-faced lies?!?!?

[Hugh Pickens writes]

The original term seems to have been bald-faced (bare-faced) and refers to a face without whiskers. Beards were commonly worn by businessmen in the 18th and 19th century as an attempt to mask facial expressions when making business deals. Thus a bald-faced liar was a very good liar indeed, and was able to lie without the guilt showing on his face.

The more correct term is "bald-faced lie" or "bare-faced lie" (bare is more common in Great Britain). It refers to a "shameless" or "brazen" lie. One where the teller does not attempt to hide his face while telling it.

It's just the last 5 yrs or so that "bold" has come into usage. It refers to typeface. It is used metaphorically in speech. In the same way that a typesetter uses bold face type to highlight specific text and set it apart, a bold face lie stands out in such a way as to not be mistaken for the truth.

The phrase can either be used as bold-faced lie, as in someone with a bold enough face to lie (bold meaning daring, or brazen) or someone bold enough to lie to your face; it can also be used as bald-faced lie, where the older meaning of bald (meaning uncovered or unconcealed) - the more correct usage with this term is bare-faced lie. Earlier editions of Merriam Webster define bold-faced as someone being bold or forward, with no relation to lies.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_the_correct_term_'bold_face_lie'_or_'bald_faced_lie'_or_another_variation

Re:Bald-faced lies?!?!?

[unitron]

The relatively recent rise of "hone in on", "tow the line", "for all intensive purposes", and others suggests that "bold-faced lie" is just another example of people hearing phrases they've never taken notice of in print and getting them wrong.

Re:Bald-faced lies?!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

We should of known this.

Fact for money

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the new world of the Internet, driven by cash. Politics, Entertainment, Science, Art, Engineering--all driven by who gets the dollars nowadays? Why? Could it be because of the wealth of the world is contained within 1% of the population. Not to conclude on something, but if it smells, talks, acts like a goat...

You've already paid for the product (like seeing a NFL game). You want the facts. Facts = control. Control of money that is.

Who Fact-checks the Fact Checkers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the media "fact checkers" are really checking whether a particular statement contradicts the media's narrative. If it does, then it is "misleading" whether it is accurate or not. And they don't check facts unless they contradict a narrative. They also don't check the medias on ingrained urban myths no matter how often they are reported.

My favorite un-checked fact is the claim that Daley stole the 1960 election for Kennedy. There have been whole articles written about why Nixon didn't demand an investigation in Illinois, especially during the Florida imbroglio in 2000. There is a book out now that attributes this failure to intervention by former Presidents who, according to this story, feared such an investigation would raise doubts about the whole legitimacy of the government. Missed in all this and never "fact-checked" is the reality that Kennedy had enough electoral votes even without Illinois. In other words, its impossible for Daley to have stolen the election.

Re:Who Fact-checks the Fact Checkers?

[sexconker]

Who Fact-checks the Fact Checkers?
I dunno. Coast Guard?

Re:Who Fact-checks the Fact Checkers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who Fact-checks the Fact Checkers?

Nobody needs to, silly! They're comprised of The People! And as we all know from the internet, The People are infallible, and everything they say is always truthful and never biased (due to all of us having the exact same goals), so it all works out!

After all, who needs experience and thoroughness? We've got a bunch of random bodies we can throw at the problem! That always works in business, right?

All you need to know is...

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth shall set you free.

Big Brother will Take FactCheck.org Offline

[ClassicASP]

They're already all over Wikileaks and doing whatever they can to kill that off. I'm sure FactCheck.org is next on the chopping block in the years to come. We can't have the truth out there. Thats not in the govt's best interest! They'll think of some kinda excuse. Maybe it'll be copyright infringement, or perhaps they'll claim its a bunch of propaganda. Whatever the reason, I'm sure in time they'll find one.

Re:Big Brother will Take FactCheck.org Offline

[artor3]

Will you come back and admit when you are wrong?

Of course not, because what you're saying is just bullshit, in Frankfurt's sense. There's no reason to think that the government would ever go after Politifact, but you don't care about that. You just want to say something outrageous and bask in the adulation that comes with feeding people's victim complex.

These lies don't have hair on them

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, those bald-faced lies can be quite, oh, what's the word...

Re:These lies don't have hair on them

[Sique]

It's bare-faced or bald-faced lie. "bold-faced" is a neo-logism which messes up bold typeface with bald (shaven) face.

Everyone CAN BE a fact checker...

[subreality]

... but unfortunately that doesn't mean that they ARE.

Incorrect Corrections

[neonv]

Even more common than fact checking on web is "incorrectly" fact checking. I don't know how many times I've read one fact on an article just to read another article that claims the opposite is true. Think about reading forums on Slashdot, how many times is a statement corrected, to then be corrected by someone else, to then be corrected, and so on ... which one is true?? Most of the time there's no citations! If there were citations, who actually checks them? From time to time I check citations only to find that the truth is being stretched, or downright reversed from the citation! It's hard to know where truth is, what's being exaggerated, what's only partially true, or more importantly, what's being left out. Everyone has a bias, and everyone manipulates data to prove that bias valid. The only way to get an unbiased opinion is to look at raw data, and very few people have time and ability for that.

Re:Incorrect Corrections

[SomeKDEUser]

A good thing WP did for online discourse is to emphasise the need for citations. The bad thing is that people end up thinking citations are what counts. Not true: they must be good citations, as in reputable. But also, if I say something and back it up with logic, I need not have a citation -- except perhaps for the basic facts underlying the debate.

If I am wrong, you can tell by finding my logic faulty, or my model of the world lacking. If some guy tells you that "the FED has been debasing the dollar" by printing lots of money, and someone else responds by pointing out that inflation is low despite a trebling in monetary mass, you might want a citation for the trebling of the monetary mass. You should have some idea about whether inflation is high or low. But the basic point is that one worldview fits reality and the other doesn't, and that is how you decide who is likely right.

You can usually tell who has the big picture right and who is strung up on details...

Re:Incorrect Corrections

[Anonymous Coward]

they must be good citations, as in reputable.

THIS!!!

Note to roommate: The drudge, and anyone found on talk radio DO NOT FIT IN THIS CATEGORY!

"Rabid" is an appropriate word

[Baloroth]

Blogs like Prochronisms look at 'historical changes in language by algorithmically checking historical TV shows and movies.' They utilize tools like Google Ngram viewer to bust Mad Men, for example, for using terms or phrases in dialogue that didn't yet exist.

Really, no offense (ok, maybe a little offense), but this comes across (to me anyways) as slightly... sad. It's one thing if you are looking up a fact about the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere last year. But this is another thing completely. I think Ratatouille actually put it quite well:

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.

The grammar nazi or the fact checker is essentially a critic: someone who is basically incapable, or simply too lazy, to bother creating something worthwhile, so they spend their time criticizing other people's work instead. I think they do it largely to inflate their feeling of self-worth: after all, if they can see the flaws in other peoples' work, it must not be all that great.

The fact is in many of these cases, whatever "problem" they find is really totally and utterly insignificant. Honestly, I don't care if Mad Men uses phrases that weren't around in the 1960s: it's an enjoyable show with great characters, in my opinion. It would be one thing if it was horribly unrealistic or created a culture radically different from the real culture of the 60s, but the mere fact that they are "busting" Mad Men for using anachronistic phrases... I mean, I suppose you could complain about something more shallow than that, but I can't think of anything off the top of my head (wait, nevermind, speaking of the top of the head gave me an idea: they could complain about the hairstyles being just slightly off. Yeah, that'd be a bit more shallow). Can it be that there are people who literally have nothing better to do than find tiny errors in phrases in a critically acclaimed show? I suppose there is, but there really shouldn't be.

Of course, this is nowhere near as bad as the people seriously complaining on the Internet about the use of Comic Sans in the presentation announcing the discovery of the Higgs Boson. I don't even have a comment about that, really, besides that it's almost unbelievable, but that's the Internet, I guess.

Re:"Rabid" is an appropriate word

[Archangel Michael]

Which is exactly why I don't worry about "Troll" mods to my posts. These people don't know insight from incite. I once did an experiment where I posted exactly what I thought, but in the most straightforward and direct way possible. I was able to lower my Karma here on /. from "Excellent" to "Poor" in about a week. It took me
about a month to rebuild it back to "Excellent".

Heck, in the last week, I had a most that said "+2 Troll" because of all the various mods on it. I should have taken a screen shot :-D

  It is easy to get modded toll by those that mean "I disagree", which is why people should spend time meta modding

Re:"Rabid" is an appropriate word

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with meta-modding is that there is no payoff for the individual. And for someone like me who surfs at -1 and is apparently blacklisted from mod points despite having Excellent karma within about three weeks of making the account (years ago), it seems even more pointless. (In fact, I kind of wonder if my frequent meta-moderating lead to getting fewer mod points, not more.)

Re:"Rabid" is an appropriate word

[Archangel Michael]

Meta Moderation is supposed to find people who abuse Mod Points and reward them with no mod points in the future. Or so, that is what I'm guessing. The problem is, the same people Meta Modding are the same ones that get Mod points to begin with, so Group Think and the like are reenforced rather than eliminated.

A better system is one where people with a proven Moderation Record, stop getting Mod Points and instead get Meta Mod Points.

People like me know exactly how to get Modded up or down and can do it at will, without lying or being a troll just by tone of the point being made. I can make outlandish claims, and if I dress them up accordingly, can get those claims modded up or down. It isn't the claim that changes, it is the tone of the presentation. Think Nixon vs Kennedy

Re:"Rabid" is an appropriate word

[stephanruby]

Blogs like Prochronisms look at 'historical changes in language by algorithmically checking historical TV shows and movies.' They utilize tools like Google Ngram viewer to bust Mad Men, for example, for using terms or phrases in dialogue that didn't yet exist.

Really, no offense (ok, maybe a little offense), but this comes across (to me anyways) as slightly... sad. It's one thing if you are looking up a fact about the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere last year. But this is another thing completely. I think Ratatouille actually put it quite well:

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy...

You make a good point.

But I believe the Prochronisms blog was only included in Hugh Pickens list only because it makes for an interesting bit of trivia, not because it supports Pickens main thesis (about lies and half-truths) in any way.

The Prochronisms guy for instance seems to have no interest in making those anachronisms go away. He's just interested in the analysis. And from one of his quotes below, he seems to imply that only the Daily Mail and other media outlets are interested in making those types of discrepancies an issue.

Digital humanists like to talk about what insights about the past big data can bring. So in that spirit, let me talk about Downton Abbey for a minute. The show's popularity has led many nitpickers to draft up lists of mistakes. [...] the Daily Mail even managed to cast the errors as a sort of scandal.

So if anyone is sad in my opinion, I don't think it's the Prochronisms guy, it's more the news outlets like the Daily Mail and potentially other nitpickers who imply by their criticisms that they actually want something to be done about those anachronisms.

Nobody actually reads them

[Anonymous Coward]

Proof? That fact that people still believe that President Obama is a Muslim Socialist that is not a US citizen. And basically everything that's spewed on Talk Radio and the Fox News talking head; which I'd like to add, it is very interesting that all the women were short slit skirts and very high heels.

I noticed that Fox News female talking heads dress like strippers and whores. .... anyway...

My neighbor has Rush, Boortz and all those people blaring on his radio while he works on his house and while I'm in my yard, I can't help listening - unless I'm using a power tool.

It amazes me the half truths and bold face lies those Talk Radio people tell. And what kills me is that my neighbor NEVER even thinks to check as to the truth of what those people say. And then he parrots their bullshit like it's his own thoughts.

it is a learning experience. I try to monitor my own thinking that way. Sometimes I think it would be better to live under a rock - or at least turn all of this media shit off because I actually think I'd be better informed without it!

Re:Nobody actually reads them

[xstonedogx]

...it is very interesting that all the women were short slit skirts and very high heels.

I, too, find this interesting. Fox News you say? I'm going to have to check that out. Thanks!

Re:Nobody actually reads them

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there *was* that one study that showed people who expressly *didn't* keep up with or watch the news were better informed than people who watched Fox News.

Re:Nobody actually reads them

[gmuslera]

Is up to everyone to choose to live a fantasy or take the red pill and see the hard truth, maybe fantasy will make them to feel better, but still, they should to have the option. And is something pretty common, people bet at lotto hoping for the best, even if they know that could ask someone with clue to show them their real odds of it.

Creative License

[xstonedogx]

As an author and poet
I don't care if you know it,
that something is not a fact.

My fictional world is not
meant to be real. The thought!
Expecting me to redact!

Re:Creative License

[xstonedogx]

Dear mod,

Everyone is a critic. I'm sorry you don't like the poem. However, if you read the full summary, and the poem, you would realize that it is, in fact, quite on topic.

Sincerely,
Og

politifact

[Anonymous Coward]

"truthiness (Score:1)by Anonymous Coward writes: It would be nice if there were a running tally on each politician for how many times they distorted or lied about something
I want to know ho much truthiness each of these clowns emit."

There is, it is called Politifact.

Re:politifact

[SomeKDEUser]

Except they try so very hard to seem neutral that they put on the same level enormous lies which deny basic reality from one side with inexactitude from the other. So if you want a tally, politifact ain't it.

Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[GodfatherofSoul]

I'm done w/ politics after what I've been seeing this cycle. It's one thing when there are deliberate distortions coming from candidates, but it's another when media outlets play along to keep them in the news and fueling their programs for a few more days.

Two examples to be bipartisan. The whole "You didn't build that." comment from Obama. As soon as I heard it and saw the way it was being broadcast on TV chopped up, I knew immediately that the quote was being attributed with a false meaning. Based on past experience, I figured it would be a few more days before I ever heard the full quote. Sure enough...

As for Romney, he had his "I like to fire people" comment. While poorly phrased, he was obviously speaking in the context of a consumer shopping for services, not as an employer. Maybe a little bit subtle, but not so subtle that an adult wouldn't be able to decipher the meaning.

This is why our politicians talk like sterilized, focus-group driven robots. Even the slightest stumble in a speech gets blown up into a bullshit storm. I used to LOVE debating politics online, but nowadays you spend all your time debunking spin from a campaign and not really talking about issues. I'll still be voting alright, but I'm not in the game anymore.

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[SomeKDEUser]

See, the Obama case is clearly a huge lie: the sentence was ill-constructed and ambiguous, but the meaning was clear from context. The Romney one? Not so sure: he was talking about firing people providing services to him, in particular insurance providers, but by extension all manners of service providers. No one "likes" firing people. At least those of us who are not psychopaths... No one thinks of changing insurance as "firing".

You are trying to be fair, and to pretend both sides are equally guilty: not so. Only one side will outright lie...

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to LOVE debating politics online, but nowadays you spend all your time debunking spin

So Clinton and Regan didn't have spin?

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, hello, your bias is showing. It's like you didn't even try to look at it in an unbiased way. No one thinks of changing insurance as "firing"? Really? Do you make this stuff up?

  No one "likes" firing people? Have you ever watched "The Apprentice?" Not only do people like firing each other, they like watching people get fired.

Look harder for the facts that don't support your opinion, and you will be smarter.

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[Attila Dimedici]

Only one side will outright lie...

While I absolutely agree with that statement, I am pretty confident that you think it is the other side from the one I do. The Republican interpretation of Obama's "you didn't build that" is consistent with Obama's record. That is, Obama has shown a consistent pattern of considering all money as legitimately the government's and that people should be grateful that the government lets them keep some of it.

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, since government doesn't pay for anything (Businesses built everything) where did the money go that the government says it used to build roads? Why do we pay a single penny, or maybe we don't pay anything, to upkeep a national highway system? Where are the businesses that pay and maintain these things? Nobody plows my street in the winter, and I want to know what business to contact that is responsible for this road. It's not government right? Somebody is cleaning the street and maintaining the sidewalk. What business is it? And why does my city say part of my tax goes to road upkeep? Fucking liars.

Wait, you probably think every dollar the government "says" it puts into infrastructure is funneled to ACORN.

Most, if not all, of the things you mention got their inertia, money, technology, or some other "seed" from government spending. Government has a history of starting things then letting the private industry take over. Just because Space X will soon deliver cargo to the ISS doesn't mean that they did everything on their own. Musk readily admits that most of his company's tech is advanced designs of government work.

And my water is provided by my city. And my power is provided by a company that gets substantial grants, tax benefits, and a nice profit ensuring government granted franchise for my area. I doubt others have it much different.

Obama's point was simply business and government need to coexist not that businesses don't do anything. His "you didn't build that" was a statement about business owners who say they did everything on their own. They most likely didn't pay for nor build the road that allows customers to come to their door. The government did it or they paid someone to do it. Or like the guy Romney has used in his ad that got almost a million dollar grant from the government. Without that grant he's out of business. He made the business work, but the government helped him make it happen. It's synergy.

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[GodfatherofSoul]

You're an AC so I'm assuming you're trolling, but I'll answer. That quote was specifically about a bridge someone uses to get to work. Now, unless you manufacture bridges, you didn't build the bridge or the road you use to get to work.

You also didn't run the power lines, pay for the eletrical infrastructure, pay for the fuel infrastructure, pay for the education infrastructure that you're probably exploiting to hire employees who can read, write and count well enough to work for you, you didn't build the hospital just in case someone gets hurt on the job, you didn't pay for the law enforcement to protect your business and the safety of your workers at home and on the job, you didn't pay for the fire fighters who risk their lives should your business burst into flames, you didn't pay for the court system to address your grievances, you didn't pay for the military that protects you from raiding hordes of bandits from Canada and Mexico (and they WOULD exist if we didn't have a military) streaming in to steal our resources, and you probably didn't pay for the *fundamental* research your products are based on.

Yes, *A* business might have build some of those, but not YOUR business. And it's our collective tax revenue that funds these sweet amenities you call society. Your small contribution to a collective pool is what makes all of this infrastructure possible.

So, NO YOU DID NOT PAY FOR THAT.

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[khallow]

So Clinton and Regan didn't have spin?

No, I think he means that spin is much more widely distributed and proactive now than it used to be. For example, I'm pretty pro-libertarian. My sort of arguments are usually more or less straightforward: less government power, less government spending, greater personal freedom, rah rah rah. That's pretty straightforward to debate. You're familiar with the issues and can take an appropriate tact as suits your fancy.

Now, suppose we get started and then I start talking about Senator X's scandal. Ok, you look that up and see whether it's relevant or not. Ok, it's not really. You post that you don't see why I brought it up. Now I'm talking about a Social Security study that claims bankruptcy of the US by 2020. Umm, ok, that study looks kooky as hell and it comes from the Larouches, making it double kooky. You point that out. "What about Poodlegate!? That makes my point precisely!" I reply. Dubya Tee Eff. Someone's poodle is an honorary admiral or something. What's going on with this crazy person and why can't he bothered to stick to one subject? Oh, look eight links to Poodlegate and a smarmy one-liner. Maybe there's something on the TV worth watching.

What's going on is that I'm picking up half assed talking points from blogs and regurgitating them to you. It may be possible to keep up with flood of such talking points, but it's a lot more taxing than the good old days where we speculate on how many women, "Slick" might had have intimate relations with.

What's worse is when someone dumps a lot of link. This seems way too common in the AGW debates I get into. A poster will just dump ten links and tell me that shows everything they're trying to say. Odds are good they haven't done anything more than skim it slightly to see that it sort of matches the theme they're going for.

One of the features of the intarweb is that it provides ready made arguments for many occasions. There's a good chance someone has said something on it. But if the issue of any significance, then every ideological side will have taken one or more stands on the issue. So there's a lot more readily available ammunition for the avid googler or blog reader out there.

I think this can lead to some pretty lazy and insincere debates, where the time sink is all on the side of the person try to make a real debate of it.

Now I'm far from without sin in this area and have a bulldog tendency to never let go, but I've seen a lot of pointless back and forth arguments where each side just drags out talking point after talking point. You know neither side is listening, nobody reading in is going care, and that there's no reason for the argument aside perhaps from some sort of future equivalent of the archeological dig, assuming those bits survive the test of time.

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[Anonymous Coward]

GFoS, this is sorta painful to watch. What you are missing is that this is a a willful misunderstanding and you can't get it to go away by explaining it. If the republicans wanted to know what he said, they'd watch the clip and they'd know. But instead, what you're seeing here are circular justifications that do not address Obama's point at all -- but take heart.

Dems are going to vote for the Dem, as per usual.

Reps are going to vote for the Rep, as per usual.

And as always, always, always, it's the swing voters who will make the actual decision, and they *do* try to determine what is best, who is telling the closest to the truth, and so on. You never have to explain this stuff to them because they already know.

Consequently, Romney is absolutely unelectable. You can bet on it. Between abusing his dog, inability to speak publicly, hiding his tax returns, stumbling idiocy during his trip abroad, intent to "Bush II" us (which is exactly what bought us the current economic situation), predatory behavior at Bain, even his wife's "you people" gaffe -- and a huge list of further evidence of non-suitability -- no thinking voter could possibly place a vote for Romney.

In the meantime, under Obama, the jobs trends have reversed (check the graph... you can see the chaos the Bush administration wreaked on the jobs market), the credit card predators have been somewhat reined in, we're finally mostly out of Iraq, and we have at least the possibility of 30 million or so people getting access to healthcare.

Romney was the choice after the pizza guy, the crazy TX governor, etc... don't even worry about it. The only reason anyone even has the impression he could win is the news outlets spin it like it's really a competition so they can sell ads to an audience that is larger rather than smaller.

You watch. Romney has no chance. He's a bumbling incompetent on the one hand, and an ass on the other. Would he make an acceptable president? Hardly. You know it. I know it. And deep down, even the republicans know it.

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[khallow]

On the other hand, you did build your business. You did build that. The quote wasn't specifically about a bridge or other infrastructure.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didnâ(TM)t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet. The point is, when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.

Most people would agree that nothing happens in isolation. But in context, that quote sounds just as bad as it does out of context. He's clearly not talking about bridges at that point, but about the business. And why would someone claim that a business owner didn't create a business merely because they didn't create all of the infrastructure that the business uses?

There's only one reason to make such a speech. To rationalize higher taxes on business owners. The thing he misses is that his intended target, that business owner also helped pay for all that stuff he talks about, probably with an unusually large contribution. They paid for the roads and bridges, they definitely paid for their business, perhaps the internet, and definitely for the government. They built that just as much as anyone else. It is insulting for Obama to pretend otherwise.

And all that infrastructure you mention? That business paid its share. What's going on is that the governments, not just the federal, but also state and local have a lot more than just infrastructure in them. I doubt all that you mention costs more than a tenth of the combined budgets, IMHO the rest is entitlements and waste (and I have a very general definition of waste). If you want to pay for infrastructure, then everyone is paying a good rate. If you want to pay for all the social programs, the cost plus contracts, and the vast, built in waste to every government activity, then you need to tax someone more.

It's grotesquely insulting to play the "you didn't build that" card when the real problem is irresponsible spending by society and politicians such as Obama.

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[SomeKDEUser]

Thank you for illustrating the fact that for Republicans, "truth" is whatever delusion fits their particular belief about what their imagination makes them think ought to have happened.

You said it yourself: it is not what Obama said, but what you think he should have said to be consistent with the image you have of him. Truth is irrelevant.

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[error_logic]

Neither can win while the other denies. Both sides have people blinded by biases--and arguments that do nothing but prolong an imagined war. The real enemy is a mutual lack of respect, yet it runs rampant through the country...and the world.

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[Attila Dimedici]

NO, it is what he said, which is consistent with his actions. "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." Tell me how this translation is not what he meant. "If you have a business, you don't get credit for your hard work. Somebody else built the roads and bridges and other things that your business relies on. Therefore, you should be grateful that the government allows you to keep some of the money you make because you don't deserve that money any more than anyone else."

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a real failing in that quote. He should have said "You didn't build that *alone*", as in, you had to count on innumerable other services in society -- funded by everybody -- in order to have a viable business. All this stuff is presumed to already exist, such as employees that know how to read and write, probably thanks to the public education system, or roads and bridges that, sure, were built by business, but on behalf of and with money from the government. Businesses work because they contribute to infrastructure, and because everybody else does too. If businesses were the only ones contributing to that infrastructure, it would be a hell of a lot more difficult to run a successful business.

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[khallow]

I grant it includes the infrastructure as well as the business. It's still a disturbing thing for a sitting president to be saying.

At least Obama corrects himself, a week later, by attacking Romney for "twisting his words". It's a half-hearted, belated correction. Sorry, that's not sincere.

It's also worth noting that a few sentences before that, he says:

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back. They know they didnâ(TM)t -- look, if youâ(TM)ve been successful, you didnâ(TM)t get there on your own. You didnâ(TM)t get there on your own. Iâ(TM)m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)

If they paid taxes, and most of those people would have, then they have already given something back. If they contribute to charity and I bet most of them have to some degree, then they've given something back. Why does Obama claim otherwise? Once again we have a block of reasonable sounding prose (though no real reason for saying it) with little controversial phrases spicing it up. Seems part of a pattern to me. Like he meant to say what he said.

And while there are probably a small number of people who think they did it all, I doubt most people wealthy or otherwise have that illusion. So why pull out what looks to me like a straw man?

Let's get back to the original statement. Even if we grant that he really was just referring to infrastructure, what's the point of saying it? The business may not have built that infrastructure or made it happen, but neither did Obama. It was the work of a lot of people and it was paid for by a lot of people. Technically, no one person or entity made it happen.

The business contributed by paying taxes. And they might even have helped make it happen by building some component of the infrastructure in question. Here, I see insufficient gratitude here on the part of Obama, even if we assume he meant what you and he claim he meant.

Frankly, it looks like a classic Friday surprise propaganda trick. The leader says something controversial while speaking to the base on Friday (July 13 being coincidentally a Friday and the group being Obama supporters). It hangs in the newspapers for a couple of days over the weekend, and then his spokespeople spend Monday cleaning up ("What he really said was...").

If done well, the speaker gets the best of both worlds. He appears hard core to his base while retaining the appearance of a more central politician to everyone who doesn't watch or read news over the weekend and just reads the correction on Monday.

In my view, it didn't work this time because the statement was just too blatant. In summary, I think Obama meant to say what we think he said. It's part of a pattern (that even shows up a second time in the speech).

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[SomeKDEUser]

Sorry, but from a European perspective, Obama is a rather right-wing guy. In fact from a Republican-from-twenty-years-ago, Obama is pretty much were they stood in terms of implemented policy.

What Obama is saying is that taxes are necessary for your business to exist, because your business relies on the infrastructure of the nation. That if you think that your sole hard work and ingenuity are why you are successful, you are deluded.

And he is right, there are many hard working, clever people who don't make it!

If he were the socialist you paint him to be, he would have pointed out the importance of luck, but he remains an American politician, very much to the right of the World's mainstream. Instead he only pointed out to the importance of the support you get from the surrounding society.

So no, he did not say what you think he said. And in fact what he said was not very left-wing at all.

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[khallow]

And I agree. But what was the point of that part of the speech? I doubt there are many people, businesspeople or otherwise, who truly believe that their accomplishments are purely due to themselves. There's an earlier part a few sentences back where he briefly states that there are businesspeople who supposedly agree that they are giving nothing back to society (even though presumably they're paying taxes and giving to charity already).

To me this is a pattern. It says that "You didn't do all this yourself, thus, you owe us as much as we feel like taking".

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[Attila Dimedici]

The first problem is that it depends on your definition of "right wing". Since most Europeans define Adolf Hitler and Mussolini as being on the right wing (although not necessarily saying that anyone on the right wing is sympathetic to those two) and Stalin as being on the left wing, by European definitions Obama is right wing. The problem is that European definitions of "right" and "left" in politics are not particularly relevant in U.S. politics. The divide in European politics is over how government power should be exercised. The divide in U.S. politics is over how much power the government should exercise. The way U.S. politics defines "right" and "left", Adolf Hitler and Mussolini were as far "left" as Stalin.
The fact of the matter is that, for the most part, the "infrastructure of the nation" that businesses rely on is built by local and state government, not the federal government. Obama was arguing for expanding government and increasing taxes, yet the infrastructure he is pointing to in order to justify that is only a fraction of the federal budget. So, if you want to base your argument for taxes on the benefits he claims that government provides to those who are successful, we should actually be cutting government spending and taxes.
The other problem with his argument is, those other hard working, clever people have access to the same infrastructure as the one's who do make it. What is the difference between those who do make it and those who do not? I would argue the difference is something to do with the individuals and therefore his argument is pointless, because the key ingredient in those successful businesses is the person to whom Obama is saying, "you didn't build that."

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[SomeKDEUser]

Claiming that the debate is about "how much government" is denial of reality: you are asking "how much" of something which does not have a proper metric. It doesn't mean anything -- any measurable thing you can think of as proxy for the size of gvt, you will find is in fact down under Obama.

Claiming success depends on the individual is wrong, plain and simple: the single most important factor in predicting success is the wealth of your parents, in the US. It also denies chance: sometimes, you need to be at the right moment at the right place, and this does not depend on you.

Claiming Obama tries to expand the government is a lie: in the midst of a crisis, federal payrolls are down, which is unprecedented, and in large part responsible for the sluggish recovery. Also Bush expanded the federal budget by unprecedented amounts -- was he a socialist?

Even your claim that right and left are defined differently in the US is incorrect: no left-wing US person thinks Hitler is left-wing, but they will admit Stalin was.

Basically, all that you think is fabrication. You seem to believe it, which is to me astonishing, and illuminating. I did not know literate people had this Weltanschauung.

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[Attila Dimedici]

Two measurable metric of the size of the Federal Government, number of federal regulations, number of pages of federal regulations. Both are muchup under Obama.
Bush was not a conservative.
Perhaps no left wing person in the U.S thinks that Hitler was left-wing, but that is because they want to have the discussion on the basis of the European discussion. They want the discussion to be about how the government uses its power They do not want the discussion to be about whether the government should have that power in the first place. However, those on the right in the U.S. see no appreciable difference between Stalin and Hitler. Both thought the government should have power over everything. The fact of the matter is those on the right in the U.S. see no appreciable difference between any two European politicians.

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[SomeKDEUser]

The number of page of regulations? Seriously? Aside from the fact that it is a silly measure of red tape (interestingly, batshit insane ultra-right like it too in Europe), and that it is really hard to measure: one long federal regulation, may replace many special state rules, and the total is a net win, I will say [citation needed], and please, I would like a time series to at least the Carter administration.

"Bush was not a conservative", No True Scotsman, much?

Anyone who sees no distinction between Stalin and Hitler is an ignorant idiot. Not to say that both were not monsters, but the way repression was organised was different, and the way the economy was organised was different, and the social structures were different. Know your dictators: you never know which type will come up next time (in the US, the Hitler type is more likely than the Stalin type, but either would be a global disaster)!

Anyone who thinks that "how" government power is used is irrelevant to "how much" is an idiot. Seriously. Principled opposition to X on the basis that "X is X" is basically how we get bigotry, racism, extremisms of all sorts. It is an abdication of intelligence in favour of unthinking decision. It is Evil.

Anyone who sees no difference between Ed Miliband and Cameron, or Hollande and Sarkozy or Prodi and Berlusconi or Di Rupio and Geert Wilders is an ignorant idiot. Sorry, but this is true.

Ignorance is never a valid point of view, and all your arguments come down to "I refuse to know the difference".

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[Attila Dimedici]

There is no real difference between all of those men. They all believe that government is the source of all good in society. Anyone who believes that the distinction between Hitler and Stalin is relevant is a fool. The only difference between them is the excuses they used to justify their evil.

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no real difference between all of those men.

To be an AC dick... you're proving his point.

Re:Misrepresentations killing political discourse

[unitron]

The thing about Romney's "I like to fire people" comment is that he was using it in a context where anybody else would have said something about being able to take their business elsewhere.

I mean, I'm sure there must have been something like an ad for drain cleaner where someone says "I fired my plumber" or something along those lines, but in normal real life firing is what you do to employees, not to suppliers.

If he'd said "I like being able to take my business to someone who gives me a great product or service at a great price, and if they don't, I like to be able to take my business elsewhere.", well, who could disagree with that.

But the way he did say it gives off an entirely different vibe.

Changing times

[Anonymous Coward]

A long time ago when Europe was stuck with its ideological "wars" it was always refreshing to speak with Americans telling you things like "Stick to the facts", "Make decisions based on what you know, not what you think you know". That seems like eons ago. What happened?

Re:Changing times

[Anonymous Coward]

I am nearing 30 now, and I have never gotten that impression from my countrymen. I am actually relatively surprised that us Americans have yet to completely devolve into animals again. Take it from me, I am certain that the number of ill informed, emotional, and downright screwed up people has reached more then 60% of the populace. I wish I had known the Americans you speak of, it might of given me hope.

All well and good, except... facts don't matter.

[theNAM666]

the vast majority of the voting public, simply doesn't care. There could be an online database that checked what every congresscritter etc said, and the average Joe would still vote by party and personal prejudice. (Or as Lakoff puts it: according to their favorite frame).

In the view of the Average Joe. Q. Proleblius, facts don't matter; in fact I rather suspect, they don't even exist.

There are no facts...

[cvtan]

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche

The problem with facts....

[dremspider]

Is you can tell the truth, and still completely misrepresent the information. To see how this works, I will differ to Jon Stewart... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/26/jon-stewart-you-didnt-build-that_n_1705264.html Recently I saw someone post on facebook "how ridiculous it was that olympians needed to pay $9K in taxes to the US". I though.. man that is ridiculous, I am sure very few athletes are going to go and sell their medals, though some athletes would have difficulty paying for that tax bill. Then I do 5 seconds of googling and find out, that they are payed $25K for each gold medal, and are simply paying on that... to top it off, to pay that the athletes would need to be in the upper tax bracket meaning they aren't struggling for cash. In other words, it is simply income and therefore they need to pay taxes on it. I mentioned it and they commented back thanks, that makes more sense though usually people get pissy because it doesn't fit with their idealogy. Then you find out that Romney, Foxnews and everyone trying to convey taxes are evil are repeating this same mis representation of the facts.

So...

[englishknnigits]

who checked the headline for accuracy? If you didn't, then the headline is wrong.

Re:So...

[tbird81]

Everybody's a fact checker. Except of course for the Slashdot editors - they don't waste time with such minutiae.

Slashdot moderators and facts

[Anonymous Coward]

Yesterday, on an article about the Wikipedia, I posted a comment about how the Wikipedia fails to mention a relevant fact. This comment was immediately modded down to oblivion by an anonymous moderator as a "troll", which I interpret as "someone who posts something probably not true and probably against the poster's own beliefs in order to start a flame war".

I find it very Orwellian that a moderator would mod this article like this. The article, for people who won't follow the link points out that:

* Wikipedia's "Mitt Romney" article devotes over 120 words to Mitt's high school years.

* The article in no way, shape, or form discusses Mitt's bullying behavior in high school. Behavior which Mitt has never denied doing.

* This is an example of Wikipedia not accurately reporting facts.

I am a great admirer of Orwell's works, and I find it very disturbing that both Wikipedia editors and moderators here at Slashdot are doing their utmost to put this information about Mitt's high school behavior in a memory hole. Suppression of facts is not Conservative; it is downright fascist.

I'll bet the same moderators that put my comment from yesterday in a memory hole will do the same with this comment.

Re:Slashdot moderators and facts

[Jiro]

Wikipedia has rules for biographies of living people, many of which are just the same rules used elsewhere, but which they really mean this time.

One of those is undue weight. Wikipedia is not allowed to put more prominence on an event in a person's life than it actually has. Even if the event is important in showing what he's really like, it's not what he's primarily known for and isn't the first topic that comes up when talking about him (at least not to more than a minority of people). He is known as a politician, not as a bully.

Re:Slashdot moderators and facts

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, trust me, I'm familiar with Wikipedia's rules. WP:BLP. It does not say what you think it says. In particular, the purpose of WP:BLP -- summarized as "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced--whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable--should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion" -- is to stop improperly sourcing material from appearing in someone's biography; it became Wikipedia policy after someone was accused of being part of a killing conspiracy with no references or other reliable information backing up the assertion, and Wikipedia being shamed in the media for this.

Romney's bullying incident does not violate WP:BLP because the accusations have been made and repeated in a number of reliable sources: Starting with the original Washington Post report and by countless other well-renowned news reporting sources, such as The New York Times, Fox News, the BBC, etc.

WP:UNDUE states that "Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." A Google search for "Romney Cranbrook site:news_source.com" and clicking on the first link is how I found the above articles (I put in "Romney Cranbrook" in BBC's search box instead of using Google but got the same results). The only significant reporting about Romney's days at Cranbrook in the mainstream press has been about this bullying incident. Wikipedia's Mitt Romney article violates WP:UNDUE. It violates WP:UNDUE because the only significant view about Romney's days at Cranbrook posted by reliable sources is about his bullying incident. Wikipedia has over 120 words describing his days at Cranbrook but not a single mention of his bullying.

The bottom line is this: There is a group of people who are trying their utmost to engage in Orwellian 1984-style suppression of Mitt Romney's high school bullying incident at the Wikipedia. So far, they have succeeded. This kind of deliberate suppression of information is not Conservative; it is downright fascist. The fact that some moderators here at Slashdot have tried to suppress my postings pointing out this Orwellian behavior does not impress me with this site.

Re:Slashdot moderators and facts

[Jiro]

The only significant view about Romney's days at Cranbook, as reported in the mass media in the period before the election when political campaigns are in full swing, is his bullying.

That's not the same as "the only significant view is about his bullying". Rather, it means that political campaigning causes a temporary emphasis on things that otherwise aren't emphasized as much. Wikipedia doesn't give weight to incidents the same way they are weighted during a political campaign, but rather how they would be weighted in the long term.

Re:Slashdot moderators and facts

[Anonymous Coward]

Me again. Since I'm anonymous, I'll tell you a little about my personal life. I was a victim of some fairly nasty bullying when I was in secondary school in the US. One of the most nasty bullies--who even at the age of 13 or 14 had a pretty serious drinking problem--considered himself a conservative Republican. He also would harass me by calling me a "wussy" and one time when no one was watching, verbally harassing me and putting make up on me then hitting me, saying I was a pussy about to cry when I complained.

That monster from my childhood, to me, is the face of conservative politics in the United States. The bottom line is this: Mitt Romney, according to five witnesses, did an even nastier bullying incident, forcibly cutting off the hair of a kid. When numerous editors try to point out this on the Wikipedia, the old guard acts like bullies and erases any mention of his bullying. When it comes to abusive, silence is consent. The editors who have succeeded in putting Mitt Romney's cruel high school behavior in a memory hole are encouraging children to bully their classmates on the playground and have today's kids be traumatized the way I was as a kid.

I can not assume good faith on the part of those who wish to silence criticism or even acknowledgment of Romney's cruel high school behavior. They want people to act like monsters like the monsters who bullied me so long ago.

In terms of Wikipedia policy, WP:CRYSTAL. It is speculation to say that, after the election, Mitt Romney's high school years will be remembered for anything besides his incident being a bully. It is not the job of Wikipedia editors to speculate how Romney will be remembered in the long term. I know that I will always remember him as being a high school bully.

Re:Slashdot moderators and facts

[Anonymous Coward]

My final comment on this: I accept the current version of the Mitt Romney article as a reasonable compromise. I acknowledge that he did a lot of other things in high school besides this bullying incident. Unlike the bully who attacked me so long ago, I don't think he ever had a drinking problem (The "Word of Wisdom" that Mormons follow is a good guide for living) and has accomplished far more than that bully will ever do.

avoiding the root problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Would these Fact Checker Organisations exist if the Media weren't allowed to actively lie?
Would these Fact Checker Organisations exist if government officials were held accountable for corruption?

As we review the contents of the current Fact Checker sites, we'll notice that both sides lie plenty, and that the system is long overdue for wholesale cleansing by fire.

Soon, there will be just as much misinformation provided by a sites claiming to be Fact-Checkers.

Why? Because they know they can get away with it. They know you can't reach them in their mansion, you can't find out who they ever are, nor who is funding the original shit peddlers.

Oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

http://xkcd.com/250/

They have their dark side.

Not EVERYBODY is a fact-checker

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans don't care about facts.

Tea Party members (aka Teabaggers) don't care about facts.

Cultist followers of Ron Paul don't care about facts.

9/11 conspiratards don't care about facts.

The list goes on and on...

We need crowd-sourced fallacy-checkers.

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not share the author's satisfaction. Most, of not all of the fact checkers are inconsistent and sometimes arbitrary in what facts they choose to check and what standards to hold them up to. And none of them check for formal - or informal- fallacies. A thing can be completely accurate in its facts, and yet be chalked full of fallacies that not only mislead the reader, but by encouraging them to be as lazy in logic, lower their I.Q. What we need is a crowd-sourced fallacy-checking site. Where the entire public not only checks for facts, but also relevancy (eg non-sequitur) and intellectual honesty.

Well I've always said politicians were full of

[NotSoHeavyD3]

shit, the only real question is it dog, bull, human, or horse?

Facts are great

[mdarksbane]

But now someone needs to start doing this for predictions.

Every time someone comes on and says X will help the economy, or our schools will collapse without Y, or that we'll all die to terrorists if we don't do Z... no one ever comes back in five years and calls them on it.

I want to know which politicians and pundits are making up horrible scenarios to help their own power, and which ones are making honest assessments of what is likely to happen.

I don't want to take economic advice from the guy who said that home prices could never go down. I don't want to hear about gun control from someone who said things would turn into the wild west if we passed concealed carry. I don't want to hear about lowering the cost of something from people whose budget estimates were off by a factor of 10.

I want a prediction-checker. It's still pretty easy to lie with facts if you don't ever have to check whether you picked the right facts or not.

People believe what they want to believe.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless they are being told something they don't want to hear, they're not likely to argue or disagree.

Fact checking is where journalism meets law

[Anonymous Coward]

People check facts so they won't get sued.

I don't see the First Amendment exception for journalism lasting long because the power that it wields over the public. Eventually the distinction of law and journalism will be blurred to the extent that Congress and/or the states may need to act. Journalism will eventually have the same track as law. Four years of college and x years of graduate education in J-school. One is awarded a Journalism Doctor. One will have to pass a PRESS EXAM like a BAR EXAM. One will have to swear to uphold the Model of Professional Conduct. Then one may be "called to the Press". Journalists will become like Solicitors in nations with split legal professions, as they do research, yet do not appear in court apart from an attorney.

David Brooks (NYT) said it best

[whitefox]

Dullest Campaign Ever - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/opinion/brooks-dullest-campaign-ever.html

"Finally, dishonesty numbs. A few years ago, newspapers and nonprofits set up fact-checking squads, rating campaign statements with Pinocchios and such. The hope was that if nonpartisan outfits exposed campaign deception, the campaigns would be too ashamed to lie so much.

"This hope was naïve. As John Dickerson of Slate has said, the campaigns want the Pinocchios. They want to show how tough they are. But the result is a credibility vacuum. It’s impossible to take ads seriously. They are the jackhammer noise in the background of life."

Re:David Brooks (NYT) said it best

[Areyoukiddingme]

Over 100 posts to finally get to the one that matters. I push the mute button on all commercials, really, but especially campaign commercials. I know it will be such a wildly distorted lie that there's no point in even hearing it. That there's no point in even bothering to look up the facts. It's too much trouble to look up every single claim in these ads. Worse, on the rare occasions when I'm not fast enough on the mute button and some of it leaks through, it just pisses me off. I KNOW I'm hearing a lie, no matter whose ad it is or what it's about. It's gotten to the point where a campaign ad could claim nothing but "puppies are cute" and I wouldn't believe them.

Jackhammer noise indeed.

Re:David Brooks (NYT) said it best

[Anonymous Coward]

IMO this is the inevitable result of an environment our news media have created in recent years. Politicians, like most people, respond to incentives, and the media has created two sets of incentives that make politicians dull and generally useless:

1. The media stopped bothering to educate the public on the actual issues, and instead turned political coverage into a tabloid-style, he-said-she-said story. This is mostly useless for the purposes of informing us about a politician's governance plans. But unlike actual journalism, it costs almost nothing to produce and gives the 24/7 talking heads gossip to blabber about until the next fake controversy. The result is that political campaigns have an incentive to spend time promoting bullshit personal attacks rather than solutions. For example, that dumb story about how Romney is supposedly so mean for putting his puking dog in an animal carrier on his car roof, or the corresponding response about how Obama is supposedly so mean for eating dog when overseas.

2. The media will hound you and sensationalize whatever small downsides your plan has. But if you have no plan, you will mostly get a pass on criticism. Thus the smart money is on proposing nothing. A campaign has a better chance proposing nothing concrete, spewing personal attacks, and trying to eke our that 0.5% margin of victory.

RIGHTEOUS ATTRIBUTION!

[khallow]

The problem here is that private funding taints public and vice versa. There is no clean division of like unto like. Similarly, no clean division of purpose or enabling into public and private. So the road was built with funds that are both public and private, and labor that is both public and private. It was similarly driven by purposes both public and private.

One can argue that every endeavor was made possible by the public side and by the private side. For everything is tainted by the activities of each. It's a really confusing mess that doesn't need to be so. It leads to moral drift, decadence, and a purposeless existence!

Fortunately, I have a simple solution to this problem. We'll tear down all these half-assed structures DOWN to the very ground. Those public/private roads will be TORN to pieces, the homes of dubious origin SHATTERED, buildings TRASHED, cars MELTED DOWN, everything taken down to its SMALLEST constituent pieces: DUST AND GRASS. Each thing will be assigned "PUBLIC" or "PRIVATE" with no mixing AND NO SWITCHING!! And then we'll rebuild society as it SHOULD have been done, with CLEAN sharp divides between what is PUBLIC and what is PRIVATE.

No one shall be able to say, "but this car is one part in ten PUBLIC therefore it is PUBLIC" or "This road has PRIVATEly painted stripes on it, therefore it is PRIVATEly made". This society will be CLEAN. It will be RIGHTEOUS. WHITE will be WHITE, BLACK will be BLACK. NO FUCKING SHADES OF GRAY ALLOWED PEOPLE!!!

And if some ne'erdowell should put PRIVATE lines on PUBLIC roads, we shall with our community action committee (which is neither public or private, it's sort of a quasi-non profit, charity kind of thing. Um, you know, like a church, but no pope,um maybe with a little Gestapo/Stasi secret police thing poured in there) cleanse the TAINT with ATOMIC FIRE HOTTER THAN THE CORE OF THE SUN!!!!

If they drive that one tenth PUBLIC beater on the 100% PURE road we shall center a LAKE OF GLASS on their (former) location!!!!!

This argument shall NEVER happen AGAIN!!!!!!

Fact checkers: voluntary DoS victims

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Liars can make things up faster than honest people can check them, and the liars know it.

Liars have nothing to lose. Their followers won't abandon them. Their followers will be too busy retweeting the next lie to notice that the previous one was disproven.

Fact checking yields the initiative to the liars and lets them set the agenda. Fact checking hands the liars blank checks payable with the fact checker's time.

Better to build reputation scores for public figures based on a reasonable sample of their utterances, and stop paying attention to the ones who prove themselves to have no credibility.

Of course!

[jameshofo]

This is why news stories are crafted from blog's that are completely fabricated... er wait

If you've read "The Third Wave"....

[MtViewGuy]

...This does not surprise anyone.

When Alvin Toffler's book came out in 1980, the most prophetic chapter in that book was called "De-Massifying the Media." Once the public Internet took off in the first half of the 1990's, the cost of a single person being able to disseminate information on a huge scale dropped dramatically, especially with full web sites, weblogs, and now with the social media sites Facebook and Twitter. In fact, Wikipedia has become in many ways a practice ground for "crowd sourced" fact checking.

As such, Toffler's prediction in 1980 that as communications technology improve, the days of unfettered control by big media conglomerates will come to an end. Why do you think newspapers and news magazines are rapidly dying? What hurts newspapers and news magazines is the fact they are _too slow_ in disseminating news; news web sites, news discussion sites like Reddit and Twitter/Facebook can do it almost as fast as the event happens.

Well, there is

[microbox]

It would be nice if there were a running tally on each politician for how many times they distorted or lied about something

Well, there is!

Stride on over to politifact, which gives the claims, rates them (true ==> pants-on-fire), and gives a referenced analysis why. They even analyse internet chain letters and other such claptrap.

fact-checks are cross-referenced to the person who made the claim, so you can see, for example, the truthiness of Obama, and Romney, or, if you prefer bat-shit-insane, Palin, and Bachmann.

GPs point still stands,

[microbox]

I agree that it matters a lot, and I like the fact that Palin managed to say something true; however, the GPs point still stands. It is very difficult to quantify the relative importance of ideological mistakes. (I don't like the term lying, since I do not believe that people know when they are lying for the most part.)

In this case, I think politifact was dead on, in getting the context correct. There are a lot of people getting food-stamps. This has many pernicious effects -- not least subsidising businesses who pay minimum wage. Think about it: if the food-stamps didn't exist, then those families would have to: starve, steal, demand more income. Since the food-stamps do exist, McDonalds can pay $6 per hour, and a family can barely get by on that.

This is just another example of complex regulations creating bizarre local minima in the economy. I believe that with regulation, less is more -- however, if I could borrow a metaphor from physics -- "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." Albert Einstein. This last point is something that movement conservatives completely don't get.

Getting back to the GPs point -- if I told 10 truths (say about my taxable income), and then lied about how much time I spent on slashdot, is that the same truthiness as someone who told 10 truths (say about how much time they spent on slashdot), and then lied to the IRS? Obviously not. The size of the lie matters, and that means measuring context as well.

Re:GPs point still stands,

[techno-vampire]

(I don't like the term lying, since I do not believe that people know when they are lying for the most part.)

But if they don't know that what they're saying is a lie, it isn't one. Lying is when somebody says something that the know is untrue. Their statement isn't true, but it's not a lie if they honestly think it's true.

i come away with the opposite opinion

[Anonymous Coward]

everybody is lying. what do the facts have to do with it?

T Mobile Advertising

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who is somewhat offended by the T Mobile advertisement that prevented me from being able to see the content, move the "pop-up" or otherwise consume the information here?
This is a slippery slope...where vendor abuse their power over your content.
Get a grip!
Just my opinion...you be the judge.

Snopes

[illtud]

And don't forget Snopes, the grandaddy of online truth-telling.

And don't forget that Snopes started out on alt.folklore.urban, the great-grandaddy of truth-telling (and trolling, when it meant something different).

I donno

[Anonymous Coward]

In my personal recent history(anecdotal, sure, but that's where theories begin), I have to disagree and say that hardly anyone ever checks any facts. I see so many flat out false statements on facebook and in email that I can barely keep up w/ checking them. My favorite category of lies tend to be ones that have references that don't exist or are just wrong. When I say the references are wrong, I don't mean that I disagree with the reference material, but that the reference material disagrees with the referencer. My favorite recently was something about the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" or Obamacare, if you prefer. It called out a particular page and line, page 126, line 22, as proof that Obama is giving tax money to radical Islamists or other such nonsense. The particular subsection is about the individual mandate as says nothing about distribution of taxes, religious institutions, etc. You can believe what you want, but if you're going to reference something. Check it first so you don't sound like a complete idiot.