[1] https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4920827-60-minutes-tru...
But I don't think I've ever seen that done actually. Usually, fact checkers are akin to Reddit moderators. Technically independent, but with one important twist. These are people that have a lot of free time and are willing to spend it doing unpaid (or underpaid) work. And that's a huge bias. Big enough to question impartiality, if you ask me.
“But this tool, initially perceived as a new arena for free speech, has become a serious danger to it and to the respect for personal dignity,” point out organizations such as Cimade, France Nature Environment, Greenpeace France, and APF France Handicap in an op-ed published in Le Monde.
Their primary concerns include “the lack of moderation and the configuration of algorithms” which “encourage the spread of hateful content and the circulation of conspiracy and climate skeptic theories.”
[1] https://glassalmanac.com/87-french-groups-including-emmaus-g...
You know that you're writing this in a post about how the current Republican administration has been scrubbing massive amounts of scientific data from government websites, right?
I don't see how Greenpeace is at all relevant here.
Notice how things like eg the federal reserve data does not disappear because it is protected by legislation. We should be asking not why is it disappearing, but why didn't we enshrine preservation of data in law?
This removal expresses not just a differing policy but a contempt for facts themselves.
> I think the answer to that question is more nuanced than we may like to believe
What is this, the X Files? Vague allusions like this don't make you look wise, they make you look like you're making stuff up to win internet points.
It's a fundamental problem of scale, you either become so bogged down in details and nuance that you get nothing done or you lose so much context that your statements are false without a massive list of caveats.
Your point is: politicians lie. Of course they do. They always have.
What's new in our era is not the lying, but the utter contempt for facts. A study in contrasts:
* A "traditional politician" will lie. If they are caught, with plain evidence that contradicts their claim, they will evade, or reframe, or apologize, or blame someone else.
* A "Trumpian politician" will lie. If he is caught, with plan evidence that contradicts their claim, he will flatly oppose the facts. He'll invoke a vague conspiracy of evildoers who concocted the alleged facts. People believe him because he is charismatic and he talks like a regular person. He gaslights: believe me, he says, not your common sense and lyin' eyes.
So we're in a conundrum where many people have lost their ability to believe in facts, and instead believe a con-man. The problem is not just dishonesty, it is demoralization (in the psychological warfare sense of the word[1]).
EDIT: I read somewhere that Trump's superpower is lack of shame. A weaker politician concedes to facts out of respect for his audience: to deny a plain truth would be embarrassing.
I'm not so sure many people really believe him very often. I live in a part of the country that heavily supported Trump, even diehard fans of his that I talk to consider him a shit talker and support him only because he throws a wrench in the system.
Even those I know who do seem to believe him cave pretty quickly when asked any slightly substantive question. They know tariffs raise prices for example, that we aren't going to buy Canada or take over Greenland, and that Trump in fact had no plan to end Russia's war on day one.
Interesting insight, thanks.
Well, if that's what they want, that's what they get. I guess I can't understand an attitude that leads you to want to destroy your own country.
The voters that call themselves "conservatives" these days will saw off their feet at the ankles, if it means that a member of a class they hate loses their legs.
When someone is wrong, you can correct them. When someone is lying, i.e. knowingly spreading falsehood in an effort to manipulate an audience, it's vitally important to call them out on it. People need to recognize who is using misinformation as a weapon. The points of highlighted are manipulative rhetorical techniques, not merely bad arguments. These people need to be identified and shunned, especially in a place as committed to dialogue as HN.
Sorry you don't like my phrasing. What method would you suggest to call alarm to a dishonest actor in a public space?
A righteous condemnation with no proof and all feelings is exactly the soil the grows facism.
Good point. In fact, I can't even prove that America exists. I can't prove that you're real person, or that I'm typing on a computer, or that I even exist. My own eyes could be deceiving me. I am condemned to a universe full of impenetrable doubt.
I should probably just ignore reason and logic, and instead spend my days shivering and alone, unable to interact with a world where so much is forever unknowable.
Of course, you can't prove that I can't prove that grepfru_it is lying, so really it would be you who should consider your own ignorance. I assume that a sage like yourself has already internalized your own advice and that you strictly avoid engaging in news or debate, since all externalities are unproveable. Right?