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CDC data are disappearing

(www.theatlantic.com)
749 points doener | 1 comments | 01 Feb 25 11:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.213s | source
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breadwinner ◴[01 Feb 25 20:59 UTC] No.42902252[source]▶
Data is the ultimate Fact Check. This is a President that's adamantly opposed to fact checking [1] and has even coerced Facebook to drop fact checking. Of course they don't want data on government sites that disprove their "alternate facts".

[1] https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4920827-60-minutes-tru...

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djfobbz ◴[01 Feb 25 23:30 UTC] No.42903684[source]▶
Data isn't the ultimate fact check - it's just numbers waiting to be twisted. Bias, bad sources, and cherry-picking turn 'facts' into fiction. Real fact-checking needs brains, not just bar graphs.
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darth_avocado ◴[02 Feb 25 01:04 UTC] No.42904445[source]▶
> Data isn’t the ultimate fact check

But it is. Numbers can be twisted, but it they can easily be verified. Bias, bad sources and cherry picking can allow you to tell stories, but the data will allow you to verify those stories are indeed facts. Brain can’t really fact check things that don’t have any data.

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1. tombert ◴[02 Feb 25 01:18 UTC] No.42904555[source]▶
I'm not sure I agree.

Even if the numbers are accurate, nearly any situation has a nearly infinite number of potential data points, and deciding which ones are relevant isn't as straightforward as people act like it is.

This is easy to see play out; you can look at the same stories being reported on both Fox News and MSNBC. Usually both sources' raw facts will be basically "correct" in the sense that they're not saying anything explicitly false, but there can be bias in determining which facts are actually useful or how they're categorized.

You can see how the reporting of the January 6th stuff varied between news outlets.