Everyone Hates Fact Checkers (E299)
Despite Travis’ best efforts, it’s still possible to occasionally read posts on the internet that are not perfectly accurate. In fact, Travis’ failure to turn networking technology into primarily a means of rationally exchanging ideas and substantive policy issues has forced media outlets all over the globe to employ so-called “fact checkers.”
To get a better handle on this phenomenon (for which, to reiterate, podcast host Travis View bears most of the blame) we spoke to the hardest working man in online fact checking: BBC Verify Senior Journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh. For years, he has tracked and reported on viral falsehoods, both silly and deadly, in many countries.
We discuss how Shayan got into this unique discipline of journalism, his response to the criticism that “fact checking” primarily serves the reinforcement of establishment narratives, research which suggests fact checkers are less trusted than other kinds of reporters, the rise of deep fakes, atrocity denial, and how to maintain trust as a fact checker.
Thanks for subscribing to QAA on patreon.
Shayan Sardarizadeh
BBC Verify
https://www.bbc.com/news/reality_check
Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)
SOURCES
The Onion: Factual Error Found On The Internet
https://theonion.com/factual-error-found-on-internet-1819566445/
Nieman Lab: Readers are more suspicious of journalists providing corrections than journalists providing confirmations
Rolling Stone: Right-Wingers Heartbroken by Picture of Little Girl Who Doesn’t Exist
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/ai-girl-maga-hurricane-helene-1235125285/
Washington Post: Viral attack on Walz features fake former student making false claim
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/10/21/tim-walz-matthew-metro-video/
Newsweek: Gaza War Death Toll Passes 43,000, Palestinian Health Ministry Reports
https://www.newsweek.com/gaza-war-deaths-surpass-43000-palestinian-health-ministry-reports-1975910
BBC: False claims of staged deaths surge in Israel-Gaza war
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67760523
UN News: Rights expert finds ‘reasonable grounds’ genocide is being committed in Gaza
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147976
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: Türk says world must act as darkest moment of Gaza conflict unfolds
Comments (33)
As a latecomer, and to other latecomers… I’m halfway through the episode, getting into the bit about twitter… Shayan raises the example of fact checkers getting suppressed by algorithms on (unknown?) social media platforms, prior to Elon’s takeover, hence Elon’s promise of free speech being attractive. I’m a bit bemused - when and where did such suppression happen? And more critically - Elon’s reputation prior to his twitter takeover was already fairly poor. How could his claims be seen as anything but free speech absolutism? And then subsequent glossing over the destruction of the preexisting blue checkmark system while weirdly picking on community notes for its imperfections when it really was a single crutch propping up a broken system on its last legs… And comparing twitter (previously well-established as a platform for journalists and numerous official voices) misinformation with TikTok (primarily entertainment) misinformation… I doubt this guest has actual insight
Then subsequently in the discussion about the GenAI puppy flood images… The guest seems to exemplify the glaring impotence of all fact checkers - that they are two steps behind the culture, doing the “ermm actually” and struggling to grasp that people know that something is false, but actively (consciously, or by suspension of belief)receive and amplify it. There has to be some discussion about “the fact I believed it says a lot about society”. But instead fact checkers are still flailing about in the minutiae, choking on the dust of the right’s gishgallops.
Check this out. There's a new LLM that seems to be changing minds on conspiracy theories. You can check it out on Debunkbot.com. I heard about it on the podcast episode 299 of "You Are Not So Smart". Maybe QAA could try it.
relevant to the discussion about twitter's "community notes" feature, here's some real interesting reporting on that very feature and how it's being actively gamed and abused: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/toxic-x-users-sabotage-community-notes-that-could-derail-disinfo-report-says/
I had an interesting conversation with the 12 year old son of my MAGA neighbor recently. The boy said he learned in church that words held only the meaning assigned to them by each individual. For example= "What's your favorite color?" he asked me. I said blue. He said "" I call that color pink! Because that's MY favorite color!" Help me, Spock.
trump creep sounds like 10-15% peter griffin
Where is Julian?
On vacay?
regarding the internet serving you what you want: I am in a flat earth group on fb (I'm team globe) and a flat earther posted her 35 page conversation with an AI chatbot where she bullied and cajoled it into agreeing with her the earth is flat and we are in the end times, apocalypse imminent.
Team globe! We are the whirled! (Terrible pun sorry could not resist)
I'm going bananas. Does anyone else listen to The Case by Barstool Sports? The host, Kirk Minihane's voice is a dead ringer for Travis's voice.
At some point this happened to me, I don’t listen to the case but it was on somewhere that I was near (bro in laws car? Can’t remember) but had that same Deja vu, “wait this sounds like someone else” and later wondered if maybe Travis has been a guest and I hadn’t registered that. Dude sounds super similar!
I think what the listeners really want is a Jake Trump singing creep
Amazing episode and incredible post credits content.
Is that supposed to be Trump singing creep?
Great episode. AI trump singing Creep was amazing. Still waiting for that DaVinci Code movie night!
Wait, did Jake just call into being the Second Coming of Hitler??
Something that was missing from this episode; what happens when the fact checkers aren't just wrong, but maliciously obfuscating? I'm specifically thinking of Polifact "Lie of the year" from 2011 that criticized Democrats for claiming that Republicans had voted to destroy Medicare. The number of angels dancing on pinheads needed by Polifact to claim this was a lie was astonishing. In this spirit, fuck Glenn Kessler.
I was hoping for that too but Shayan sort of touched on it in a roundabout way by discussing how the role of a good fact checker is to hold those in powers to account and not be there to protect and shield them from accountability
A fascinating episode with a very interesting man. I was taken by the comment that people just live in bubbles and that’s true of left/liberal folk like me. There perhaps should be more discussion of just how we got to this position - it all seemed much less polarised when I was young.
#VegansForPalestine "As long as there are slaughter houses, there will always be battlefields" - Tolstoy Free Palestine! 🇵🇸
Dehumanisation as a concept and process exists in the first place in large part because of an unspoken agreement that it's ok to treat other animals like they are not autonomous beings who can suffer. Break the agreement!
The public health crisis of the COVID pandemic hasn't ended, it's entered a different phase.
Fact check this: The WHO has yet to declare that the pandemic is over. 2024 article warning of health risks of repeat COVID infections, quoting the technical lead on COVID at the WHO, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove: "The pandemic continues Whether we acknowledge it or not, the world is still in a pandemic, Van Kerkhove said, citing the virus’s lack of a seasonal pattern, which many respiratory pathogens have, and its continued, rapid-pace evolution." https://fortune.com/well/2024/01/12/covid-jn1-pandemic-world-health-organization-warns-dangers-repeat-covid-infection-cardiac-pulmonary-neurologic/
I don't know I think maybe we should be stopping generative AI, does it really have benefits that outweigh the costs? I mean it consumes so much resource for so little value, just to automate more and put more people in jobless poverty.
AI is dystopian, with some positive side effects. Like capitalism is.
Great ep as always! On the topic of fact checker suspicion, I think a more historical view is also warranted. I particularly liked this (linked below), which hopefully Travis reads cause it's sort of a new avenue of inquiry into why people don't like fact checkers, compared to the framing used by the research he has been mentioning recently! https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-refs-are-working-us
Great ep. Feels weird to remember back when they started talking about deepfakes, because I thought it was too crazy to be true. Since then....ah....
Non relevant and apropos of nothing - @jess c -that’s such a cute dog!
Nebraska mentioned!
Woah did you guys know these have descriptions? I had only ever seen comments
Where is julian?
Shayan is the man! He’s the best reason to be on Twitter.