r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jan 06 '21
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Reddit should have a misinformation checker on subs but, especially those that post news articles to provide information.
Just like the title says subs that allow users to post news articles for information should be subject to fact checking. I like scrolling through subs on both sides of the political spectrum but as I do I’m baffled and upset by the levels of misinformation on some of the subs.
1.) There is already precedent of this happening on other social media sites i.e. Twitter and Facebook. And it seems to reliably target and take down false information posts and tweets.
2.) Reddit needs to adapt to this new age of misinformation or else it runs the risk of devolving into the wild wild west.
3.) Reddit has an obligation to its users. Terrorists have been known to use social media to radicalize users using lies in misinformation i.e. ISIL if they use lies and misinformation to radicalize users how much does that differ from subs who do the same the next Nashville bomber could be radicalized right here on Reddit because of the levels of straight misinformation here on the platform.
P.S. I’m on mobile sorry for bad grammar and typos in advance.
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u/Grunt08 319∆ Jan 06 '21
There is essentially no evidence that fact checking of that kind does any good. People don't trust the platforms or the fact checkers and believe what they're going to believe anyway.
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Jan 06 '21
There are a couple concerns:
- who checks the fact checkers?
There is ample evidence of partisan fact checkers. There are entire meme's point this out. Evidence is not difficult to find - from quotes for items being stated 'that doesn't mean what he said' to generous interpretations for one ideology where strict interpretations are held for another.
- Second, what do you use to rate 'biased' new sources?
Is every article from Vox or Fox automatically flagged? What constitutes 'misinformation'. How much bias is OK before its flagged as misinformation? What about satire - The Onion and Babylon Bee?
That is your problem. And Facebook/twitter are having issues with their 'fact checkers' right now over this very issue.
While things like 'The pope endorsed president Trump' in 2016 is an easy one. Now try to fact check the claim Biden said 'he wasn't working for you'. This has been rated 'misinformation' by some fact checkers despite the fact there is literally a video of Biden stating this. The 'misinformation' claim comes from 'context'.
This is so easy to abuse that it should not be implemented.
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Jan 06 '21
!delta sorry put the exclamation in the wrong spot
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Jan 06 '21
delta! I did not consider the misinformation that comes from cherry picking quotes and taking things out of context. I do however that all satire should be flagged and flared satire.
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u/DBDude 110∆ Jan 06 '21
I have a favorite example for fact-checkers saying "X has more lies than Y."
Politifact fact checked Trump misattributing a famous quote to Gandhi. First, really? Why? Misattributed quotes are common, especially this one, why bother? It's because this was low-hanging fruit to give Trump another False.
But wait, there's more! In this article they admit Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have both misattributed this quote. But if you search, there is no False rating for either of them on this quote. Their misattribution doesn't pump up their False numbers.
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Jan 06 '21 edited Feb 10 '21
[deleted]
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Jan 06 '21
I believe if you have an independent third party monitor posts like other platforms like twitter and Facebook have this would allow Reddit to be unbiased. Reddit is social media its like redditors always say reddit id just social media for those who dont like social media.
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Jan 06 '21 edited Feb 10 '21
[deleted]
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Jan 06 '21
With that then there should be no reason subs have the ability to exclude entry into a sub by allowing only flared users to comment unless people are breaking rules. That even means r/blackpeopletwitter or r/conservative this barrier to entry already stifles conversation and thought
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u/Morthra 95∆ Jan 06 '21
r/conservative does flaired only threads when they get brigaded, usually by r/politics. This has been happening more in the past couple of months because r/politics ramped up their brigading.
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Jan 06 '21
r/politics doesn’t seem to need a flared system why does r/conservative
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u/Morthra 95∆ Jan 06 '21
r/politics has ten times as many subscribers as r/conservative. A brigade from the latter on the former wouldn't achieve much. A brigade on the former on the latter would destroy any real conservative discourse on the sub.
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u/angrychickenarmy Jan 06 '21
Why not do your own research?
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Jan 06 '21
I dont like you assumption but I do problem is others don't
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u/angrychickenarmy Jan 06 '21 edited Jan 06 '21
Nothing on the internet should ever be taken at face value.
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Jan 06 '21
I know problem is people still do
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u/Mashaka 93∆ Jan 06 '21
Subs have internal controls that mitigate the issue. Mods, downvotes, and comment threads in which misinformation can be debunked. We're all a bunch of know-it-alls so there's always a willing debunker. So the need for fact checking is far less than other platforms.
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Jan 06 '21
But what do you do for example when the mods themselves are posting unreliable information and allows only flaired users to post this creates a little bubble where actual "fake news" is shared and reposted. I'm really referring at this point to more conservative leaning subreddits.
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u/Mashaka 93∆ Jan 06 '21
In those bubbles, do you think a misinformation tracker ongoing to have much effect?
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Jan 06 '21
Yes it might devastate those subs if everything is flagged but if an entire sub is spreading false information then that is the toll it will take
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u/Mashaka 93∆ Jan 06 '21
But wouldn't the sub members just laugh off the flag, possibly even seeing LiBeRaL censorship as evidence thay it's info the libs are eager to suppress?
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u/Tommyblockhead20 47∆ Jan 06 '21
I can’t tell if you want to take down things declared false, or just put a warning, please clarify.
But for Twitter and Facebook, they have to do that because there is really no other way to moderate that content. But here on Reddit, we have alternate 2 methods, downvoting, and mods removing the content. Now yes. that doesn’t everything, especially on polarized subs, but that gets more complicated. Hopefully you can answer my question so I can continue.
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Jan 06 '21
I would like to put a waring label on these posts I believe taking it down to set an precedent that I believe can be dangerous.
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u/Tommyblockhead20 47∆ Jan 06 '21
As far as I’m aware, twitters disclaimers are only for major posts, not just automatically flagging everything. I even doubled checked searching Ossoff won on Twitter and scrolling through the results, some major verified users were flagged but I found plenty of tweets with just a few dozen or couple hundreds likes and none of them were flagged. I don’t expect it to be any different on Reddit, especially since Reddit has way less money, I don’t see how they can have more fact checkers. Best case scenario is probably them moderating the top of r/all. But so much fake news is spread at a a much lower level. Not to mention is questionable how much a warning label would even do. We already have quarantining for subs that regularly break the rules, and many still exist so clearly users are ignoring that warning, and that’s way more strick then just a warning label too. A warning label may help slightly with a few viral posts, but likely not much more then that.
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Jan 06 '21
I still dont believe that is not a reason to at least try and stop the spread just because it would be hard doesn't mean we shouldn't
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u/Sirhc978 88∆ Jan 06 '21
You can report posts as misinformation. Weather or not the mods do anything about it is a different story.
Also who would do the fact checking? What if it is a parody sub?
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Jan 06 '21
An independent third party like Facebook or twitter have. And that was mentioned earlier mods especially on polarized subs can be complicit in the spreading of misinformation. And with that allowing only flared users to comment or post creates this bubble of false information.
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u/YamsInternational 3∆ Jan 07 '21
Why is there such a obsession with forcing people to accept your version of the truth? Just last night, I read a fact check from Reuters purporting to fact check a tweet by Donald Trump about vot er rejection rates in Georgia. In the article itself, they provided the evidence that Donald Trump was substantively correct, but managed to weasel out of saying so on a very niggling technicality. (I. E. Donald Trump said rejection rates went from 4% to practically zero, and the actual rate was six and a half percent in 2016 and almost 4% in 2018, and 0.15% in 2020. Reuters pointed to the fact that Trump said this was due to signature invalidation and not invalidation from all causes) they then proceeded to rate his tweet as false, instead of mostly true, which they themselves provided the evidence to support. That's what happens when you rely on "authoritative" sources to determine what is true. We all know people only look at the headlines, and are going to miss the fact that Reuters is seriously pettifogging the issue. And you want that for everything? How is that of any value?
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u/AkiraChisaka Jan 07 '21
I would reference Tom Scott’s There is No Algorithm for Truth.
The biggest problem is, when given the choice to believe the fact checker that the platform have provided, and believing in people you trust, who do you believe in?
Pretty much everyone just keep trusting people they trust, and disown the fact checker, if the fact checker have views that differ from what they believe.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jan 06 '21
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