Google Tackles Fake News With Global Fact-Checking Rollout (betanews.com) 230
Google is calling on fact-checking organizations to help it bust fake news -- but it's starting in a small way. From a report: Google's Fact Check feature is not new, but today the search giant is rolling out the feature around the world. A global rollout is important if such a tool is to have any real impact. It's all well and good have reports fact-checked on one side of the world, but it's of little use if the same fake stories remain unquestioned and untested elsewhere. Google is doing its part by making the Fact Check label available in Google News everywhere, and spreading it into search results in all languages as well. The Fact Check label has been around since October, providing an at-a-glance way to determine whether or not a particular story has been verified as true. Google admits that it will not be possible to fact-check every single search result it displays, and the company points out that it is not responsible for the actual fact-checking process.
Who decides what is fact? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Who decides what is fact? (Score:5, Informative)
You can use many truths to draw a false conclusion. Conspiracy theorists do it all the time.
Re: Who decides what is fact? (Score:5, Insightful)
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In math terms, I think it would be akin to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
In other words, 7 correct facts with one subtle error that looks correct at first glance (in this case, step 5) but it really isn't, and it causes your answer to be completely false.
Bidirectional problem (Score:3, Insightful)
CNN and MSNBC are both masters at using a cherry picked set of facts to support a narrative. Other sources often do the same, just not to the same extent.
Using a very limited set of facts to support your position is called confirmation bias. People introducing additional facts to question the narrative are simply labeled "fake news". "Conspiracy theorist" is a bit dated, but that was the line pushed from the 60s or so. The people exposing CIA operations were labeled, yet we found through more facts tha
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"CNN and MSNBC are both masters at using a cherry picked set of facts to support a narrative. Other sources often do the same, just not to the same extent."
Bullshit Mountain called. Fox News wants to know how much you charge for rimjobs.
"Conspiracies are relatively common, yet the media has demonized the term so that people can't talk about them."
This is because the vast majority of them are patently false, and there is a correlation between belief in conspiracy theories and general hatred of groups trying
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I never exonerated any media outlet, you invented a narrative. As to the extent I pointed out, Fox at least presents Democrats (not just moderates but the extreme leftists) and their supporters. The two worst don't bother with any discussion that does not suite their narrative.
When you come out of your fantasy land about statements I never made, how about you let us know a reasonable number of true conspiracies that you would support being talked about. Until Snowden, we had plenty of theories about Gove
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"Conspiracies are relatively common, yet the media has demonized the term so that people can't talk about them."
This is because the vast majority of them are patently false,"
With the revelations that many more 'conspiracy theories' are indeed true than previously hoped for, that paradigm is collapsing. Indeed, the tool used now is more and more the 'big lie'. Tell the biggest whopper as often as you can for as long as you can, and when the truth comes out, everyone is either desensitized to the truth and di
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Chemtrails, aliens, truthers, reptilians in the White House, the list goes on and they're all bullshit, even the last one. Just because the government really was spying on you does not suddenly mean the others were true all along, but too many people believe what they want to believe regardless of lack of evidence, or even evidence against it.
While the rest of us will stick to Occam's Razor, and keep assuming that wildly-unlikely stuff is almost certainly just more bullshit - unless and until someone produc
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People introducing additional facts to question the narrative are simply labeled "fake news".
"fake news" is the use of lies in place of facts. Or in your world is everything a fact, real or not?
You are fake news (Score:2)
Pure rubbish. Cherry picking is a common tactic for fake news. Look up CNN, MSNBC, NBC, and even ABC removing content to portray a narrative. To show that this is not new, look back at the first reporting of the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case by NBC. Who was caught editing audio to make George appear to be racist instead of answering a dispatcher's question, they lightened his photos to make him appear to be white instead of Hispanic, and instead of displaying current pictures of Trayvon Martin pu
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As I said above, I never exonerated Fox. I simply said that they at least portray the left and allow them on shows making them not as bad as the two shows which are pure leftist propaganda. CNN and MSNBC will not have a Conservative on their show. They may cherry pick some video but there is never a debate, it's always leftist talk.
Fair point about OJ, but it's a bit harder to demonstrate as Youtube was not around back then.
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"Conspiracy theorist" is a bit dated, but that was the line pushed from the 60s or so.
Current conspiracy theories include things like "jet contrails are actually mind control chemtrails", with proof of this often being i.e. pictures of barrels inside of passenger jets, and some contrails being colored in appearance. Of course, if you look deeper you'll find that these have nothing to do with mind control or any other secretive plot, but they use the fact that water barels used to simulate rapid passenger movement on a jumbo jet actually exist, and the fact that contrails can and do appear di
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Even more current conspiracies are Hillary's emails, the Trump leaks which we recently found were unmasked (possibly illegal) and possibly leaked by Susan Rice. Both of those were called right wing conspiracies. Both of those were found to have a good amount of truth to them, with Comey taking over as prosecutor and claiming he could not prosecute Hilary and the latter still under investigation.
Conspiracy theories and "Fake News" have turned out to be "things people don't want you to know" quite often.
Re: Who decides what is fact? (Score:1)
The best houses of lies are built on a foundation of truth.
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it is true the sun is shining somewhere, but the statement is not supported by the facts in evidence, even though they are true.
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He's spot on as well. The liberal media will decide on what's fact and what's not. Remember how Hitlery had the election in the bag! Trump had no way of winning. That was fun to watch though. Crying libtards at hitlery's convention. Classic stuff!
The problem with that was the statisticians made some big errors (essentially, putting too much emphasis on the popular vote) and the democrats really took it for granted, and then cried foul when they didn't get the result that they just assumed was guaranteed.
While I'm not thrilled at a Trump victory, I do take a bit of solace in seeing Hillary lose.
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" The majority voted for Clinton"
Not according to the Electoral College, despite numbers.
Perhaps you should get rid of that bullshit, since obviously the popular side lost (Guess what happened when Hitler, the popular choice, got power?)
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So, you suffer a severe deficit in reading comprehension. Interesting.
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No one suffers any deficit in reading comprehension when they dismiss your assertion that Hillary won the 2016 Presidential election by any meaningful measure. The election was not decided by popular vote, but by states votes and representation in the Electoral College.
You are barking up the wrong tree. Persisting in doing so marks you as either a sore loser, which is excusable, or dismissive of the law and Constitution, which marks you as perhaps a revolutionary, more likely intolerant of your political f
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No, you obviously suffer the lack of reading comprehension, as well as historical comprehension.
Come back when you can prove you actually took and passed middle school civics, child.
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Clinton received more votes than Trump. About 3 million or so. The obvious, relevant point I was making.
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The most relevant possible thing here is from the Declaration of Independence
"...deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed".
Trump didn't get that.
Trump DID win (Score:5, Insightful)
Hillary lost the Electoral College, which is how _EVERY_SINGLE_PRESIDENT in US History has been elected. We do not elect Presidents by popular vote, and never have. The reason for this is solid, and I can only recommend you do your homework instead of repeating bullshit talking points handed down by people who LOST the election. (Not unique to this batch, but this is certainly the worst I can recall).
Following the law is not a "technicality", it's called LAW. Your ignorance of the law demonstrates a big problem with the left.
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Both Rutherford B. Hayes and G.W. Bush did not get the popular votes necessary to get the electoral votes.
Both were failures
Trump did get the electoral votes, but only if you disregard the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal rights, privileges and immunities.
Bluntly, the electoral college has been unconstitutional since 1873
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And then I read the 14th Amendment.
Can't have both.
4 California Democrats are greater than 1 Republican Minnasotan.
If the votes are equally PRIVILEGED (read the 14th) then the electoral college is granting a preference for one citizen over another
UNCONSTITUTIONAL!
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Clearly you did not
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The mere fact that voters in one state have a higher electoral votes / voters ratio is proof of violation of "EQUAL rights, privileges and immunities".
Therefore, I contend that the 14th Amendment has vitiated the EC and it must be struck down (later amendments change the existing law)
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Do our homework? May I suggest the same to you? The point of the Electoral College was to see that the people couldn't elect a monster, if they did so it would be voided by the College. In this case the College elected the monster, in direct violation of their reason to be.
Pure Rubbish, Troll (Score:3)
The point of the Electoral College is so that ALL States, even the smallest, have a voice in the Government. The founders knew that Democracy suffered numerous failures because simple people are persuaded by rhetoric, not facts. You demonstrate their position quite well, and are a perfect example of what they were trying to protect against.
I am happy to criticize President Trump for things he does wrong. For example, I believe it was a mistake to bomb Syria for numerous reasons (You appear to be too simp
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Someone got their knickers in a twist.
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"The first reason that the founders created the Electoral College is hard to understand today. The founding fathers were afraid of direct election to the Presidency. They feared a tyrant could manipulate public opinion and come to power."
http://www.historycentral.com/... [historycentral.com]
You really are an idiot.
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I've sometimes heard leftism described as a "mental disorder". I never really gave that claim much credence until I read your comment.
After seeing the amount of delusion in your comment, I can now see how leftism could be considered a type of mental disorder. It's like you've gone out of your way to ignore all aspects of reality, and you've substituted in your own perverted, twisted sense of what's "real".
Pretty much every single sentence you wrote is wrong. If you haven't denied reality outright, then you'
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You're just plain delusional about this (and that's putting it nicely.)
She did; he didn't. She won the vote. Handily.
No, she didn't. The Constitution is very specific that the only vote that matters for POTUS is that of the electoral college. Trump won, handily, by the rules of the constitution. Whether or not you agree with the constitution is your own opinion that you are welcome to, but Trump did play by the rules, and under said rules, he won by a landslide.
Furthermore, Trump only achieved the presidency on a technical basis which was created by a bunch of red-state electors acting well outside their intended charter
First of all, you're deciding whether they were red or blue based entirely on the popular vo
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Get back to me after you figure out what the preview button does.
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That's right, there are people so pissed at the Electoral College nonsense, that they'll use its own weakness against it.
No, they're not. That is not a "weakness", nor are they using anything against it. They're still participating in it EXACTLY as intended. You're kind of dumb and probably won't understand what I'm about to explain (because you've already demonstrated a rather profound ignorance of the whole thing) but I'll explain anyways:
In the original days of the constitution, several states (such as New York for example) had no general election for POTUS. That is, individual citizens did not and were not allowed to vote
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Nope, sorry, but the lack of specification in terms of elector selection IS a weakness
It seems pretty clear to me:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
In other words, how the electors are sent is entirely up to the state legislature.
If the state legislator wants to send electors that
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A fraud took the office thanks to Electors refusing to obey the Constitution.
That isn't a grief, that's a grievance.
Re:Who decides what is fact? (Score:4, Funny)
The Onion.
Re:Who decides what is fact? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this fact checking going to be like Politifact, which has said that an article or tweet is "mostly false" while saying that the facts it contains are true?
A fact is either true or false. What Politifact is commenting on is whether the opinion, belief, or conclusion drawn from those facts is "mostly false".
For example, the unemployment rate has dropped. Donald Trump is the president. Therefore President Trump is responsible and should be praised for lowering the unemployment rate. The first two sentences facts, the last sentence is an opinion. The opinion would be considered, by most, to be "mostly false". Yes, his presidency may have had an effect on business expansion and hiring people but most of these business plans were in place well before President Trump took office.
Re:Who decides what is fact? (Score:4, Interesting)
What Politifact is commenting on is whether the opinion, belief, or conclusion drawn from those facts is "mostly false".
In other words, Politifact is NOT a FACT checking organization. They are checking whether or not the opinions presented are "correct". If the facts presented in the story are true, I do not need someone else to tell me if the conclusions the author reaches are true or not. If someone is going to claim to be a fact checker, I want them to limit themselves to checking the facts. If they do not, it is just a matter of time, and probably not much of it, before they are calling fake news true because it reaches the "correct" conclusions (or leads people to do so) even though the facts are completely false.
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You may not. Others clearly do. The evidence is incontrovertible: Tens of millions of votes for an idiot because the voters were unable to draw the correct conclusions from the available facts. Well, that, and playing hermit in echo chambers of idiocy such as Fox "News", Drudge and so forth so they didn't have facts in the first place.
Politifact is trying to do a right thi
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Tens of millions of votes for an idiot because the voters were unable to draw the correct conclusions from the available facts
Fortunately, she lost anyway. Unfortunately, the other choice was only minimally better.
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A fact is either true or false. What Politifact is commenting on is whether the opinion, belief, or conclusion drawn from those facts is "mostly false".
Yeah, so in the interest of accuracy and being factual, they should change their name to PoliOpinion and change "mostly false" to "contrary to our opinion".
Or they could just keep trying to trick people into thinking their conclusions are factual. It still seems to work on a lot of credulous people.
Re: Who decides what is fact? (Score:2)
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Is this fact checking going to be like Politifact, which has said that an article or tweet is "mostly false" while saying that the facts it contains are true?
Not only "like" Politifact - Politifact is one of the sources behind the scenes. To be fair, there aren't many options other than the obvious "don't even go down this road".
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Is this fact checking going to be like Politifact, which has said that an article or tweet is "mostly false" while saying that the facts it contains are true?
I'd settle for just links to all related sources.
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Who decides what is fact?
NYT, Wapo and Guardian, as far as Google is concerned. Everything not in alignment with those three is "alternative" fact and modded accordingly.
Remember everyone (Score:3)
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That's how the alt-media like it. If they became trusted sources of news by publishing mostly true stories, they would become part of the mainstream and lose their appeal.
The whole point of the alt-media is to confirm your suspicions that the world really is against you, that it's not your fault, that you really are the victim here and your suffering is valid, and that you were right all along.
Fact check for 'Fake News' but not scammers? (Score:3)
All About Quality Control (Score:2)
Since they're not fact checking, this will depend entirely on how well they oversee the organizations who do. That ought to be a fun dive into governance issues.
It is very easy to lose trust. I can understand why they would want to do this---between meaningless news and fake news, it is already hard to learn about things that matter. But they are going to encounter legitimate scandals and legit-or-not accusations of bias. I hope they have a plan for dealing with this.
Fact checking is an essential piece of j
Approved News (Score:3)
The Fact Check label has been around since October, providing an at-a-glance way to determine whether or not a particular story has been approved by the Ministry of Truth.
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But that's exactly how it should be done. You post a label, and people can decide how trustworthy the label itself is. You don't keep people from seeing statements that you disagree with, you merely get out front and say "Well, I think these are lies, but here you go...".
Facts? (Score:2)
What exactly are facts when it comes to government anyway? A Spin Meter may be a more appropriate use of Google's time. Stating a single fact is one thing but when munged together, most things government deal with are so complex that anyone can pretty much spin things any way they like and still seem factual to one group or another..
Isn't this abuse of a monopoly??? (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't this google using their almost total dominance of search to control the news industry? If a story happens to be true but doesn't fit with the narrative that google wants to put forth could it get burried?
It's not just about libertarian or conservative bloggers. What if an advertiser, let's say big agribusiness, doesn't want peta exposes of bad farms to be seen? Could that be labeled "fake news"?
"Fake news" is fake news (Score:1)
Isn't it odd how every mainstream media outlet simultaneously adopted an identical narrative about "fake news" after the presidential election proved them to be utterly out of touch with what the average citizen wants?
It's almost as though traditional, corporate media companies are all directed by some single entity about how to report on certain topics.
Nah, couldn't be...
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It's almost as if Pizzagate was a load of alt right fake news horse shit
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Why do you think popular opinion decides what is true?
I can see lots of reasons for being dubious about how accurately this tag will be applied, but disagreeing with popular opinion sure isn't one of them.
If you don't watch the news... (Score:1)
...you're merely uninformed. If you do, you're misinformed.
Pick your poison.
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I'll stick with inventing my own facts.
Google is ... (Score:3, Interesting)
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Depends where they set the bar. Say a blog post goes viral, multiple reputable sources check and debunk it, and a human at Google notices and marks all copies of said post as disputed with links to said debunkings, I don't really have a problem with that. The error rate is going to be very, very low and in cases where mistakes are made the reputable media is generally quite good about pointing them out.
If the bar is something like "Brietbart has a long history of publishing fake news and not issuing correct
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You know, if the land around is brown and dead for miles, it is in fact reasonable to presuppose the well is poisoned.
PolitiFact is "Mostly False" (Score:2)
I don't see an entry for what probably most hurt Hillary's chances in the 2016 election. That is, she blamed a YouTube video for the 9/11/2012 terror attack on the U.S. ambassador to Libya and his staff in Benghazi.
I also do not see an entry for the oft repeated phrase "the Russians hacked the election."
There's a ton of hair splitting regarding statements made by Trump and other Republicans.
PolitiFact appears to be just another propaganda site. It's probably sponsored by the Russians with the intention of d
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I don't see an entry for what probably most hurt Hillary's chances in the 2016 election. That is, she blamed a YouTube video for the 9/11/2012 terror attack on the U.S. ambassador to Libya and his staff in Benghazi.
If that really hurt Hillary's chances US voters are idiots. Yes, in the initial fog of war the blame may have been misplaced. That is not fake (deliberate incorrect) news, that is just people trying to understand a complex situation.
I also do not see an entry for the oft repeated phrase "the Russians hacked the election."
From what I have seen, the phrase "the Russians hacked the election" is only repeated by people using it as a straw man. It may be oft repeated in those circles, and it is indeed fake (deliberately incorrect) news, but I think it is too obviously fake to need labeling. What is a
Next: Ministry of Truth (Score:4, Insightful)
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If you look at TFA, unfashionable as that may be, you can see that they set out some requirements for claims and for debunkings. For example, Trump's "34 million unregistered immigrants" claim, gets links to Politifact and their "pants on fire" rating added. You can then click the link to see their analysis.
What if (Score:4, Insightful)
What if the fact checking is fake? Look at urbandictionary, I'd argue that less than half of the entries are accurate. It's a fake dictionary.
Job openings (Score:2)
Does Sarkeesian have an exclusive contract with Twitter?
Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
They should start with fact-checking fake news like: "Women make 80% of what men do." or "Climate change threatens the future of humanity." or "Gun control reduces homicides." or "The welfare state helps people become productive members of society." or "Paying more for education than we do improves educational outcomes."
I suspect it isn't that kind of fake news that they are going to fact check.
Google deciding what I see and read? (Score:3, Insightful)
Correlation (Score:2)
Lib-left wants news censorship (Score:2)
> There is a pretty high correlation to trump supporters and people who argue against fact-checking. Just saying.
There's a pretty high correlation between lib-left (Clintons and Dems) and people who argue for internet gatekeeping... just saying.
The lib-left loves their lapdog MSM...
* The same lapdog MSM that kept quiet despite knowing that JFK was screwing more women than Bill Clinton could ever dream of.
* The same lapdog MSM that suppressed the story of Bill Clinton's sexcapades.
Actually, if the MSM had
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Just as they love their lapdog MSM, the lib-left hate/fear "alternate media". http://www.breitbart.com/big-j [breitbart.com]... [breitbart.com]
...because "alternate media" present "alternate facts", aka lies. Brietbart is the PRIME example.
"OBJECTIVE REALITY? NOT ON MY INTERNETS!" (Score:2)
...screams every right-winger simultaneously.
Endless vituperation without facts (Score:4)
Knew this was coming
Can't win the argument, lie about the evidence.
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Don't worry, guys. The left has fact-checked itself and determined that they have no bias.
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Vanity Fair has bias
Snopes? not a chance
Poltifact? Proof offered has been, to be generous, lacking.
The right, however, drools, as Conservapedia proves so very well
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Snopes? not a chance
You mean the site whose owner hired [dailymail.co.uk] prostitutes to do their fact checking for them? Top notch. Oh, that's just "fake news". Or maybe not [forbes.com].
Poltifact? Proof offered has been, to be generous, lacking.
The site owned by a liberal-leaning newspaper, the Tampa Bay Times, that endorsed Clinton and consistently endorsed other Democrats running for office? The site that consistently finds Republicans lie more and more severely? Well, of course! I mean it can't be that they are injecting their own bias into the mix, right?
The right, however, drools, as Conservapedia proves so very well
The right has Conservapedia, and the left has "Rational
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So far, Finding the republicans lie more and more severely is simply true.
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Once more, show me the proof that the PRODUCT IS FALSE.
Any "proof" I show you will be dismissed, because you'll just agree with whatever spin fits your chosen side.
So far, Finding the republicans lie more and more severely is simply true.
No, that's just your own dogmatic assumption.
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Because prostitutes can't check facts? How does that work?
It's not a sign of professionalism when the owner hires prostitutes that he's probably been visiting. Read the Forbes article. Snopes is lacking in qualities that you'd expect from a fact checker.
there's a difference between "spin" and "lying"
Yes, and most of the judgments tend to be about spin, with a wide room for interpretation -- which makes it easy for the bias of the so-called fact checkers to shine through.
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Now THERE is an objective source.
Not.
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And I can trivially reject any source you claim as "objective" as biased without looking at the evidence. That doesn't get us anywhere.
Politifact said Syria had no chemical weapons (Score:2)
The same Google allowed Santorum "Google-Bomb"? (Score:2)
http://www.npr.org/2016/02/25/... [npr.org]
> In 2003, Savage had enlisted a digital army to tie Santorum's name with
> an...unpleasant sexual definition...and then "Google bomb" the Republican
> until the new term became the top search result for "Rick Santorum."
And we're supposed to trust their "fact checking"? NOT!
For leftist definitions of "fact" (Score:2)
Given the lack of credibility of existing media and Google's Silicon Valley alignment, this is a narrative checker more than it is a "fact checker".
Re: The LIBTARDS.... (Score:1)
Most media is alt-left libtard.
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Can't we just call it what it is: propaganda?
with yesterday being 100th anniversary of Woodrow Wilson declaring war on Germany, I recall an article some years ago good propaganda is formed in a way that it does not look like propaganda. On outbreak of WWI, Britain cut off communications lines from Germany so US does not get "news wires" from Germany, only from Britain. With just one side reporting, US gets news media from just one side (which Britain became good at writing articles with some facts not mentioned, others embellished) that sways US opini
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Totally different. If you looked at the "refugees" flooding into Europe, they looked like an invasion force more than real refugees. Mohammadists, they've been trying to kill us for 1400 years. They rape, kill people and the PC bullshit is stopping everyone from calling a spade a spade. They do this at their own peril. Europe will cease to exist if they don't get rid of the invaders.
They don't assimilate, they demand that you adopt their way of life or they'll kill you. Sharia law. The sooner everyone under
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More lies by the rightards
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