The popular fact-checking sites, such as Snopes and Politifact, cannot stick to the facts.
When Sen. Rand Paul (R‑Ky) predicted that a recent repeal of “three regulations” would save “hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs,” Politifact rated the statement “Half True,” on the grounds that, well, not all experts agreed.
In 2015, objecting to a reported low figure for the Clinton Foundation’s grants to other groups that actually did things, PunditFact gave a “Mostly false” judgment despite admitting that the statement was “technically true.”
NBC engaged in a similar move, admitting to the technical truth of a claim about unemployment, but said it was “extremely misleading.”
Snopes found reasons to tag a “Mixture” rating onto the simple fact that Omar Mateen, the Pulse nightclub mass murderer, was a registered Democrat. He was*.
The funny thing is, these sites are “Almost Right”: fact checking isn’t enough.
Facts can be true, but deceptively used.
Unfortunately, these “fact-checkers” repeatedly fail to clearly distinguish matters of fact from matters of context. They could offer a double analysis and double rating: True/False for the factual; Clear/Caution, to cover interpretations and implications.
Why don’t they?
Perhaps for the same reason the CIA is planning a Meme Warfare Center — to provide a “full spectrum meme generation, analysis, quality control/assurance and organic transmission apparatus”** — instead of a Center for the Analysis of Popular Argument: the idea is not to increase knowledge.
It is to maximize influence.
Which leaves us on meme patrol, ever vigilant.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* What Snopes did was speculate that the terrorist perhaps changed his mind after initially registering a decade before the shooting.
** I wrote more about this in Sunday’s Townhall column (from which this Common Sense foray is adapted; see relevant links here), and first broached the goofy/ominous CIA proposal with Saturday’s featured video.
2 replies on “Almost Right”
I find it odd and Orwellian that snowflakes at the CIA these days literally whine-with-my-tax-money about the Remedial Journalism 101 done by Putin’s RT in giving Gary Johnson & Jill Stein a forum. Oh, the HORROR. Someone NOT in the corporate “news” media trolled the USA by doing some actual JOURNALISM. Clearly, this is a massive plot to influence our elections!1!!!!
It’s so goddam stupid that mocking it almost defies sarcasm. Almost.…
Snopes also reported this:
“President Donald Trump has made visiting his Florida golf courses a near every-weekend habit in the first month of his administration, and his aides are trying to obscure whether Trump is actually golfing during the visits.
One possible reason: Trump was a frequent and vocal critic of President Barack Obama’s golf habit, regularly slamming the former president for playing golf with many pressing issues before the country. Trump even suggested during a 2016 event in Virginia, in a knock on Obama, that if elected he was “not going to have time to go play golf.”
“I’m going to be working for you, I’m not going to have time to go play golf,” Trump said at the time.
Trump has visited his two golf courses near his Mar-a-Lago estate — Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach and Trump National Golf Course in Jupiter — six times in his first month in office.”
Do you dispute Snope on this?