[NEWS] test how well you can spot fake news

Author Topic: [NEWS] test how well you can spot fake news  (Read 2892 times)

I know if you look at the comments for onion posts you'll see a ton of dumb old people who are outraged over it because they think they're real
guess it's just for handicaps who can't see past satire

I know if you look at the comments for onion posts you'll see a ton of dumb old people who are outraged over it because they think they're real
guess it's just for handicaps who can't see past satire

this just in: nonnel thinks the elderly are handicapped

this just in: nonnel thinks the elderly are handicapped
vote ira today

I know if you look at the comments for onion posts you'll see a ton of dumb old people who are outraged over it because they think they're real
guess it's just for handicaps who can't see past satire
My theory is that they're actually onion employees trying to go for deep-layer irony.

My theory is that they're actually onion employees trying to go for deep-layer irony.
hah



didnt even need sources boii



Too busy to reply to people about Snopes, but here:





No clue if any of these are fake or whatnot, but I don't have time to check. Feel free to yell at me for grabbing these from Gimages.

I just know that I've seen numerous instances of Snopes having a clear liberal bias, especially around the time of the election. It seems like they have since edited and removed a lot of articles however. I realize that most everyone here will probably look to defend Snopes, but I hope that you are open to a discussion about there possibly being a slight liberal bias to anything political they post. If you're liberal (which most people here probably are) then it may not be as easily noticed.

Of course then there's Politifact, which I hope that more people can agree has shown either a clear liberal bias or plain idiocy on numerous occasions. Snopes doesn't have nearly their level of political bias.

Snopes owner literally cheated on his wife with prostitutes, can you trust him to deliver the truth to you?


keep in mind that snopes also takes into consideration the spirit of a claim when they give their up-front rating, rather than just the literal text of it. some claims are made to imply something greater, and they acknowledge that in addition to the surface-level content. with this in mind, i see no issue with any of the examples you provided (though the third one excludes the claim in question so it's hard to tell what's up with it).

a fair portion of snopes' fact-checking isn't actually political though, it's just debunking social media memes/myths or other weird stories that get passed around. and for every article they make, they go into detail about why they came to the conclusion they did, with sources for every bit of relevant information. and as you said, they do tend to edit articles as more information is brought up or as circumstances change. the up-front true/false measurement system they use can be a little confusing at times, so it's best to always check the contents and see why the rating they gave is what it is. i've never once seen snopes point to false evidence for their evaluations or approach the situation using value statements rather than a transparent assessment of the facts they presented, and so i find the idea of overarching bias hard to accept. also, funnily enough, snopes has a history of being called out for bias on all sides. it's hard to say why the right is especially skeptical at this point in time, but my guess would probably be that one of the most pertinent right-wing american politicians has a poor track record of falsifying information, or perhaps, their falsifications have been more greatly scrutinized in media than those of other politicians, and the use of snopes as an argumentative tool in these situations makes it appear as though snopes is excessively targeting right-wing figures, when in reality, this is likely not the case. if someone were to actually get some numbers on that though, that would be interesting to see.

i would probably bank the apparent bias right now more so on general media focus rather than snopes itself, tho. since people are focused so much more on right-wing rhetoric, it's only natural that stories and information in that area get passed around more, and since those stories are more relevant, obvs snopes is going to choose those other others. just a guess, but it's one that i think makes a lot of sense
« Last Edit: July 07, 2017, 11:35:44 PM by otto-san »

this just in: nonnel thinks the elderly are handicapped
i'm just saying they're not not handicapped,,,,,,,,,,,

The claim is that a common residue on food is carcinogenic and that Monsanto, the EPA, and the FDA are trying to silence this. It's true that a study has found it to be carcinogenic, it's false that the FDA tried to silence it, and it's undetermined whether glyphosate is carcinogenic. Seems like a mixture to me.


This one has been posted before and there's just plain no problem with it. The claim was that Clinton successfully defended an accused child rapist then laughed about it later. It's true that she defended an accused child rapist (though only due to it being her job as a public attorney to defend people who require defense.) She didn't laugh about it. She didn't say the rape story was made up, and she didn't free the defendant. The claim is mostly false.

The claim (not shown here) is "A video investigation showed that Planned Parenthood lies about providing prenatal care." The video tries to assert that Planned Parenthood does not ever provide prenatal care and that they lie about this. It is true that not all Planned Parenthood branches offer prenatal care, and that the organization is based on abortion operations, but to assert that they do not provide prenatal care, then lie about it, is blatantly wrong. So it's mostly false.