632
submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top new old
[-] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

It makes you a rational human.

There have been journalists publishing accidentally and maliciously false articles since the dawn of the press.

It's healthy to engage in appropriate scepticism of all that you read, particularly that of the press. Fact check everything that doesn't feel right (or anything that feels too reductive or simplified), over time you get a feel for who the serial liars are and who are generally reporting faithfully

[-] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

[…] over time you get a feel for who the serial liars are and who are generally reporting faithfully

Sure, but even then I would still like to see cited sources; without them, my trust would begin to erode.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

[…] Fact check everything that doesn’t feel right (or anything that feels too reductive or simplified) […]

Ideally, imo, the news outlets could lift some of that burden by citing their own sources so that I don't have to do their investigative work for them.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

most towns used to have more than one newspaper and they used to display their political bias happily on the front page.

all the sides were represented by five or six different people discussing an issue with maybe each person bringing a different side from a different paper to the discussion.

tv and cable and internet tore apart that public dialectic.

and it forced fewer papers to try to portray more sides "equally".

now a city is lucky if it has one newspaper. and they can't possibly cover every angle any longer because if you have been in a newsroom in the past 15 years for most small to medium town they are like four people now when 30 was required for reporting, photography, editing, and classified section. And the big towns now might have two that both bend towards the middle from the left and right with a stripped down, skinny and pissed workers.

So sorry conversation amongst a varied and well read public is required for that to work.

and no one reads anymore we all just write and move on.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

I wish there were a fact checking website that allowed checking any article and calculating scores e.g how many claims are linked, where do the links point to (available or not), are the linked pages trust-worthy themselves, detecting link circles ( A -> B -> C -> A), and so on. Or at least something that provided us the tools to do community fact-checking in the open.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

You basically described the PageRank system, but at an article level. I suppose it's theoretically possible with LLM tools, but not an easy task. It also has a pretty big gap of how to define a source as trustworthy.

But it might be doable on a simpler level - if you were to ask the AI if an article's claims match other sources, you might at least find the outliers.

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›
this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2024
632 points (97.7% liked)

Showerthoughts

35757 readers
1543 users here now

A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS