> I think fact-checking is a hopeless endeavor, but none of the comments here would have convinced me if I didn't already hold this position.
There's a still a problem of scale that fact checkers are attempting to solve. Much like any other outlets of information (news organizations, your neighbor, fact checkers, etc) it is left to the individual to evaluate whether the totality of output from that individual / organization is factually correct. I don't think the answer is to dissuade "fact checkers" similar to that I don't think we should be removing "news organizations" (even biased ones, which they often are), but the need to educate rational thinking skills to be able to evaluate who and how to trust summarized and often opinionated information.
> Are there any real examples of poor fact checking that people can point to?
Even if there were a pile of egregious examples, the conclusion should be to put reduced weight (or none) on the authors of those examples, and not necessarily the idea of fact checking, considering there could be others that more often communicate the nuance of the situation.
(There's also a problem of how fact-checking conclusions are _applied_ into other contexts of course..)
There's a still a problem of scale that fact checkers are attempting to solve. Much like any other outlets of information (news organizations, your neighbor, fact checkers, etc) it is left to the individual to evaluate whether the totality of output from that individual / organization is factually correct. I don't think the answer is to dissuade "fact checkers" similar to that I don't think we should be removing "news organizations" (even biased ones, which they often are), but the need to educate rational thinking skills to be able to evaluate who and how to trust summarized and often opinionated information.
> Are there any real examples of poor fact checking that people can point to?
Even if there were a pile of egregious examples, the conclusion should be to put reduced weight (or none) on the authors of those examples, and not necessarily the idea of fact checking, considering there could be others that more often communicate the nuance of the situation.
(There's also a problem of how fact-checking conclusions are _applied_ into other contexts of course..)