I recently ran into one of those “9/11 truther” stories hiding under the guise of a “European physics journal”. Thank you snopes for helping me deflate it.
Snopes is a not the best fact checker if you are looking for an absolute balanced/accurate answer.
As for the original question in this thread, I have just ignored Facebook entirely. 75% of my news feed now is cluttered with politics, and all of it is agenda-driven. Too much emotion, not enough logic.
This topic goes to the heart of what, exactly, Facebook is.
People view Facebook, and its “walls” in very different ways.
My MIL gets furious because she thinks people are posting things ( that she disagrees with) “on” her wall. She has a hard time with the concept that those people are posting things to their own wall, which she can choose to look at or not look at.
My wall is my wall. I can post anything I want to it. But if I post it in such a way that other people can see it, I am asking for comment, am I not? If I don’t want any negative reactions or comments, then I should adjust the settings on who can see it, or post it in a private group, shouldn’t I?
I didn’t “get” this at first. Years ago a friend, who views the world from as different a position from my own as I could imagine, wrote a really scathing response to something I had posted. At the time, I didn’t really view my post as something that was even slightly political or debateable. I no longer remember the original post, but it was something that I had considered to be settled science at the time. We went back and forth a bit, and eventually I wrote something like:
“Why do you feel the need to argue with this post? Just keep scrolling if you disagree.”
And he responded:
“I assume that if you post something that I can read you are inviting me to a discussion. If you don’t want me to respond don’t post it where I can see it.”
My take away was - and sometimes I repeat this to myself multiple times a day - “Don’t post it if you don’t want to read negative responses.”
I have also learned the value of unfollowing people.
As to responding to incorrect facts, if I respond at all it is with a link to a souce to the correct facts.
Mostly, lately, I just keep scrolling past.
The truth is exhausting.
Facebook makes it easy to have the privacy of your posts as: Public, Friends, Friends except acquaintances, only me, or custom.
It’s a PITA to do a custom privacy group for each post so what I do is classify friends as “acquaintances” on my list of friends (very easy to do) if they are a far opposite political persuasion that is likely to argue or get upset. Some posts that I want to share without starting a “discussion” I will then post with “friends except acquaintances” as the filter to avoid the drama. This way, I can remain friends with my MIL and BIL!
Argh. Lost it and had to respond. Couldn’t help myself darn it.
It was one of those stupid pix with an inane caption. Again. But I’ve held my fingers from typing for quite a while.
“You love X, so why don’t you (insert political group/whomever) do Y?”
Just fill that in with anything you like. "You love Wal-Mart, so why don’t you “like horses”?
You love “kids” so why don’t you “play hockey?”
I stupidly couldn’t help calling them on it. Can’t they see how STUPID this is? It doesn’t even make any sense! Guess not. Sigh.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion but at some point it’s irresponsible to post stuff that is just inflammatory.
They can block me or take down my post of course. Really don’t care.
Mad that I took the bait but hate for stuff to get sent over and over without some reason injected.
At least have a coherent argument!
Why? Have you ever found an error or a bogus citation on Snopes? I’ve written it before, but it’s pretty simple and bears repeating:
Everything in Snopes is well cited and researched. Any criticism of Snopes’ information must be equally well sourced and equally specific, or it’s surely nothing more than crankery.
At this point I will happily take the wrongheaded facts over this stuff:
Happy Valentines Beautiful Mommy!!Being a mother is one of the most highest paid jobs in the world since the payment is PURE LOVE. I just nominated you for the Loveliest & Caring Mom Award. You must send to ten moms and make their day. I’m also waiting.
NO NO NO!
Just stop filling up my messenger and my fb wall with this poorly-written middle school chain mail garbage!
Ok, I feel better now.
Who could be wrong on Facebook?
Schools are having to teach how to spot fake news now.
To the original question:
It depends. If it’s something that isn’t opinion (or political) I definitely will point them to some source debunking it. (Things like “Repost this and XXX will give you $1,000”). If it’s political and the poster is usually rational, thoughtful and generally well informed but was too quick so share something from a dubious source (left or right), I will also let them know. But if it is someone who is constantly getting their news from a fake news site and posting 20 times a day…I don’t bother. They aren’t likely to change.
Yes, I’ve usually been thanked for the correction. (But again, I don’t bother with those that I think are just not going to listen in the first place). Funny thing is, it usually only takes a minute on Google to debunk it (some take a little more digging)…I wish people would just do this before posting in the first place. If it sounds too good, too bad or too crazy to be true and comes from an unknown or unreliable source, it deserves a quick Google search.
Really zobroward? That article in no way convinced me to distrust Snopes. Just because one member of a staff runs for political office, it doesn’t mean he or she is incapable of determining if an article is based in fact. Also, given that the article states that more than one person checks out the accuracy of the articles, it seems unlikely that a worker who consistently put politics over facts would last long.
I have yet to see an example of snopes stating something is true or is false and is proven to be incorrect, based on facts not on belief and a quick search only showed some opinions, not actual facts that were incorrect or the claims were from questionable sites.
Besides this article, what is your basis for saying that snopes is not reliable? As garland says snopes has citations and references and explain why they find something true, partially true, or false.
Here is the problem. Someone posts on Facebook an “incorrect” fact. Person B comes on Facebook and says “your facts are wrong” and here is my source. Person C says " No, person B your “facts” are wrong and here is my source." And this continues on and on. This thread is the perfect example. Some here consider Snopes a reputable source and others do not.
There are many reputable sources out there and sometimes you can even find conflicting “facts” from reputable sources. People believe what they want to believe so everyone just needs to be respectful of views that may not be in line with their own views. People are so hateful right now and come off as very condescending when they try to argue “facts”.
I disagree that very often there are conflicting facts and that reputable news outlets report different facts. There are often different interpretations or emphasis on the facts from different sites, but the basic facts should be the same. Or should be labeled to be “reported by” or as a developing story.
The one area where they may be conflicting “facts” is when statistics are reported in a certain way. The way a question is worded or what is included in the “true” or “false” answers can certainly lead to different outcomes. But to me the results of a survey or one single scientific study would not be an undisputed “fact”.
How is it condescending to argue facts vs non-facts? Facts are just that, based in the truth. That is very different from someone’s view or interpretation of the facts or, as noted above, the results of a survey or study.
Still waiting for any of the Snopes naysayers to provide some evidence of fallacy…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re72di5phM0
@mom2and
“very often there are conflicting facts and that reputable news outlets report different facts”
I enjoy this discussion and appreciate your input, however, I did not say the above. I said “and sometimes you can even find conflicting “facts” from reputable sources” I happen to find my statement different from yours and that was kind of my point. It’s actually in the interpretation of what’s presented. You are correct in that “facts are facts” however the interpretation can be very different. Most sources that I find cited on Facebook or elsewhere are links to articles. Articles which tend to interpret the facts and can be interpreted differently from different reputable sources. That is what I meant when I say it can be conflicting.
You say it can’t be condescending to argue facts vs non facts. While that may be true on the surface, the way it’s presented can be very condescending and I’m seeing it every day on Facebook and elsewhere.
Many of the political things that people share on Facebook are more editorials or opinions than news articles. In more traditional newspapers, they are labeled as such when you get to the newspaper’s web site (that may be less obvious from the Facebook share). But more partisan news sites commonly pass off editorials or opinions as news articles, and/or tend to heavily inject editorial opinions into their news articles. The heavier the opinion, the looser they tend to be with facts, whether omitting relevant facts, presenting them it a misleading way, or making up or repeating falsehoods.
@ucbalumnus I 100% agree with you. The problem is people want to point out " incorrect facts" on Facebook by linking yet another article that editorializes or interjects opinion. This is happening on both sides of the aisle and with a lot of news outlets. News sources used to just report the news as it happened, however, I find more and more “news” stories have a political slant.
Slants and different interpretations of facts isn’t something I go around correcting. If someone posted something saying this color is ivory and I’d call it more beige (and I can even point to a source that agrees with me)…it’s not really worth pointing out. But if they say it’s neon green then I might do so (unless they are constantly in the habit of doing this, in which case it’s not worth it).
However, many people have become so used to the idea that all news is heavily editorialized that they often reject even a neutral source digging into the actual facts – which often do not fit neatly into anyone’s partisan political preferences or ideologies.