Submitted by asbruckman t3_yu22hj in science
Reply to comment by HToTD in People who post stories marked false by Snopes on Reddit fall into five groups: Reason to Disagree, Changed Belief, Steadfast Non-Standard Belief, Sharing to Debunk, and Sharing for Humor. Reducing misinformation requires different approaches for each group. by asbruckman
Not saying Trump isn’t disingenuous, he certainly is, but some of the fact checks on him were completely absurd.
He was legitimately fact checked on there being so many hamburgers for a visiting football “you could stack them to the moon”. Fact check: the number of burgers there could not be stacked to the moon.
Or during the months between Election Day and January 6th there was a fact check about whether or not Rudy Giuliani farted during a hearing.
The farting one bugs me more because this was in the middle of serious election denial on a national scale. There were big claims that needed to be checked. But, I guess let’s waste time laughing about a fart because facts are important or something. Idk, just rubbed me the wrong way.
The fart story was spread around a lot. People were interested in it.
Just like the question of whether Walt Disney’s head is frozen waiting for the technology to reanimate it, it’s not important at all. But it’s interesting to enough people to merit an entry on the site.
>Just like the question of whether Walt Disney’s head is frozen waiting for the technology to reanimate it, it’s not important at all. But it’s interesting to enough people to merit an entry on the site.
It's on the site because when it started back in the 90's it was literally just for exploring and/or debunking urban legands like that. Like many sites it's evolved and changed since then, but that entry predates most stuff on the site, tbh.
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90's snopes was awesome. Before the divorce, redesign, ads / sponsored content, and plagiarism. Just good old fashioned web design with a lot of interesting urban legends.
Ideally, and call me crazy, but fact checking should be motivated by facts and not childish farting.
I can wish people were not obsessed with the Kardashians.
You can wish Snopes didn't write about farts.
Ultimately, the world is a better place when we don't get to decide what other people enjoy or do with their time.
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The frustrating thing about that is it takes away from real stories and gives credence to the whole fake news narrative that he spun successfully to help win in 2016. This is a troubling trend overall. We can rationally dissect fact from fiction without clickbait and pedantic behavior.
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