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bizarre_coincidence t1_iw7v8jz wrote

Reply to comment by CosmicDave 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

Unless you are witnessing events firsthand, you have to trust someone to tell you what the facts are. If two information sources disagree on what the facts are, you either don’t know what to believe or you come up with your own process to decide which source to believe.

Facts may be objective, but we very rarely come up against facts. Rather, we come up against claims of facts, and we cannot independently assess whether these claims are true. We can only ask if they are consistent with other things we believe are true, or are consistent with other sources that we trust, and this is an imperfect strategy.

Even scientific facts which are in principle verifiable might not be in practice. And since science makes plenty of counterintuitive claims, there is legitimate reason to be skeptical of things that are known to be factual.

The point is that it isn’t that simple. We take for granted that we know what the facts are, and that they are self evident. The truth is much more complicated.

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