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Re:Censorship by big tech at the behest of the U.S. government? by musicale on Thursday September 22, 2022 @11:31AM (#32940318)
I found dang's response[1] to the question "Is fact checking that difficult?" to be insightful:

> It's extremely difficult because the human psyche seems incapable of distinguishing "fact" from "that which supports my view", at least when the emotions are activated, and the only topics where people seek "fact checking" in the first place are the ones where emotions are activated. There may be exceptions—i.e. people whose minds don't work this way—but if they exist, they're so rare as to be no basis for social policy. (And I doubt that there are really exceptions.)

> That's why there doesn't seem to be any fact checker whose calls aren't predictable from one of the major ideological partitions.

> Another way of putting this is that the question, "what are the facts?" is complex enough to already recreate the entire political and ideological contest. It's understandable that people would like to reduce that contest to a simpler subset of factual questions—but you can't. Just the opposite: that apparently simpler subset reduces to it.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29597867

Re:Censorship by big tech at the behest of the U.S. government? by bombcar on Thursday September 22, 2022 @11:59AM (#32940794)
The only "fact checkers" I have found to be useful are domain experts who get a burr up their ass and go incredibly deep-dive on whatever it is. And whatever they come up with usually pisses everyone off relatively equally, for some reason.
Re:Censorship by big tech at the behest of the U.S. government? by forgetfreeman on Thursday September 22, 2022 @08:30PM (#32946450)
I'd like to take a stab at this. Barring certain pitiable neurodivergent conditions, folks consider themselves to be intelligent and highly moral creatures. The primary goal of ideological shit-flinging contests appears to be revealing one's opponent as an amoral imbecile, as a means of both propping up one's own self-image, and virtue signaling to larger audiences. When a true authority joins the chat and nukes everyone's Dunning-Kruger fueled reductionist positions with a comprehensive and highly nuanced grasp of the topic at hand, all of the amateurs at the table are presented with details that undermine their simplistic take on the issue in question. This undermines their own credibility, introduces massive cognitive dissonance, and disrupts their ability to continue to paint their chosen adversaries as dangerous incompetents based solely on the merits of their arguemts. In other words everyone is wrong, and they hate it because ego.
Re:Censorship by big tech at the behest of the U.S. government? by coding123 on Thursday September 22, 2022 @01:50PM (#32942320)
This can't be more true. I see a new section in Google news now for "fact checks". I am guessing it's never had a post on the hunter laptop. It's not "fact checking section" it's a "daily left affirmation section".
Re:Censorship by big tech at the behest of the U.S. government? by lovich on Friday September 23, 2022 @12:34AM (#32948093)
Re:Censorship by big tech at the behest of the U.S. government? by hotpotamus on Thursday September 22, 2022 @02:58PM (#32943149)
What questions do you have about the hunter laptop?
Re:Censorship by big tech at the behest of the U.S. government? by HideousKojima on Friday September 23, 2022 @01:59AM (#32948549)
Were news articles claiming that it was a fabrication by Russian intelligence themselves fabrications?
Re:Censorship by big tech at the behest of the U.S. government? by hotpotamus on Thursday September 22, 2022 @02:59PM (#32943164)
That seems like the long way around of saying there is no such thing as objective truth, which I'm also beginning to suspect is correct.
Re:Censorship by big tech at the behest of the U.S. government? by commandlinefan on Thursday September 22, 2022 @12:03PM (#32940865)
dang may be the only fact checker in the world I would trust to actually check facts.
Re:Censorship by big tech at the behest of the U.S. government? by fakethenews2022 on Thursday September 22, 2022 @10:05PM (#32947162)
Dang blocked a link to a paper on myocarditis induced on teens by the vaccines. That is now not disputed. I don’t trust dang for anything.

Fuck you dang and block this.

Re:Censorship by big tech at the behest of the U.S. government? by OrvalWintermute on Friday September 23, 2022 @10:58PM (#32959374)
> Dang blocked a link to a paper on myocarditis induced on teens by the vaccines.

I know many people have a good opinion of Dang, but this seems to be editing, rather than moderating.

Can you provide some more data about what happened, the paper in question, and if it was from a reputable source in a peer-reviewed journal, or preprint?

I'd like to know more about this. I've long talked about the myocarditis and pericarditis risks which are most pronounced with young males and young females based on the known cases, and the nordic countries withdrawal of the vaccines for young males.

Strangely, even the Novavax vaccine also appears to have that adverse event, allegedly at a vastly reduced rate though [1].

[1] https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/what-...

Re:Censorship by big tech at the behest of the U.S. government? by fakethenews2022 on Saturday September 24, 2022 @12:00AM (#32959637)
This wasn't editing. It was censorship. I linked to a Youtube video by a doctor. Included in the video's description was a link to the paper. Dang claims that users flagged it and linked to the FAQ.

There is nothing in the link that would violate the FAQ.

I cussed him out in another comment and he blocked that too.

My link to the paper itself was downvoted too.

https://youtu.be/nBaIRm4610o

https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/74/11/1933/6353927

Now myocarditis is accepted and found on the CDC site on the mRNA vaccines.

Hacker News is shit. I have used it far less since that time.

Re:Censorship by big tech at the behest of the U.S. government? by OrvalWintermute on Saturday September 24, 2022 @01:26AM (#32959935)
> Dang claims that users flagged it and linked to the FAQ.

I am not defending dang, but that does appear to be a weaponized tactic being utilized here on HN.

Flag something, downvote it en masse, get a user making a dissenting opinion on a "you are commenting too fast timer" which appears to be triggered by mass downvotes, and then hope the flagging carries through.

The problem is with HN - they are permitting this type of behavior, and not realizing (or not actively intercepting) the use of this tactic to silence dissent.

While some time ago the idea that IV injection was problematic with the vaccines would be called fringe or, more aptly, cutting edge research, nowadays we know there is a legitimate issue, many countries are now banning these vaccines in persons under specific ages, and the body of research is more developed.

Re:Censorship by big tech at the behest of the U.S. government? by fakethenews2022 on Saturday September 24, 2022 @01:17PM (#32964634)
The paper was published in Oxford Academic by Oxford University Press. I don't think that can be labeled as fringe.

I talked to someone else and apparently this side effect was widely known and accepted in another country far before it was accepted in the US.

The dismissal of facts also happened with the investigation of airborne transmission of covid-19.