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Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world · 5 months ago

If I have to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, doesn't that make me the journalist?

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If I have to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, doesn't that make me the journalist?

Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world · 5 months ago
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  • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    If I tell him the sky is blue, and he asked for a source, am I obligated to provide that as well?

    I’m not going to play along with bad faith questioning of common knowledge.

    • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      You’ll find “common knowledge” is surprisingly hard to prove when you’re wrong. Wikipedia is a big place, if you can find concrete evidence of NYT lying, you can do a lot of reputational damage to them (even as so far as getting them removed as an acceptable source)

      • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Seeing a lot of bots defend Wikipedia the past couple months. Is that because it’s so easily manipulated by y’all?

        • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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          5 months ago

          Ah yes, beep boop

        • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.worksOP
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          5 months ago

          Seeing a lot of bots defend Wikipedia the past couple months. […]

          How are you determining that they are bots? Would you, by chance, have any examples?

          • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            “Astroturfers” may be a more accurate term. Especially in regards to Israel and Ukraine. There’s videos you can look up where they train Zionists to astroturf forums and strategically edit Wikipedia. The US Air Force has a massive astroturf farm at Eglin Air Force base pushing a lot of this, too.

            Whether these commenters are professional astroturfers, or just repeating what they’ve heard from one, I don’t believe it a meaningful distinction to make.

            • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.worksOP
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              5 months ago

              […] There’s videos you can look up where they train Zionists to astroturf forums and strategically edit Wikipedia. […]

              Can you cite a source for this?

              • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                https://youtu.be/t52LB2fYhoY?si=RAxI3hiPQpElUD1N

                • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.worksOP
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                  5 months ago

                  Thank you for the source 😊

            • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.worksOP
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              5 months ago

              […] The US Air Force has a massive astroturf farm at Eglin Air Force base pushing a lot of this, too. […]

              Can you cite a source for this?

              • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                Besides public disclosure documents? Reddit admins accidentally outed them before they started masking their traffic.

                https://web.archive.org/web/20160410083943/http://www.redditblog.com/2013/05/get-ready-for-global-reddit-meetup-day.html?m=1

                • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.worksOP
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                  5 months ago

                  Reddit admins accidentally outed them before they started masking their traffic.

                  https://web.archive.org/web/20160410083943/http://www.redditblog.com/2013/05/get-ready-for-global-reddit-meetup-day.html?m=1

                  Very interesting. Thank you for the link! When digging into this a little more, I came across this Reddit post [1], which pointed me to this research paper [2] authored, in part, an associate of Eglin AFB [2.1].

                  References
                  1. Title: “Reddit has removed their blog post identifying Eglin Air Force Base as the most reddit-addicted “city” - Eglin is often cited as the source of some government social-media propaganda/astroturfing programs”. Author: “Mumberthrax” u/Mumberthrax. “r/Blackout2015”. Reddit. Published: 2016-08-19T22:11:33.372Z. Accessed: 2024-12-13T03:55Z. https://www.reddit.com/r/Blackout2015/comments/4ylml3/reddit_has_removed_their_blog_post_identifying/.
                  2. Title: “Containment Control for a Social Network with State-Dependent Connectivity”. Author: “Zhen Kan”, “Justin Klotz”, “Eduardo L. Pasiliao Jr”, “Warren E. Dixon”. arxiv. Published: 2014-02-23T18:13:47Z. Accessed: 2024-12-13T03:59Z. DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1402.5644. https://arxiv.org/abs/1402.5644v1.
                      • One of the authors has a footnote stating that they are associated with

                        Air Force Research Laboratory, Munitions Directorate, Eglin AFB, FL 32542, USA

                • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.worksOP
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                  5 months ago

                  Besides public disclosure documents?

                  Do you have a handy source for those as well? Please don’t interpret my prying for sources as sealioning — I’m very curious to read more about this, and I want to make sure that what I find is actually what you are referring to.

    • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      5 months ago

      If I tell him the sky is blue, and he asked for a source, am I obligated to provide that as well? […]

      Imo, while not exactly proper science, a quick source for such a claim could be a simple color photo of the sky.

    • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      5 months ago

      […] I’m not going to play along with bad faith questioning of common knowledge.

      Leaving aside the “bad faith questioning” component, how would you handle requests for proof of what you are calling “common knowledge” in general?

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