Vent: A talk at the Seattle library last year changed how I view 'fact checkers'

The speaker showed how a major fact check site quietly changed their rating on a story three times in one week, each shift following a big donor's public comment. I now cross-check any 'debunked' claim across at least five sources before forming a view. Has anyone else caught a fact check changing after pressure?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_nina10d ago

Yeah, that doesn't surprise me at all. I remember reading a deep dive about how one of those big fact check operations had to walk back their rating on a political story after it blew up on social media, the timeline was really fishy. It just makes the whole thing feel like a game of telephone where the message changes depending on who's yelling the loudest. Now I just assume any single rating has an agenda and go look for the raw footage or the original documents myself.

the_hugo10d ago

But that's exactly why we need those fact checks, @the_nina.

benc535d ago

Exactly! I've seen that happen too, where the "correct" answer shifts after enough people complain online.