Comment by listenallyall | Hacker News Reader

Comment by listenallyall | Hacker News Reader

Although I don't use or enjoy Facebook, I actually give them a bit of a pass here. Because the concept that the lab leak theory was debunked garbage was extremely well proclaimed, repeatedly, by a strong cabal of "independent" media conglomerates such as NYTimes, MSNBC, NPR, The Atlantic, etc. In 2020 the only people willing to give the theory any credence were people whom those media companies would describe as "right-wing lunatics." Despite doing none of their own investigating, or having any credible science to back up their version of the "truth," these media outlets successfully squashed the theory and made their readers/viewers dismiss anyone who might think it was true was either a Trump-lover, a racist, a conspiracy theorist, a science-denier, or a combination of the above.

So what news organization, that its wide, diverse audience would generally respect, could Facebook have turned to that would NOT fact-check lab-leak stories as being false?

I actually give them a bit of a pass here.

Let’s be honest here, they said it was fake for no other reason than Trump said it. There was literally no more thought that went into it than that. And they’ve stopped for the exact same reason, their preferred candidate said it so ergo it must be true.

You're entirely correct -- I am not denying Facebook the company has strong political leanings, or that it doesn't, shall we say, "influence" its fact checkers. But in this particular case, the lab-leak theory, traditional media was so aggressive in shutting it down and "confirming" its falsehood (despite not having any actual facts or evidence), that Facebook really had no choice.

traditional media was so aggressive in shutting it down and "confirming" its falsehood

Agreed, all of them did it for the same reason and mutually reinforced each other, an extraordinary example of groupthink.

Let's assume for a moment that is their strategy, consider things about Covid true if Biden says them, and false if Trump says them, and accept their joint decision if they happen to agree.

That would be basically 100% record of getting things right, so well done Facebook I guess the algorithm is working.

Can anyone name specific instances when Trump and Biden disagreed on a factual statement regarding Covid where this rule of thumb didn't pan out? I'm coming up pretty blank, but surely the law of averages suggests there must have been a handful?

What you say is correct, I don't think Facebook could have done differently.

The young progressive people who work at and own Facebook couldn't have seen it any other way.

This is exactly why censorship is dangerous and that's why name calling people who disagree with you is dangerous. This politicisation and polarisation is extremely dangerous to the scientific method.

The end result is that when I see a conspiracy theory, a news article or a "fact-check" I have no clue whether that's true or not. Reading the original source is the best you can do but it's more time consuming and it still has a chance to miss on other original sources which could paint a different picture.

In this specific instance, I can't make any excuses. I think just reading the sources would have been enough to think the lab leak stories could have been true. There were reports of researchers sick in Autumn 2019 and the epicentre just happened to be incredibly close to a research lab studying coronaviruses.

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