https://reason.com/2022/07/29/recession-facebook-fact-check-biden-politifact/

Meta's third-party fact-checkers have flagged as "false information" posts on
Instagram and Facebook accusing the Biden administration of changing the
definition of a recession in order to deny that the U.S. economy has entered
one. This is yet another reminder that the project of purportedly independent
fact-checking on social media is a highly partisan one, in which legitimately
debatable opinions are passed off as objective truth.

Last week, the White House published an online article disputing the standard
definition of an economic recession: i.e., two consecutive fiscal quarters in
which GDP growth was negative.

"Both official determinations of recessions and economists' assessment of
economic activity are based on a holistic look at the data-- including the
labor market, consumer and business spending, industrial production, and
incomes," wrote the White House. "Based on these data, it is unlikely that the
decline in GDP in the first quarter of this year-- even if followed by another
GDP decline in the second quarter-- indicates a recession."

This post has been widely shared-- and in some cases, mocked-- on social
media. Graham Allen, an Instagram personality, posted a video reacting to the
post in which he asked Siri to define the term recession. Siri's definition:
two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth.

But Allen's video is currently obscured on Instagram; users can still watch
it, but they first have to click past a disclaimer that it contains "false
information reviewed by independent fact-checkers". A similar label has
appeared on some Facebook posts that also take issue with the Biden
administration's wordplay.

The fact-checker is Politifact, a fact-checking website run by the Poynter
Institute. Politifact is an official third-party fact-checking apparatus for
Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram. This means that PolitiFact
is not like any ordinary website that offers a critique of a political
narrative: PolitiFact's critiques are enforced by social media platforms.

In this instance, PolitiFact has rated as false the claim that "the White
House is now trying to protect Joe Biden by changing the definition of the
word recession". PolitiFact acknowledges that the Biden administration's
efforts to spin current economic conditions as something other than a
recession are political in nature. Nevertheless, the fact-checkers conclude
that since the White House is citing the National Bureau of Economic
Research's official definition, the administration is on solid footing.

Phil Magness, director of research and education at the American Institute for
Economic Research, thinks PolitiFact is playing games.

"In this case, PolitiFact's 'ruling' is compounded by the fact that they have
previously invoked the very same definition of a recession-- two consecutive
quarters of GDP decline-- in previous rulings to either provide cover to
exaggerated Democratic claims about an impending recession or tear down
Republican claims to the same effect," he tells Reason.

In a recent op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Magness explained that the NBER
is not the "official arbiter of recessions"; on the contrary, the federal
government has often used the general definition preferred by most lay people,
as well as Siri:

Mr. Biden's economic advisers are certainly free to make the case for
a revised determination. The NBER takes a more holistic approach, in part
because some recessionary events are shorter than two quarters or
manifest in nonconsecutive quarters. But this rationale works against the
White House's current argument, which seeks to delay acknowledging a
recession even if a two-quarter decline is observed this year. The NBER
committee has previously acknowledged recessions that fell short of a
strict and sustained two-quarter contraction. This last happened during the
2000 dot-com bust, which played out in nonconsecutive quarterly drops.

While recognizing its limitations, the traditional definition of a recession
provides a functional rule of thumb to interpret events as they unfold. The
NBER determination is a rigorous and reputable historical indicator for
dating the beginning and end of business-cycle troughs, but it isn't suitable

or real-time policy determinations.

This is hardly the first time that the social media fact-checking industry has
failed to add clarity to a contentious issue. Last year, PolitiFact rated as
false the claim that COVID-19 is 99% survivable for most age groups.

"Experts say a person cannot determine their own chances at surviving COVID-19
by looking at national statistics, because the data doesn't take into account
the person's own risks and COVID-19 deaths are believed to be undercounted,"
wrote PolitiFact.

Regardless of what "experts say," it is certainly the case that individual
persons can estimate their likelihood of surviving COVD-19 based on national
statistics. The disease's age discrimination is extreme: The overwhelming
majority of young, healthy people are not at significant risk, especially when
compared with elderly Americans. This was a curious fact-check, and it was
hardly the first.

Science Feedback, another of Meta's fact-checking partners, wrongly labeled as
false one of my own articles about the efficacy of mask mandates in schools.
Not only was the fact-check incorrect, but it also introduced a new error: The
fact-checker suggested that my article had erroneously claimed masks don't
work to stop the spread of COVID-19 in schools. In actuality, my article had
only asserted that there wasn't much compelling evidence that mask *mandates*
had made a difference. (A year later, this distinction is moot, since even
COVID-cautious public health officials now admit the cloth masks required in
most schools do practically nothing to thwart the variants.) After I pointed
out the mistake to Facebook, Science Feedback removed the "false information"
label.

These are concerning mistakes. Media organizations routinely get things wrong,
but the premise of fact-checkers was supposed to be that they are somehow
above the fray, only weighing in when something can be proven or disproven
quite definitively. Instead, they are often making dubious judgment calls on
issues where reasonable disagreements exist.

"The fact-checking industry has become a partisan arbiter of political
disputes, using claims of expertise that its writers do not actually possess
to censor and shut down challenges to the political left," says Magness.

On 7/30/2022 3:34 PM, BTR1701 wrote:
> https://reason.com/2022/07/29/recession-facebook-fact-check-biden-politifact/

Oh, is Truth Social okay then?

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On 7/30/2022 4:59 PM, trotsky wrote:
> On 7/30/2022 3:34 PM, BTR1701 wrote:
>> https://reason.com/2022/07/29/recession-facebook-fact-check-biden-politifact/
>>
>
>
> Oh, is Truth Social okay then?
>
> LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>

If anybody cares... when I first confronted this 'recession' nonsense a
couple of days ago, right here on r.a.tv, I did what any interested
passerby would do: I asked Google. Google told me that Biden's press
secretary's definition was the officially correct one. That surprised
me, as I doubt Biden himself would've known it. But that should've been
the end of the "debate" -- and how dispiriting it is that it wasn't.
Meanwhile, here's the true, time-honored, "informal" definition:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51qn36ajrjL._AC_SL1200_.jpg

BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:
> https://reason.com/2022/07/29/recession-facebook-fact-check-biden-politifact/
>
> Meta's third-party fact-checkers have flagged as "false information" posts on
Instagram and Facebook accusing the Biden administration of changing the
definition of a recession in order to deny that the U.S. economy has
entered
one. This is yet another reminder that the project of purportedly
independent
fact-checking on social media is a highly partisan one, in which
legitimately
debatable opinions are passed off as objective truth.
>
> Last week, the White House published an online article disputing the standard
definition of an economic recession: i.e., two consecutive fiscal quarters
in
which GDP growth was negative.
>
> "Both official determinations of recessions and economists' assessment of
economic activity are based on a holistic look at the data-- including the
labor market, consumer and business spending, industrial production, and
incomes," wrote the White House. "Based on these data, it is unlikely that
the
decline in GDP in the first quarter of this year-- even if followed by
another
GDP decline in the second quarter-- indicates a recession."
>
> This post has been widely shared-- and in some cases, mocked-- on social
media. Graham Allen, an Instagram personality, posted a video reacting to
the
post in which he asked Siri to define the term recession. Siri's
definition:
two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth.
>
> But Allen's video is currently obscured on Instagram; users can still watch
it, but they first have to click past a disclaimer that it contains "false
information reviewed by independent fact-checkers". A similar label has
appeared on some Facebook posts that also take issue with the Biden
administration's wordplay.
>
> The fact-checker is Politifact, a fact-checking website run by the Poynter
Institute. Politifact is an official third-party fact-checking apparatus
for
Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram. This means that
PolitiFact
is not like any ordinary website that offers a critique of a political
narrative: PolitiFact's critiques are enforced by social media platforms.
>
> In this instance, PolitiFact has rated as false the claim that "the White
House is now trying to protect Joe Biden by changing the definition of the
word recession". PolitiFact acknowledges that the Biden administration's
efforts to spin current economic conditions as something other than a
recession are political in nature. Nevertheless, the fact-checkers conclude
that since the White House is citing the National Bureau of Economic
Research's official definition, the administration is on solid footing.
>
> Phil Magness, director of research and education at the American Institute for
Economic Research, thinks PolitiFact is playing games.
>
> "In this case, PolitiFact's 'ruling' is compounded by the fact that they have
previously invoked the very same definition of a recession-- two
consecutive
quarters of GDP decline-- in previous rulings to either provide
cover to
exaggerated Democratic claims about an impending recession or tear down
Republican claims to the same effect," he tells Reason.
>
> In a recent op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Magness explained that the NBER
is not the "official arbiter of recessions"; on the contrary, the federal
government has often used the general definition preferred by most lay
people,
as well as Siri:
>
> Mr. Biden's economic advisers are certainly free to make the case for
> a revised determination. The NBER takes a more holistic approach, in part
> because some recessionary events are shorter than two quarters or
> manifest in nonconsecutive quarters. But this rationale works against the
> White House's current argument, which seeks to delay acknowledging a
> recession even if a two-quarter decline is observed this year. The NBER
> committee has previously acknowledged recessions that fell short of a
> strict and sustained two-quarter contraction. This last happened during the
> 2000 dot-com bust, which played out in nonconsecutive quarterly drops.
>
> While recognizing its limitations, the traditional definition of a recession
> provides a functional rule of thumb to interpret events as they unfold. The
> NBER determination is a rigorous and reputable historical indicator for
> dating the beginning and end of business-cycle troughs, but it isn't suitable

> or real-time policy determinations.
>
> This is hardly the first time that the social media fact-checking industry has
failed to add clarity to a contentious issue. Last year, PolitiFact rated
as
false the claim that COVID-19 is 99% survivable for most age groups.
>
> "Experts say a person cannot determine their own chances at surviving COVID-19
by looking at national statistics, because the data doesn't take into
account
the person's own risks and COVID-19 deaths are believed to be
undercounted,"
wrote PolitiFact.
>
> Regardless of what "experts say," it is certainly the case that individual
persons can estimate their likelihood of surviving COVD-19 based on
national
statistics. The disease's age discrimination is extreme: The
overwhelming
majority of young, healthy people are not at significant risk, especially
when
compared with elderly Americans. This was a curious fact-check, and it was
hardly the first.
>
> Science Feedback, another of Meta's fact-checking partners, wrongly labeled as
false one of my own articles about the efficacy of mask mandates in
schools.
Not only was the fact-check incorrect, but it also introduced a
new error: The
fact-checker suggested that my article had erroneously claimed masks don't
work to stop the spread of COVID-19 in schools. In actuality, my article
had
only asserted that there wasn't much compelling evidence that mask
*mandates*
had made a difference. (A year later, this distinction is moot, since even
COVID-cautious public health officials now admit the cloth masks required
in
most schools do practically nothing to thwart the variants.) After I
pointed
out the mistake to Facebook, Science Feedback removed the "false
information"
label.
>
> These are concerning mistakes. Media organizations routinely get things wrong,
but the premise of fact-checkers was supposed to be that they are somehow
above the fray, only weighing in when something can be proven or disproven
quite definitively. Instead, they are often making dubious judgment calls
on
issues where reasonable disagreements exist.
>
> "The fact-checking industry has become a partisan arbiter of political
disputes, using claims of expertise that its writers do not actually
possess
to censor and shut down challenges to the political left," says
Magness.
>

The Facebook fact checkers don’t even understand English. Facebook brags
about that. They say that by employing fact checkers that don’t speak
English they’ll make sure all posts are welcoming for all readers. Except
of course English-speaking readers that know better apparently.

They also assign guilt from fact checkers like Snopes but get the actual
facts wrong. For example, I might post some thing that says “Ian is the
most hated person on the Internet“
The fact checker will throw Snopes at me with something like “Ian is the
most always wrong person on USENET“ and then say that Snopes has decided
that’s not true, therefore my original statement isn’t true, and if I don’t
take it down they will retaliate in other threads and on other groups than
I posted it in the first place.

--
The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.

On 7/30/2022 4:47 PM, moviePig wrote:
> On 7/30/2022 4:59 PM, trotsky wrote:
>> On 7/30/2022 3:34 PM, BTR1701 wrote:
>>> https://reason.com/2022/07/29/recession-facebook-fact-check-biden-politifact/
>>>
>>
>>
>> Oh, is Truth Social okay then?
>>
>> LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>>
>
> If anybody cares... when I first confronted this 'recession' nonsense a
> couple of days ago, right here on r.a.tv, I did what any interested
> passerby would do: I asked Google.  Google told me that Biden's press
> secretary's definition was the officially correct one.  That surprised
> me, as I doubt Biden himself would've known it.

I already posted about that. The cat must've got Derp's testicles again.