Fact Check now available in Google Search and News - <AUTHOR> https://blog.google/products/search/fact-check-now-available-google-search-and-news-around-world/ <comment><USER2> I'm a former journalist, and one of the mistakes I often see people make is to either give too much or not enough credence to whether the facts in a news story (or op-ed) are true.

Obviously, if you disregard objective facts because they defy your assumptions or hurt your argument, you're deluding yourself.

But an argument that uses objectively true and verifiable facts may nevertheless be invalid (i.e. it's possible that the premises might be true but the conclusion false). Similarly, a news story might be entirely factual but still biased. And in software terms, your unit tests might be fine, but your integration tests still fail.

So here's what I tell people:

Fact checking is like spell check. You know what's great about spell check? It can tell me that I've misspeled two words in this sentance. But it will knot alert me too homophones. And even if my spell checker also checks grammar, I might construct a sentence that is entirely grammatical but lets the bathtub build my dark tonsils rapidly, and it will appear error-free.

Similarly, you can write an article in which all of the factual assertions are true but irrelevant to the point at hand. Or you can write an article in which the facts are true, but they're cherry-picked to support a particular bias. And some assertions are particularly hard to fact-check because even the means of verifying them is disputed.

So while fact checking can be useful, it can also be misused, and we need to keep in mind its limitations.

In the end, what will serve you best is not some fact checking website, but the ability to read critically, think critically, factor in potential bias, and scrutinize the tickled wombat's postage.

<comment><USER3> I cringe to hear "fact checking" used in reference to news articles. A "fact" is something that can be falsified with the evidence at hand. It's a fact that the temperature of this liquid is 72 degrees--you can measure it.

Almost all of what news articles deal with, however, are inferences drawn from evidence, where the evidence is subject to dispute and many different inferences can be drawn from the same evidence. For example, take PolitiFact's analysis of Trump's assertion: "There is 'no system to vet' refugees from the Middle East."[1] To me that's not a "fact" that can be "checked." That's an assertion which could mean many different things. What qualifies as a "system" or "vet[ing]?" Is there an implicit assumption about _who 's_ system we're talking about? What is the definition of "refugee?"

Even if we decide that under all reasonable assumptions, that statement is still false, what even is the significance of it in context? Here, PolitiFact omits most of the quote: "Altogether, under the Clinton plan, you'd be admitting hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East with no system to vet them, or to prevent the radicalization of their children." Are we talking about the system that exists now, or the system Clinton proposed? Are we talking just about vetting, or a system that vets them and prevents future radicalization?

Note the litany of assumptions in PolitiFact's analysis: 1) Clinton's proposal is the same as the status quo; 2) That we're just talking about vetting, not also future radicalization; 3) that "refugee" refers to the formal UN refugee status; 4) that various measures qualify as "vetting," etc. All of these assumptions may be perfectly reasonable, but when you pile them on, you've got a counter-argument, _i.e._ a proposal to draw a different inference, posing as a fact-check.

As a lawyer, I spend much of my life taking purported "facts" and asking these questions. Because between the complexity of human interactions, the need to make inferences from incomplete evidence, and the ambiguities inherent in human language, it's rarely clear what someone even meant to say much less whether that assertion was true or false.

[1] [http://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/statements/2016/jun/...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/statements/2016/jun/13/donald-trump/wrong-donald-trump-says-theres-no- system-vet-refug/)

<comment><USER4> > "There is 'no system to vet' refugees from the Middle East."[1] To me that's > not a "fact" that can be "checked." That's an assertion which could mean > many different things. What qualifies as a "system" or "vet[ing]?" Is there > an implicit assumption about who's system we're talking about? What is the > definition of "refugee?"

Come on, under literally any reasonable interpretation of those words Trump's claim is simply false. That's a perfectly valid fact check, which you could only dispute if you aim to change the English language.

<comment><USER3> I think Trump's statement is wrong under many reasonable interpretations. But literally false under " _any_ reasonable interpretation" is in fact the criminal standard for falsity of statements. How do I feel about my chances of acquittal in this case? Pretty damn good!

First, he never said "There is 'no system to vet' refugees from the Middle East." That's your paraphrasing of what he said. Your charging him for saying something false when more than half the words in the allegedly false statement are your own.

What he actually said was:

"Altogether, under the Clinton plan, you'd be admitting hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East with no system to vet them, or to prevent the radicalization of their children."

And it was in response to Clinton saying:

"Look, we're facing the worst refugee crisis since the end of World War II, and I think the United States has to do more, and I would like to see us move from what is a good start with 10,000 to 65,000 _and begin immediately to put into place the mechanisms for vetting the people that we would take in_."

Second, he meant a "system" that both "vet[s] them" and "prevent[s] the radicalization of their children." The system described in PolitiFact's article only does the former, not the latter.

Third, "vetting" can mean lots of different things. When we "vet" Supreme Court justices, for example, we're not just checking to see if they have criminal records or are on terrorist watch lists. We're trying to see if they harbor secret desires to overturn _Roe v. Wade_ at the first opportunity. Trump's reference to future radicalization confirms he's contemplating "vetting" to include digging into peoples' ideologies and motivations. Nothing in the process described in the PolitiFact piece gets into that.

Fourth, it makes total sense for Trump to have meant "vetting" to encompass more than just the checks performed today. He was responding to Clinton, who said that we would have to "begin immediately to put into place the mechanisms for vetting the people that we would take in[.]" The obvious implication is that such "vetting" is not happening today.

Finally, by "no system," he meant "no effective system" or "no good system." It's common for people speaking extemporaneously to say the former when they mean the latter. Running checks on Syrians in U.S. databases isn't going to tell us much about what kind of people we're dealing with. Lots of very bad people won't be bad enough to show up on a foreign country's databases.

<comment><USER4> > Second, he meant a "system" that both "vet[s] them" and "prevent[s] the > radicalization of their children."

Sorry, not a reasonable interpretation. No single system can both vet current candidates and prevent the radicalization of progeny that may not yet even be born. No single system can even prevent the radicalization of existing progeny _and_ simultaneously vet the parents. The very idea is simply absurd, ergo, not reasonable.

> Trump's reference to future radicalization confirms he's contemplating > "vetting" to include digging into peoples' ideologies and motivations.

The fact that he stipulated radicalization of progeny as a separate clause requiring a second system does not support this charitable interpretation.

> Fourth, it makes total sense for Trump to have meant "vetting" to encompass > more than just the checks performed today. He was responding to Clinton, who > said that we would have to "begin immediately to put into place the > mechanisms for vetting the people that we would take in[.]" The obvious > implication is that such "vetting" is not happening today.

This merely implies that they were _both_ wrong in stating that no vetting exists. Agreeing with Clinton does not somehow entail Trump was correct.

> Finally, by "no system," he meant "no effective system" or "no good system." > It's common for people speaking extemporaneously to say the former when they > mean the latter.

So then you agree that what Trump said was _literally_ false, even if some would like us to be more charitable in interpreting his words. If this were an isolated incident, that may even be a reasonable expectation.

But I can cite a plethora of evidence of Trump constantly making such literally false claims, with others executing ever more elaborate gymnastics to interpret him charitably. This past and continuing behaviour suggests your charitable interpretation does not reasonably reflect Trump's actual meaning.

<comment><USER3> > Sorry, not a reasonable interpretation. No single system can both vet > current candidates and prevent the radicalization of progeny that may not > yet even be born. No single system can even prevent the radicalization of > existing progeny and simultaneously vet the parents. The very idea is simply > absurd, ergo, not reasonable.

Depends on what "prevent means." "Only you can prevent forest fires." Does that mean you can keep every forest fire from happening? Of course not. It means you can take measures directed at trying to reduce the number of forest fires. You can certainly take measures directed at trying to reduce radicalization ( _e.g._ through ongoing contact).

> The fact that he stipulated radicalization of progeny as a separate clause > requiring a second system does not support this charitable interpretation.

Grammatically, the function of preventing radicalization is ascribed to the "system" in the previous clause.

> This merely implies that they were both wrong in stating that no vetting > exists. Agreeing with Clinton does not somehow entail Trump was correct.

Or it means that both are using the word "vetting" to mean something more than the process that exists now. That's a basic feature of human discussion: terms take on a meaning in context.

> So then you agree that what Trump said was literally false, even if some > would like us to be more charitable in interpreting his words. If this were > an isolated incident, that may even be a reasonable expectation.

You're the one who proposed the standard, which is literal falsity _under any reasonable interpretation_ (which happens to be the criminal standard). In the context of an extemporaneous, spoken statement, "no good system" can be a reasonable interpretation of "no system." People regularly omit qualifiers when speaking. E.g. "nobody thinks that ketchup ice cream tastes good" or "everybody in the office hates the new guy."

> But I can cite a plethora of evidence of Trump constantly making such > literally false claims, with others executing ever more elaborate gymnastics > to interpret him charitably. This past and continuing behaviour suggests > your charitable interpretation does not reasonably reflect Trump's actual > meaning.

The purpose of this exercise is not to discern Trump's "actual meaning." (The legal standard for falsity of statements is objective, not subjective.) You can write a very good analysis of what Trump actually means and why you think he's wrong. But you'd call that "political analysis" not "fact checking." If you need to make assumptions and exclude charitable interpretations to falsify something, it's not a fact and the exercise you're engaged in cannot be called fact-checking.

<comment><USER4> > Depends on what "prevent means." "Only you can prevent forest fires." Does > that mean you can keep every forest fire from happening? Of course not. It > means you can take measures directed at trying to reduce the number of > forest fires. You can certainly take measures directed at trying to reduce > radicalization (e.g. through ongoing contact).

My point did not depend upon the interpretation of "prevent", it depended on the absurdity of a single system covering both prevention and vetting. It's simply not logically possible. So if we're being charitable to Trump, we must grant him logical consistency no?

> Grammatically, the function of preventing radicalization is ascribed to the > "system" in the previous clause.

Except this is clearly logically impossible, therefore there must be two systems as previously mentioned, therefore Trump's disjunction was either not referring to the same system, or he's so misinformed that we can't take anything he says to be true. Either way, there's no reason to interpret this more charitably.

> Or it means that both are using the word "vetting" to mean something more > than the process that exists now. That's a basic feature of human > discussion: terms take on a meaning in context.

So without further clarification, which is also required in basic human discussion, their statements are de facto false given the commonly understood meaning of the terms employed.

> You're the one who proposed the standard, which is literal falsity under any > reasonable interpretation (which happens to be the criminal standard). In > the context of an extemporaneous, spoken statement, "no good system" can be > a reasonable interpretation of "no system." People regularly omit qualifiers > when speaking. E.g. "nobody thinks that ketchup ice cream tastes good" or > "everybody in the office hates the new guy."

Even if I were to grant that point, you now have to establish that "no good system" exists for Trump's statement to possibly be true. What expert witness will you cite to assert that no such "good vetting system" exists? Because no informed article I've read suggests that the existing vetting process is so deficient. In any case, this is quite clearly a factual question with a factual answer.

<comment><USER5> > Even if I were to grant that point, you now have to establish that "no good > system" exists for Trump's statement to possibly be true. What expert > witness will you cite to assert that no such "good vetting system" exists? > Because no informed article I've read suggests that the existing vetting > process is so deficient. In any case, this is quite clearly a factual > question with a factual answer.

You still don't seem to understand anything he's been trying to teach you. You're still adding arbitrary qualifiers: "informed article", "expert witness". Whether an article is "informed" is wildly subjective, and whether a witness is an "expert" (which is orthogonal to the question of whether his testimony is reliable) is also wildly subjective.

You are holding onto your bias like a rock in a storm. What you don't realize is that the rock is not attached to the seafloor, and it's pulling you down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The problems aren't facts. The problems are what completely distorted pictures of reality you can implicitly paint with completely solid and true facts.

If 45 states that "the National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion vs a $200 billion increase in Obama first mo." that's absolutely and objectively true - except that Obama inherited the financial meltdown of the Bush era and Trump years of hard financial consolidation (while any legislation has a lag of at least a year to trickle down into any kind of reporting at government scale).

Fact-checking won't change a thing about spin-doctoring. At least not in the positive sense.

<comment><USER7> One great example of this from the New York Times:

'Last year, 35% of colleges saw international student numbers go up, 26% saw no change, and 39% saw them go down. New York Times publishes this with the headline "Amid Trump Effect Fear, 40% of Colleges See Dip in Foreign Applicants".' Source: [http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/03/one...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/03/one- real-blooper-cannot-let-pass.html)

And another similar one from the NYT: [https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/12/30/contra-nyt-on- economis...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/12/30/contra-nyt-on-economists- on-education/)

<comment><USER8> This. I see far more fake headlines than fake news. Sure some are just pure click-bait, but often times the headline takes a far more biased angle than the actual text of the story. Combine that with the frequency with which people (re)share without taking time to RTFA and you have plenty of non-fake news distorting peoples view of the reality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think this has huge potential for abuse. Let's say politifact or snopes or both happen to be biased. Let's say they both lean left or both lean right. Now an entire side of the aisle will always be presented by Google as false. I know that's how most people perceive it anyway, but how's it going to look for Google when they're taking a side? Also, I have to wonder whether this will flag things as false until one of those other sites confirms it, or does it default to neutral?

<comment><USER10> These are objective fact checks, aren't they? It's harder to quietly include bias than in say, a newspaper or cable news.

If one/both of them starts getting power-mad with their influence, they can get booted off the list, and replaced, or have others come in next to them.

If two of them say "This is true", and a third says "This is false", then that third one, if it can present good data for it's POV, can quickly become more trusted.

<comment><USER9> Okay, I didn't want to say it, but I personally think snopes is biased. I'm going to use a few made-up examples because I don't want take the time to hunt down real examples, but I used to see this occasionally and stopped using them.

Myth: Donald Trump said he loves women.

Verdict: Mostly false

Facts: He said he loves women. He's also said mean things about Rosie O'Donnell.

Myth: Bill Clinton said he loves Mexicans.

Verdict: Mostly True

Facts: He said he loves women. Some women are Mexicans

And yes, sometimes it's that absurdly blatant.

<comment><USER11> >I don't want to take the time to hunt down real examples

That's fine, but I advise nobody to put any credence behind your claim (snopes is biased) until you are willing and able to provide evidence. Until then, it is safer to continue with the general understanding that snopes is not biased.

You can't just toss shit over the wall and hope for the best, man.

<comment><USER5> > Until then, it is safer to continue with the general understanding that > snopes is not biased.

Are you serious? You think it's safer to consider them _not_ biased?

That's just bizarre. Snopes is a business. Their purpose is to make money by generating clicks. Why in the world would you consider them some kind of unbiased, altruistic truth-seekers? Because they say so?

That's the most _unsafe_ understanding you could have, because it leaves you completely vulnerable to deception. Place your trust in them and you let them have their way with your understanding of the world. You're like putty in their hands.

> You can't just toss shit over the wall and hope for the best, man.

Well, you're nailing it to the wall and calling it truth, man. At least he realizes what he's doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I want to think about this both optimistically and pessimistically.

It's a great start and hope it leads to improvement, but this has the same psychological effect as reading a click-bait headline (fake news in itself) -- unless readers dive deeper. And just as with Wikipedia, the "fact check" sites could be gamed or contain inaccurate information themselves. Users never ask about the 'primary sources', and instead justread the headline for face-value.

My pessimistic expectation is that this inevitably will result in something like:

Chocolate is good for you. - Fact Check: Mostly True

Chocolate is bad for you. - Fact Check: Mostly True

Edit: Words

<comment><USER13> Nutritional advice is rarely supported by strong science, so "mostly true" for both headlines is easily possible, given the weak evidence for each statement.

<comment><USER12> That's my point... the things to be "fact checked" will often have weak evidence, especially for the first few days/weeks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Snopes and Politifact are not fact-checking websites.

>Snopes' main political fact-checker is a writer named Kim Lacapria. Before writing for Snopes, Lacapria wrote for Inquisitr, a blog that — oddly enough — is known for publishing fake quotes and even downright hoaxes as much as anything else.

>While at Inquisitr, the future "fact-checker" consistently displayed clear partisanship. She described herself as "openly left-leaning" and a liberal. She trashed the Tea Party as "teahadists." She called Bill Clinton "one of our greatest" presidents.

\---

I think fact checking should be non-partisan, don't you?

<comment><USER15> When you want to debunk a shyster claiming he has supernatural abilities (pyschics, etc), who is the first person you should turn to? A magician. By that same logic, perhaps former spin doctors make the best fact checkers.

<comment><USER16> The problem is whether or not they are "former" spin doctors. One could continue their "spinning" with even more power when being put in charge of labeling media true or not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think that politifact, snopes, and most fact-checking websites I'm aware of are great and everyone should use them as sources of reason and skepticism in a larger sea of information and misinformation.

But they are not authorities on the truth.

Google is not qualified to decide who is an authoritative decider of truth. But as the de facto gateway to the internet, it really looks like they are now doing exactly that. I am deeply uncomfortable with this.

<comment><USER18> > But they are not authorities on the truth.

I actually find them to be quite a bit more dangerous than normal news publications _precisely_ because they claim to have some higher standard for truth. When truth comes down to a score card, you can inject less spin and bias into the article than you would otherwise have to because so long as your readers see that something was at least "mostly true" or "mostly false" they will consider the case closed because it says "fact" right in the name of the publication.

<comment><USER15> Do you think that

a) it's possible, hypothetically, for an organization to exist that holds itself to a consistently higher standard of truthful reporting, both in basic facts in in how they report it

b) if yes to a), it's practical to make an organization like that

c) if yes to a) and b), should the organization attempt to advertise itself as being "more truthful" than other places that don't do that, such as by putting "fact" in their name?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is incomplete: they need to also include the political affiliations of owners of "fact check" sites, and perhaps also FEC disclosure for donations above threshold, and sources of financial support. I.e. this site comes from PolitiFact, but its owner is a liberal and he took a bunch of money from Pierre Omidyar who also donated heavily to the Clinton Global Initiative. Puts the fact checks in a more "factual" light, IMO. Fact check on the fact check: [http://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/article/2016/jan/14/...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/article/2016/jan/14/new-grant-will-help-politifact-grow/)

Things have gotten hyper-partisan to the extreme in the past year or so, so you sometimes see things that are factually true rated as "mostly false" if they do not align with the narrative of the (typically liberal) owners.

</comment><comment><USER20> What I wish they would do is use their fancy AI to put in a link to the original source. Tracking down original sources is extremely tedious, but it generally gives you the clearest idea of what's actually going on.

<comment><USER21> So much this. The sources, while often not any more factual, give you a better context for the given informaton.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I see Google having good intentions here, but I fall back to my previous sentiment on trying to assign "true/false" for all political stories and discussions.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13793576](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13793576)

</comment><comment><USER23> Fact checking is irrelevant. What's necessary is education. Just like spell check will not allow you to magically compose elegant prose, fact check is not going to prevent people from being misled. Notice how both of these "problems" have the same solution. In fact, fact check can be counter productive as people now sprinkle their articles with irrelevant facts.

Education is the solution to all social problems.

<comment><USER24> Education, as well us cognitive augmentation. Our brains are incapable of keeping up with the influx of information we're interacting with on a regular basis. We need to develop systems capable of information processing tailored to ones individual needs, intimately connected to our intellects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'd be interested to see how it copes with UK newspapers.

[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C6GuXQhWUAAN5F5.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C6GuXQhWUAAN5F5.jpg)

PROOF STATINS SAVE MILLIONS

STATINS IN NEW HEALTH ALERT

STATINS REALLY DO SAVE YOUR LIFE

HEALTH CHIEF SLAMS STATINS

HIGH DOSE OF STATINS CAN BEAT DEMENTIA

DOCTORS BAN ON STATINS

TAKE STATINS TO SAVE YOUR LIFE

NEW STATINS BOMBSHELL

OFFICIAL: STATINS ARE SAFE

STATINS: NEW SAFETY CHECKS

PROOF STATINS BEAT DEMENTIA

HOW STATINS CAN CAUSE DIABETES

STATINS FIGHT CANCER

STATINS SLASH RISK OF STROKE BY 30%

STATINS INCREASE RISK OF DIABETES

STATINS ADD A MERE 3 DAYS TO LIFE

STATINS DOUBLE RISK OF DIABETES

STATINS AGE YOU FASTER

NEW STATINS SAFETY ALERT

STATINS LINKED TO 227 DEATHS

PROOF AT LAST STATINS ARE SAFE

<comment><USER26> To say nothing of the challenges of a rigorous fact-minded enquiry in to the topic of KATE!

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Who fact checks the fact checkers?

<comment><USER28> I would imagine that you; the reader, does. If you find something incorrect, you should tell them or make an attempt to do so.

Having said that, I'm skeptical that this will be a force for overall good. I can already imagine ways in which this will be abused.

<comment><USER29> _" If you find something incorrect, you should tell them or make an attempt to do so."_

This seems like the common-sense approach, but who knows how long a proper "review" would take place and how much damage would be done (e.g. thousands or millions being improperly informed by a supposedly reliable service) in the meantime.

I am also highly skeptical of this effort, which essentially amounts to Google and a few parties trying to automate critical thinking skills.

<comment><USER30> Yeah.. it doesn't work that way at all. The lie is usually bombastic and bite- sized, the debunking subdued and thorough.

Result: Most people won't even see the debunking.

Churchill had a great quote here:

" _A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on._ "

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> A better idea would be to look for disagreements. Given a news article or claim, are there any sources out there which disagree? Then the user could browse both claims and decide for himself.

<comment><USER32> Counterargument to that is the whole "teach the controversy" dispute. Evolution is the only scientifically accepted theory, there are sources which disagree but placing eg Intelligent Design on the same level as Evolution is disingenuous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Are we in the twilight zone? An advertising company fact checking political discourse? Would google apply the same fact check to their own company?

"Does Google dodge taxes"

<comment><USER34> I don't see the fact check widget, but the first search result for your suggested query is a Forbes story with the headline "Google Moved Billions Of Dollars To Bermuda To Avoid Taxes... Again"

<comment><USER33> This is what I get for another similar query..

[http://imgur.com/a/iy2cK](http://imgur.com/a/iy2cK)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> So I mean, this is just a metadata tag. Anyone can make one. I'm looking forward to Breitbart & HuffPo abusing this...

I think it would be interesting to collect a list of websites that disagree on a claim review.

</comment><comment><USER36> Reading the article, it looks like what is going on is that news publishers now can claim that their articles were fact checked, or certain article is a fact check article on another one, using special markup. They also say the fact checks should adhere to certain guidelines, but I don't see how it would be possible for them to enforce any of these guidelines. It looks like just self-labelling feature, with all abuse potential inherent in this.

</comment><comment><USER37> This is a bad slippery slope - it suggests that a 'little sponsored banner' (which google chooses) can waive the necessity of being diligent in thought.

<comment><USER38> No. This does not replace anything. It's just one tool in a big war chest against bullshit. Fact checking is one tool. Good thinking is another. The list is big and we need every single one of those things to stave off this pandemic.

<comment><USER37> > Fact checking is one tool. Good thinking is another. The list is big and we > need every single one of those things to stave off this pandemic.

Which _pandemic_ are you referring to exactly? Fake news, deceptive reporting, gossip, libel, propaganda has existed pretty much as long as authority has existed. Now recently Trump became president and there is a _national pandemic_ and no doubt we should place our trust in certain institutions to help combat this _disease_. If this isn't Orwelesque I don't know what is...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> 'Fact checking' should be limited to blatantly false news items fabricated and posted for online ad clicks ie 'Obama to move to Canada to help Trudeau run country' or 'Trump applies for UK citizenship to free UK citizens from Brussels despots'. These should be relatively easy to identify and classify.

There is a wide line between the fabrications above and news and journalism as we know it full of opinion, bias, agendas, propaganda and maybe some facts twisted to suit narrative.

The latter takes human level ai to sift through and even then detecting bias, leanings or manipulation depends on one's background, world view, specialization, knowledge levels, understanding of how the media works and a well informed general big picture state of the world.

This is impossible to classify for bias, falsehood or manipulation and will need readers to use their judgment. Trying to 'control' this is like trying to control news, favouring media aligned to your world view and discrediting those whose views you disagree with. It is for all purposes propaganda as we understand the term. Calling it fact checking is sophistry.

</comment><comment><USER40> What if I told you (cue the Morpheus meme), that people consuming the "fake news" don't care that it's fake? It's called confirmation bias and winning. Education isn't going to solve this issue, you can't forcibly educate people nor can you change their core "values" and their determination to be "right".

The only "education" that I can envision working is quantifying the real- world-impact of their votes on the _personal level_. Ex: Your health insurance was cancelled? The representative you voted for caused that. This unfortunately is normally executed with a partisan goal, however should be applied as a public service to all Americans.

</comment><comment><USER41> this is just gonna create a pavlovian response akin to "ah okay this is fact- checked i'll read" which'll just compound the problem. it presumes that google's fact-checking algorithms and methodology are sound.

</comment><comment><USER42> Besides political debates, anyone else thinks this 'ClaimReview' schema put to use by Google is one step towards the application of Semantic Web? There might be something more than just a 'new app by Google' here.

</comment><comment><USER43> There is obviously a lot of debate on whether or not fact checking is accurate and useful. I think simply presenting a fact check will help people think more critically about headlines they see every day. Like "Mythbusters Science". It's not perfect, but it helps people to think.

Relevant: [https://xkcd.com/397/](https://xkcd.com/397/)

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm amazed at how much cynicism I'm seeing here about this. People just keep repeating what can be boiled down to the same premise: complete objective truth basically doesn't exist. Truth is messy, tricky, subjective business. This is not new, this is just how the world is. Truth and understanding is best-effort and always has been, so why is a tool to attempt to combat some of the most egregious falsehoods even remotely a bad thing? Nobody should claim that its bulletproof, but I'm not seeing anyone really do this? The problem is some of us never deal in absolutes, we see nuance in everything (climate science, economics, political science) but there are others who do deal in absolutes and make a killing doing so. Sitting around having the same debate over and over about facts and truth doesn't do anything to tackle the problem.

My rule of thumb is that generally there is safety in numbers. Don't trust any single source and don't trust something that doesn't have a chain of reasoning behind it. I trust all kinds of scientific statements that I don't have the qualifications or time to vet myself - but we have to do our best and that often means doing a meta-analysis of how a conclusion was reached and how many other people/groups (who themselves have qualifications and links to other entities with similar qualifications) that the statements are linked to.

Fake news isn't 100 levels deep, its usually 1 level with no real supporting information. When people (like Trump) categorically denounce someone elses statement they often provide no real information of their own. Similarly, when refuting a fact-check, most people don't dig into it and refute something in their chain of reasoning, they just say "well that is just not true!" and leave it at that.

We don't need to fundamentally fix the nature of truth but we need to be able to combat the worst cases of misinformation and any tool that helps do that is great. Continuing the have the same philosophical debate about truth is fine from an academic standpoint but from a practical standpoint it is sometimes not helpful. I feel similarly about climate change - its great to acknowledge nuance but what good is that if we're trending towards pogroms and a totalitarian dictatorship (to be hyperbolic, maybe)?

</comment><comment><USER45> Who will fact check the fact checkers?

Well, perhaps these trusted sources should implement a system similar to Quora/StackExchange but for opposing arguments?

Lots of comments call into question the biases of sites like Snopes/Politifact/etc. and allowing some sort of adversarial response would help claims about 'leftists wanting to control our minds.'

Maybe it's just a widget at the bottom of a fact check post leading to a StackExchange'd subdomain. A wiki or subreddit could work as well. Anyone looking for a side project?

</comment><comment><USER46> One likely outcome from this is that Google Search and News will be now be perceived as partisan by the Hoi polloi. Same reason why the old media gatekeeper fell by the wayside.

</comment><comment><USER47> > [https://blog.google/products/search/fact-check-now- > available...](https://blog.google/products/search/fact-check-now-available- > google-search-and-news-around-world/)

Didn't know Google has its own top-level domain oÔ. Previous HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12609551](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12609551)

</comment><comment><USER48> "There's only one truth and that is Google".

Haha, no. Keep trying though.

Plus, as journalists in this thread have said, you might stick to the facts 100% (which I doubt Google will resist the temptation to abuse in the future, but let's leave that aside for now), your conclusion or subliminal message at the end might be entirely untrue and misguided.

Sorry, Google. You need wait the planet's collective IQ to drop by several tens still. It's not your time to dominate the news yet.

</comment><comment><USER49> I really wish that major legitimate institutions of journalism (i.e., the ones that require multiple independent sources, publish corrections and retractions, &c.) would just stop pussyfooting around with nice simple accurate words like "lies" when they're reporting on somebody who's blatantly lying. False equivalency and cowardice is going to get us all killed.

<comment><USER50> > I really wish that major legitimate institutions of journalism (i.e., the > ones that require multiple independent sources, publish corrections and > retractions, &c.) would just stop pussyfooting around with nice simple > accurate words like "lies" when they're reporting on somebody who's > blatantly lying.

I'd prefer false statements be characterized as such rather than lies (which involves not just false statement but also a particular mental state by the one making the statement) by the media, unless there is overwhelming evidence that the statement is a knowing falsehood.

Obviously, information that suggests that the originator knew, or reasonably should have known, the statement to be false should be presented as well, where available.

<comment><USER51> Agreed. It's more disturbing that people seem so comfortable calling others liars without evidence. Or racist, homophobic, xenophobic, etc. I heard Chris Matthews push that yesterday - saying things like "maybe they're challenging her like they are because she's a woman... I don't know". If you don't know, don't suggest it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So what takes place when the inevitable happens, and an employee decides that an existing "fact check" (conducted by a third party, Google hastens to add) is philosophically inconvenient and thus removes it?

Also, FTA: _" Only publishers that are algorithmically determined to be an authoritative source of information will qualify for inclusion."_

What's the algorithm? Who wrote it?

<comment><USER52> This happens already, especially with politifact and snopes, glad I'm not the only one on HN who sees it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> The blog title is "Fact Check now available in Google Search and News around the world". I think that the extra bit at the end is worthy of inclusion, as I expect this to become a point of contention over the years.

I would not be surprised if different governments take issue with Google adding any sort of editorial commentary, even if it's algorithmically determined etc.

</comment><comment><USER54> It's a witch hunt. Science (rather, life sciences) has a similar problem. There are just enough (statistically significant) facts to push many agendas. Peer review weeds out some stuff, but that doesn't stop a lot of wrong conclusions being pushed to the public.

Maybe a better solution is adversarial opinionated journalism, rather than this proposed fact-ism.

</comment><comment><USER50> Original title is "Fact Check now in Google Search and News"; the different capitalization vs the current HN headline ("Fact Check Now...") is significant, the new feature "Fact Check" is now available in Google Search and News, rather than a feature "Fact Check Now" being discussed in those services.

</comment><comment><USER55> Billy Jack was rated M.

This is just another new rating system.

As long as they don't prevent me from reading false things, I can live with it.

Keep it my choice.

<comment><USER56> I may be naive but I sincerely think this is the first step in a larger sequence of events. Next 'fake' articles/sources will get a lower ranking in searches, then they'll be replaced with a button "this result is fake news, click here to read anyway". The final step will be complete removal of sources all together.

And what happens when Google is the subject of a hostile take over and those tools are in the hands of someone else? Slippery slope fallacy, you might cry but we'll see.

<comment><USER55> Your post made me think of the Google search as "pure" \- yeah algorithms spat out stuff, but a keyword change here or there got different stuff. Now it isn't pure.

We need a Pure search engine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I know a person who eats those "alternative facts" like candy. When I tried to prove one of them wrong, I pulled out a website to do a fact check and his response was: "you trust Snopes?" so I have doubts this will help much, but I would like to be wrong.

</comment><comment><USER58> Pretty neat! Unfortunately doesn't help when searching for "obama wiretap trump tower".

[https://www.google.com/search?q=obama+wiretap+trump+tower](https://www.google.com/search?q=obama+wiretap+trump+tower)

</comment><comment><USER59> I don't like this, at all. People need to rely on their own reasoning skills and critical judgement and not let centralized authorities have a large effect on what people can read. I like systems to be decentralized and this seems to be the opposite.

</comment><comment><USER60> Like very often when google says "everywhere" they don't remotely mean everywhere and should instead be saying "in the usa". My country's edition of google news has no fact check at all.

</comment><comment><USER61> Anyone have an alt link? 'blog.google' does not resolve for me.

<comment><USER62> Is it an option for you to use Google Public DNS so that you can resolve the new .google gTLD?

[https://developers.google.com/speed/public- dns/](https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> So, publishers can voluntarily add [https://schema.org/ClaimReview](https://schema.org/ClaimReview) markup as RDFa, JSON-LD, or Microdata.

</comment><comment><USER64> It's interesting timing that just today, for the first time in a couple of weeks, my Facebook feed has fake news clickbait ads again.

Unless both Kevin Spacey and Burt Reynolds are, in fact, dead. Again.

</comment><comment><USER65> Factual Unbiased Checks for Knowledge Upkeep by Google.

</comment><comment><USER66> The fact that this came from CFR/Hillary's State Department's Jigsaw is very troubling.

</comment><comment><USER67> Hurrah for Google! Now if only Facebook and SocialNetworkGiants(tm) would follow suit!

</comment><comment><USER68> I tried a slew of recent statements that are objectively false but that a certain politician in the United States has tried to say are true. Google returned fact checks for exactly 0 of the queries I tried.

<comment><USER35> So I mean, this is just google supporting a new kind of metadata on pages. They aren't validating anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I don't trust Google to tell me the sky is blue.

<comment><USER69> What does that statement mean?

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> A fact has no truth value. Truth only comes from reason, and reason only exists in each person's head. This is reducing the demand for reason, and thus destroying truth.

<comment><USER71> Five Pinocchios ("pants on fire"!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> A great start in the right direction and a kudos for using Schema to help battle "'fake news'"

</comment><comment><USER73> who fact checks the facts checkers?

</comment><comment><USER74> And Who controls the fact-check facts?

</comment><comment><USER75> Snopes and Politifact? Really? smh

</comment><comment><USER76> Goodgirl!

</comment><comment><USER77> Snopes and Politifact are abject failures. Nothing but glorified bloggers who have declared themselves the arbiters of truth.

Even Rachel Maddow has called them out on numerous occasions, and she was rooting for the same candidate as them: [http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow- show/watch/politifact-fai...](http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow- show/watch/politifact-fails-again-destroy-277552195924)

</comment><comment><USER52> Snopes and Politifact, they can't be serious. Not that I expected them to pick a neutral source, nor am I surprised that Silicon Valley's Google picked 2 leftist "fact" sources. This is a stupid idea, everyone has a bias. This isn't to help people, this is to influence how people see things.

<comment><USER78> Who will fact-check the fact-checkers?</comment></comment>


Show HN: ca.pitali.st, not a weekend, but afternoon project - <AUTHOR>

Hi hackers,
long time reader, first time "real" submitter.
This is by no means a revolutionary idea, or even execution, but rather something I've always wanted to do, just to see if I could write a good implementation of it.
So without further adieu: http://ca.pitali.st/
Yes, it's just an URL shortener. Please check out the API and if there anything you like about it, please share, so I can take this feedback with me to my future projects.
If there's something you REALLY hate, that's feedback too. Don't be afraid to hurt my feelings; this was put together in less than 4 hours to see if I could beat the 100+ lines of the node js link a few days ago (and I did. this is 97 lines + 6 lines of RewriteEngine).
The reason I submit this is for useability feedback mainly. To get more in contact with "the consumer" (even though I doubt anyone would use this service, but I'd really like it if I could get some consumer feedback).
That's my description, have a good day.
- klapi <comment><USER2> Well - It works!

<http://ca.pitali.st/CQHTDF>

I know nothing about how the algorithms for building these kinds of work, but very cool none the less.

Preview function is especially nice.

Add a submit button - not everyone knows to hit enter without some kind of prompt.

Good luck with your project

<comment><AUTHOR> I've thought about security (vuln's), collision and security (proper redirects, url validation, js sandboxing), but it is really simple. I can publish it publictly later.

Thank you for the kind words. Button added.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Make sure you regularly submit your db here: <http://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=URLTeam>

<comment><USER4> Let me give you some advice: The hard part about URL shorteners is not the coding work, it's keeping that thing up. You should keep it online for decades to come, even if you just have a few 100 people using it. There won't be any revenue at all and most people will prefer bit.ly over your shortener. Sooner or later spammers will find your shortener and abuse the hell out of it. You will probably get blacklisted, maybe even dropped by your hosting provider.

As for the urlteam stuff (urlteam member here): The best thing would be to just release a text file with all the short url to long url mappings. Make sure that the file is regularly updated and that it works (I am looking at you, ur1.ca people).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the insight on url shorteners workings, and the good points.</comment></comment></comment>


Lessons Learned: Three freemium strategies - <AUTHOR> http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2009/01/three-freemium-strategies.html <comment><USER2> There is also the option on segmenting your market into two groups:

1) Customers with whom you trade value for money.

2) Customers with whom you trade value for value.

There are a lot of businesses which end up doing this by default (by doing a free trial model aimed at separating #1 from non-converting users) but I think you get much better ROI on the effort if you explicitly take into account those #2 customers in your design stages.

For example, in the traditional shareware model, the two major events in the sales cycle are download conversions and purchase conversions. Downloaders convert to purchases fairly infrequently -- the number most people give is 1% but what they really mean is "we don't know a number but it is low".

The traditional model largely sees the non-converters as a) not differentiated from purchasers except by their decision not to purchase and b) a cost-center: they tie you up with support inquiries and cost bandwidth, but you don't make anything off of them.

But what if you knew, a-priori, something about your market such that you could predict who the purchasers would be? The traditional shareware model might say "Great, avoid exposing yourself to the rest and you'll save time and money". But rather than excluding them, you could instead use them -- they've got blogs, they've got contacts in your group of core purchasers, etc. Instead of thinking of them as a cost, you can think of them as customers who are bartering things of value instead of money for your software/service/etc.

One example of a business which does this pretty well is github: they use free-for-OSS pricing to get them exposed to people who will request their boss to purchase paid-for-commercial services.

You can use the same basic concept with free trials, free plans, free content, etc. Its the basic core insight that I use to organize my content publication and limited free trial strategies for my downloadable software. Still working on my blog article about that that I mentioned here earlier. The ROI is wonderful if you get it right (remember, the traditional shareware model is assumed to leak 98%+ of prospects as muda [1], so capturing any fraction of that is powerful stuff).

[1] Muda is a Japanese word you'll hear a lot in certain management circles because Toyota is institutionally obsessed with eliminating it. The closest literal translation is "waste", but it relates to all sorts of process inefficiency. I find it is a helpful frame of mind to have in the toolbox when optimizing for conversions -- it sometimes is worthwhile to say not "Why did Bob buy this?" but "What _prevented_ Suzy from buying this?"

</comment><comment><USER3> I wouldn't call 'Free trial' the 'original freemium model' Surely, its the original 'try-before-you-buy' model.

So we're left with only two options:

1) Active free users - adding value by doing something, like creating content

2) Passive free users - adding value by just using the service, like attracting others on a dating site

Users that neither do something useful nor attracting others should be forced out (?) or forced into the paying group (maybe by offering a fix length period).

This will be another way to look at 'try-before-you-forced-out' model, where one can prove her usefulness to the service</comment>


Dagster- A open-source Python library for building data applications - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@schrockn/introducing-dagster-dbd28442b2b7 <comment><USER2> This is a great idea, it is trying to solve a problem I come up against a lot.</comment>


HTTP ETag - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_ETag

<comment><USER2> I used ETag in an iPhone app (it was necessary to download a lot of contents, so we used ETag to track the differences) and the result was amazing, worked great and was really easy.

If you need use etag for iPhone, I strongly recommend using ASIHTTPRequest library.</comment>


Developers don't need ping-pong tables - <AUTHOR> https://sizovs.net/2020/03/26/developers-dont-need-ping-pong-tables/ <comment><USER2> It's interesting how quickly the author trivializes competitive pay as a motivation for attracting developers over vague management practices that matter more for employee retention than actually attracting them. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that pay wasn't as competitive as the hiring manager would like to believe.

Also pair programming contrasts directly with the promotion of autonomy

</comment><comment><USER3> I couldn't agree more, i shifter from software engineering to software architecture exactly to pursue autonomy.

I was so tired completing user stories that I knew will be either too expensive to maintain or plain useless that decided to climb up towards the source, and help people set up requirements and measurements loops.

So yeah, why do people hire software engineers who are extremely good at analytical thinking, and then try pre-digest every bit of requirement?

<comment><USER4> Because when you don't, at least ~50% will complain that the ticket isn't well specced enough.

For every person who wants autonomy there is another who would rather be on auto-pilot, mindlessly coding up arbitrary ticket JIRA-1234 with a Twitch window open on their 2nd screen.

</comment></comment><comment> fbi-director From the article, which I find to be a nice read, this part particularly rings true to me:

"Pick team leaders wisely. A team leader is not an average developer with secretary duties no one else wants to carry out. A team leader is an inspiring master craftsperson; the role model; a person other teammates aspire to become. A team leader promotes technical excellence, spreads optimism, mentors people, and gives away the most interesting tasks to others."

</comment><comment><USER5> I like these attempts to build a useful model of software companies, but this particular attempt is quite mediocre. The best attempt I've seen was the Gervaus Principle book. The colorful chairs and ping pong tables are there to distract the employees, to turn the workplace into a kindergarten. Once you remove all that, employees will grow up and become even more expensive.

</comment><comment><USER6> I do. But in my sports club, where I'm training 4 days a week. I play in a league competitively. In the office playing ping pong is not interesting at all.

At work I'd rather prefer a pool. In the US I used to work after office hours poolside.

<comment><USER7> I'll add to this: for me, the office game was (eventually, after many years) a gateway into more serious playing at the club.

Yeah, I'm now a better player than most at work, but I wouldn't say work games aren't interesting to me. I have _so many_ fundamentals to work on! It can be a challenge for me to even consistently hit a ball back in a way that a novice can continue the rally (especially when dealing with a trickier shot).

I definitely think the higher level games are crucial for success, too; I just find that I get some value out of almost any game (if I look for it).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> what we need are pool tables.

</comment><comment><USER9> Well on point, great read!

</comment><comment><USER10> The part about how companies destroy autonomy demonstrates a lack of understanding of one's place. What they are describing is what people expect in a leadership position, not an individual contributor position. Expecting the construction worker to have the autonomy to decide the design of the house is simply moronic. That's the difference between being a developer and being the product owner. Granted, the product owner needs to know what they are doing, which is the actual problem they are not identifying in this article. It's all about leadership, and people starting as individual contributors who first learn to lead themselves and their egos, growing in their role through the five levels of leadership, being mentored and becoming a mentor before becoming someone with the power and authority to be a product owner. Know it all developers haven't mastered level 1 yet, let alone their egos. They are simply the kid who wants to horde all the toys and haven't learn to respect the toy owners let alone that the toys aren't theirs.</comment>