bleepblorp

Since Fox News started fact-checking Trump, Trump's followers have stopped treating Fox News as a reliable source and are voting with their feet towards OANN another very far right sources. They're clinging to lies (politely: disinformation) even in the face of evidence to the contrary from a source that they formerly considered reliable.

That is my point.

Conservatives (or, at least, Trump followers) will turn their backs on sources of information that they considered trustworthy if those sources contradict the leader de jour.

Cryptocurrency is the ponzi scheme for tech people.

Because the cryptocurrency ecosystem does not do investment -- likely in very large part because no one can buy anything legal with cryptocurrency -- returns for coiners who cash out must, by definition, come from later investments.

Paying earlier investors with the investments of those who follow is the definition of a ponzi scheme.

By the beginning of January, the termination of pandemic-related economic supports is expected to put 19 million Americans at risk of homelessness, and make 11% of the US population unable to afford to put food on the table.

The longer-term picture is that the millennials (born 1980 or later) will be the first generation in a very long time to have a lower standard of living than their parents did.

These are the kinds of problems civil unrest is made of.

The role of fact checking is not to strive for partisan balance but rather to identify public comments that are untrue.

American conservatives would fall afoul of fact checking far less frequently if the conservative worldview wasn't wedded to talking points that are not factually accurate. For example:

There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. There is no evidence of ongoing large-scale voter fraud in US elections. There is no evidence that the incoming Biden administration intends to end capitalism. There were no 'convoys' of migrants preparing to violently storm the US-Mexico border prior to the 2018 midterms. Barrack Obama was not ineligible to serve as President. There is no evidence that the Democratic party is detaining children in the basement of a pizza parlor. There is no evidence that the Democratic party is run by a cabal of pedophile cannibals. Etc.

A fact checker who does not point out the fact-free basis of these, and other, deeply-held conservative talking points is simply not doing his/her job.

If the weight of fact checking falls primarily against conservatives, then conservatives can fix that problem by lying less frequently.

What do you do when the Republican fact checker repeats what the leader of his party tells him to say even though it is fact-free?

A majority of Republicans believe Trump won the election (!) because that's what Trump is saying. There is little reason to think a Republican fact checker would contradict Trump. Indeed, any fact checker who did would be ostracized as a RINO, much as has happened with Fox News since they acknowledged the outcome of the vote.

Partisan fact checkers would only give the Republican party a safe space to continue to lie about matters of objective fact, such as who won the last election.

Frankly, the fact that 'what is truth' can be framed as a partisan issue in America speaks to much, much deeper societal problems than organized fact checking can fix. This is an attitude that is much more in keeping with that found in countries like Albania or North Korea rather than in another advanced democracy.

This is inaccurate. Go read the report, or at the very least read the Wikipedia summary.

The conclusion was that a conspiracy between Trumpworld and the Russian government could not be proved because the potential suspects on the US side hid, or destroyed, evidence and lied to investigators.

What were these people covering up -- at considerable risk to themselves for prosecution -- if there was nothing to hide?

Disinformation is dangerous because too many overly credulous people are all to willing to believe in alternative facts even if contradictory primary source materials are available.

What sort of 'proposal' do you suggest to deter unethical business practices and encourage the prosecution of white collar crime under existing laws?

The problem with white collar crime isn't a lack of ideas, it's a lack of will among prosecutors and judges to punish it.

I don't see it as unjustified to point out that the primary risk actors in China's threat model will be the American armed forces and/or three letter agencies.

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