• Decoy321@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    What is a problem is fake news.

    Indeed. That’s why that user asked the simple question. They’re trying to determine the veracity of the information from that website.

    Bias and factuality are different concepts. One source can print wildly biased, yet probably true information. While another can provide absolutely unbiased disinformation.

    • Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      Except the user didn’t ask, is this accurate news, they asked if “has anyone heard of this outfit?”

      This is a sidestep from the actual question to instead focus on attacking the source rather than the content.

      • Decoy321@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I dunno, my dude. That’s still quite a reach to go from a simple question to automatically determining that it’s a hatchet job.

        I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that you’re assuming a lot more than I normally works from a singular question.

        There’s a significant difference between the two questions in your first sentence: quality of verifiability. The goal here is to determine accuracy anyways. Asking that directly will never get you an answer that you should accept at face value.

        If I ask “is this accurate?”, any sourceless responses lack weight. “yes” holds as much proof as “no.”

        But “has anyone heard of this” is a much lower barrier of veracity. Answers themselves won’t determine the accuracy of the article, just whether or not anyone can help establish credibility.

        It’s important to question and verify sources, no matter who it is. Criticizing someone who does makes you no better than anyone pushing propaganda.