Fraudulent Fact Checker Politifact is Fake News

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#1
coal
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Politifact once again proves it is fake news.  Last week, Biden shook hands with air.  Astonishingly, the fraudulent "fact checker" that is Politifact alleged that Biden was "gesturing" towards the crowd.

The fraudulent "fact checker" even hired an "expert" in "research science" --- whatever that is --- to purportedly debunk the reality of what was recorded:

According to Politifact's scientific whore "research scientist" Mike Caulfield:

"When we look at something that seems like one of these human moments, we're like, ‘I don't need to know anything. I can see it right there.' It does breed, I think, a false sense of confidence in us."
I will just state the obvious.  In case maybe you missed it.

Mike Caulfield is a charlatan and a fraud.  He holds himself out as "a research scientist leading the UW Center for an Informed Public's rapid response efforts."  

What is a "research scientist"?  Apparently it is whatever this fraud says it is.  He has neither the educational credentials nor the publication record to support any inference that hs is credible in any respect.  What has he done with his life? 

In 1997, he got an MA in English from Northern Illinois University.  Their requirements are little more than showing up, periodically.  

In 1993, he got a BA in English from the purported "Keene State College."  Or so he says.  

He is less credible than Alex Jones, a bar so low it doesn't even present a tripping hazard.  


 
#2
TheMorningsStar
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@coal
Ya, I stopped trusting these "fact checkers" years ago. It became painfully obvious that they weren't interested in facts but in agendas.
#3
FLRW
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@coal
Mike Caulfield is currently a research scientist leading the UW Center for an Informed Public's rapid response efforts. He has worked with various organizations on digital literacy initiatives to combat mis- and disinformation, including the American Association of State Colleges and Universities’ American Democracy Project, the National Writing Project, and CIVIX Canada. He is an awardee of the Rita Allen/RTI Misinformation Solutions Prize and the author of an award-winning open textbook, “Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers.”

As a member of the CIP team working as part of the Election Integrity Partnership, he identified, tracked and responded to mis- and disinformation about voting during the 2020 U.S. elections. He was a major contributor to the EIP’s October 2020 “What to Expect on Election Night and Days After” analysis, which laid out anticipated mis- and disinformation narratives about voting and how uncertainty, anxiety, and potential red-to-blue and blue-to-red shifts in voting results due to when mail-in ballots would be counted in various states would create opportunities for domestic and foreign political actors, conspiracy theorists, and other opportunists to delegitimize the election results.

He developed the SIFT method for fact-checking (Stop, Investigate, Find better coverage, and Trace claims) and related classroom instruction modules that have been used in hundreds of universities and high schools in the U.S. and Canada. He is currently co-PI on an NSF grant exploring the teaching of SIFT and other lateral reading techniques to adult populations.

#4
Greyparrot
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@coal
On a whim, I read the "textbook" that guy wrote.

I seriously doubt any of the mouthbreathing partisans on this site would ever do such a thing lol, but I was bored.

here is an excerpt from one of the chapters.

In general, you can try these moves in sequence. If you find success at any stage, your work might be done.

When you encounter a claim you want to check, your first move might be to see if sites like Politifact, or Snopes, or even Wikipedia have researched the claim (Check for previous work).
If you can’t find previous work on the claim, start by trying to trace the claim to the source. If the claim is about research, try to find the journal it appeared in. If the claim is about an event, try to find the news publication in which it was originally reported (Go upstream).
Maybe you get lucky and the source is something known to be reputable, such as the journal Science or the newspaper the New York Times. Again, if so, you can stop there. If not, you’re going to need to read laterally, finding out more about this source you’ve ended up at and asking whether it is trustworthy.

I can't even start on the endless list of critiques covering just this excerpt, let alone the entire book.


#5
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@coal
a fact is:
  • something that is generally not disputed
  • by people in a position to know
  • by those who can be relied on to accurately tell the truth
That’s it. When we talk about facts, we are usually attempting to get at truth. But the measurement of what qualifies as fact is that it meets those three criteria.

-Mike Caulfield

#6
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@coal
He didn’t shake hands with thin air, it was clearly a gesture to the crowd behind him.

As soon as he turns around his hand is in plain view. If it were a hand shake his hand would have moved up and down and/or his hand would have closed around the imaginary hand he was shaking with. Neither happened. His eye line was also straight ahead, looking directly at the people behind him.

This is a basic test of Occam’s razor. Sure, it’s possible that in his mind he really was shaking hands with an imaginary person, but given that all of the things he would have done were missing and align more with a gesture which one wins out? Of course those who are already invested in the notion that Biden is senile would ignore everything I just pointed out in favor of the “gotcha”.

This is how propaganda works. Once you have successfully branded someone you can find examples of it everywhere.
#7
oromagi
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I don't buy this argument for a bunch of reasons.




#8
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I don't buy this argument for a bunch of reasons.

  • On a day when Trump's White House Chief of Staff was excised from the NC voting rolls for voter fraud in the 2020 election
  • On a day when Ukraine sank the "Fuck You" Russian Flagship in the Black Sea
  • On a day when Putin threatened to use nukes if Finland joined NATO
  • On a day when NYPD caught a subway terrorist after a massive manhunt
  • On a day when we discovered that the Saudi Dictator gave $2 billion to Jared Kushner to start a new business 
  • On a day when the Florida Legislature removed Disney's corporate incentives package and tax breaks as a punishment for being on the wrong side  of a political fight, in violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution
  • On a day when the Republicans withdrew from future presidential debates, ignoring the fact that they have no such authority
  • On a day when 4 major airlines dropped their mask mandates
  • On a day when Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter for $43 billion
FOX News decided that Biden's hand gesture was a major story worthy of hourly coverage on their network.


#9
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@oromagi
Except that we know from previous actual handshakes of Biden's, look up his handshake with Putin from Geneva last year, that it isn't uncommon for him to have his hand angled in that direction on some level when he first offers to shake hands with people.
#10
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I don't buy this argument for a bunch of reasons.

  • It's not just the Pulitzer prize winning Politifact that debunked the claim as fake news trollfuckery
  • Snopes also debunked the claim as disingenuous
  • So did IBT
  • Most credible news outlets never touched the story. 
    • WFMY, the local outlet that covered Biden's visit and captured the video that FOX made viral, never mentioned the gesture although they gave the President's visit a huge amount of coverage.

#11
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@TheMorningsStar
Except that we know from previous actual handshakes of Biden's, look up his handshake with Putin from Geneva last year, that it isn't uncommon for him to have his hand angled in that direction on some level when he first offers to shake hands with people.
If we’re going to look at previous Biden gestures look back to the first presidential debate between Biden and Trump. When the candidates came out Biden made the same exact hand gesture towards the crowd, except he did it with both hands because they were both free unlike this time where he had a book in his left hand. This is just a thing that he does, which is what makes this whole thing so ridiculous.

It’s at about 29:30, or -1:34:53 to be exact (it’s only showing me time remaining)
#12
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@coal
While I never put much stock in “fact checks” this article is the one that convinced me that biased “fact checks” can be very dangerous things. It’s funny because this is one of the most benign and non controversial topics fact checked, whether Paul Ryan hurt Mitt Romneys chances. I mentioned in passing to someone that I thought Paul Ryan was a bad pick and he linked me this article, and me tearing it to pieces wasn’t good enough, it was like talking to a brick wall. “It’s fact checked as false!” 

Because this is such a benign topic very few people have strong emotions on, it’s a good demonstration of how this works. Whether or not Paul Ryan was a bad pick is a very subjective question, since we can’t go rerun the 2012 election without him we need some incredibly strong evidence to say it’s a “fact” either way. The primary argument made in the article is that picking Paul Ryan didn’t *immediately* crash Romneys poll numbers. It should be self evident why this is not relevant. It also talked about how Romney did better with senior citizens than McCain or Bush did which is marginal evidence against Paul Ryan being a bad pick but he could easily have won them by even more. It’s just an incredibly stupid thing to try to “fact check” and this does real damage imo 

The article clearly exists just to pump up the number of official “lies” from Trump, which is unfortunate because there were plenty of genuine ones to go around. 

#13
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Also all the people talking about how Biden was OBVIOUSLY gesturing to the crowd behind him using the exact same hand gesture one would use to shake someone’s hand…that’s certainly possible. But you should question why it’s so easy to portray Biden this way, and why things like this keep happening. Perhaps he often comes off as a confused and feeble old man because like the average 80 year old he’s simply not up to being President. If Republicans nominate Trump in 2024 Biden will be bailed out but having a president who will be 86 by the end of his presidency is a bad idea. Hopefully both parties nominate someone not born in the 1940s next time around 
#14
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I don't buy this argument for a bunch of reasons.

  • As FLRW ably points out, Mike Caufield is, in fact, a leading authority on fact checking and fake news.  He is the author of a textbook and scholarly papers and seems to be a popular guest lecturer on the subject.   Its easy to find his work quoted in Journalism programs and he seems to be a popular consultant on the subject of combating disinformation.  For example, here's an interview w/ Caufield on MIT's TeachLabs.
  • So, yeah, even though coal puts the labels in quotes,
    • "fact checker" is correct.  Caufield has a substantial reputation in academia and journalism as a checker of facts.
    • "expert" is correct.  The MIT interviewer introduces Caufield as "a digital information literacy expert working at Washington State University who has worked with a wide variety of organizations on digital literacy initiatives to combat misinformation."
    • "research scientist" is correct.  Research scientist is not "whatever this fraud says it is," it is Caufield's job description at WSU.
      • We can take exception to Caufield's claims but I don't see any ground for doubting Caufield's legitimacy as an expert in the field.
      • coal's claim:  "He has neither the educational credentials nor the publication record to support any inference that hs is credible in any respect."  is both false and easily falsified with a little research.
      • If Alex Jones serves as an established low bar for journalistic integrity, let's note that FOX News, the primary claimant regarding Biden's handshake,  re-affirmed their confidence and reliance on Alex Jones as a source of journalistic integrity as recently as five months ago.


#15
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Alex Jones  attended Anderson High School, where he played football and graduated in 1993. After graduating, Jones briefly attended Austin Community College before dropping out. As a teenager, he read None Dare Call It Conspiracy, a book by John Birch Society theorist Gary Allen, which alleged global bankers controlled American politics rather than elected officials.  It had a profound influence on him, and Jones has described Allen's work as "the easiest-to-read primer on The New World Order".
#16
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@thett3
Perhaps he often comes off as a confused and feeble old man because like the average 80 year old he’s simply not up to being President.

Occams razor.
#17
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@thett3
But you should question why it’s so easy to portray Biden this way, and why things like this keep happening.
It’s called propaganda.

Biden certainly has his moments, but they don’t justify the senile old man who doesn’t know where he is caricature Fox News and right wing media have been obsessively propagating since his candidacy took off. The fact that this latest made up story is so easily provably false and yet is still spreading like wild fire through right wing America headed by their leading trusted “news” sources perfectly demonstrates that point.
#18
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@Double_R
It’s called propaganda.

Biden certainly has his moments, but they don’t justify the senile old man who doesn’t know where he is caricature Fox News and right wing media have been obsessively propagating since his candidacy took off. The fact that this latest made up story is so easily provably false and yet is still spreading like wild fire through right wing America headed by their leading trusted “news” sources perfectly demonstrates that point.
I do think that he is starting to lose it a little even though he obviously isn’t senile. The fact that he’s able to give a speech proves that he’s not completely gone. But he definitely has a bunch of senior moments and they are increasing in number. This specific story might be completely made up (I don’t know and don’t care) but  my point is that you’d never be able to portray a young candidate like that. It’s a mark against Trump as well who would be as old as Biden if he won in 2024.  I’m pretty concerned about having a president in his 80s
#19
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@thett3
The story isn't even about "true or false"

The evidence is in the picture, everyone can see the picture. Nobody argues the image of Biden holding his hand out with an  open palm is a fake.

What's being argued as true or false is the interpretation of the picture. Imagine going to an art gallery and being told what the painting factually means by some truth authority.

#20
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@Greyparrot
The story isn't even about "true or false"

The evidence is in the picture, everyone can see the picture. Nobody argues the image of Biden holding his hand out with an  open palm is a fake.

What's being argued as true or false is the interpretation of the picture. Imagine going to an art gallery and being told what the painting factually means by some truth authority.
I saw the video in question. It sure looks like he could be trying to shake hands with someone and then confusingly wanders off stage. On the other hand, the crowd behind him did stand up. My point is that he’s not as senile as Republicans claim but if I were a democrat I would be very worried if republicans could finally ditch Trump and nominate someone young like DeSantis. The contrast would be enormous. Biden’s age and demeanor is a huge liability, not even the biggest partisans would believe that Obama or the similarly aged Trump would try to shake hands with a ghost 
#21
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@thett3
I don't think he is as senile as people say he is either. A senile person would not stubbornly defend all the bad policies. A senile person wouldn't defend anything.
#22
oromagi
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What's being argued as true or false is the interpretation of the picture. 
More importantly which picture-  the mostly obstructed side view that FOX News used to draw irrational conclusions about the subject's mental health or the unobstructed front view which nobody finds at all remarkable?
#23
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I don't think you need to senile or disabled in any way to be too old for public office.  Representation requires a confidence in future ability which 80 year-olds simply do not inspire and a confidence in perceptive agility which some 80 years retain but none as well as they once did.  Personally, I would disqualify anybody older than 70 from running for a new term in any national office.  If we can constitutionally limit the office of President to over-35s based on maturity we should be able to limit the same office to under 70s based on agility and constitution alone.
#24
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@thett3
This specific story might be completely made up (I don’t know and don’t care) but you’d my point is that you’d never be able to portray a young candidate like that.
There are other candidates about the same age including Bernie, Hillary, Warren, etc. whom it would not work on either. It’s not about age, it’s about branding. Like I said, Biden does have his moments, but that’s how propaganda works. No one will buy it if fails the basic sniff test, but if you can find one kernel of truth and you combine that with an entire media apparatus fixated on painting a specific caricature, people will believe it. This is just the latest example.
#25
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@Greyparrot
What's being argued as true or false is the interpretation of the picture. Imagine going to an art gallery and being told what the painting factually means by some truth authority.
Except we’re not looking at a a painting, it’s a video. Which means we can actually watch what happened from different angles and in context. But that’s for people who care about reality and want to know what actually happened.
#26
ILikePie5
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@Greyparrot
Can’t be worse than the Easter Bunny getting him away lol
#27
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@ILikePie5
That Bunny was clearly photoshopped.
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#28
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@FLRW
Copying and pasting a laughable, self-serving description from the link I posted before?  

What is your point? 
#29
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@Greyparrot
That Bunny was clearly photoshopped.
It reminds me of a scene from this movie I watched:


😂😂
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#30
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@Double_R
The video speaks for itself, your reimagination of it notwithstanding.