Фактологияны тексеру процесі және ақпаратты растау әдістері

Process of verifying information in non fictional text

Fact checking is the process of verifying the factual accuracy of questioned reporting and statements. Fact checking can be conducted before or after the text or content is published or otherwise disseminated. Internal fact checking is such checking done in house by the publisher to prevent inaccurate content from being published; when the text is analyzed by a third party, the process is called external fact checking. Research suggests that fact checking can indeed correct perceptions among citizens, as well as discourage politicians from spreading false or misleading claims. However, corrections may decay over time or be overwhelmed by cues from elites who promote less accurate claims.

Sensationalist newspapers in the 1850s and later led to a gradual need for a more factual media. Colin Dickey has described the subsequent evolution of fact checking. Key elements were the establishment of Associated Press in the 1850s (short factual material needed), Ralph Pulitzer of the New York World (his Bureau of Accuracy and Fair Play, 1912), Henry Luce and Time magazine (original working title: Facts), and the famous fact checking department of The New Yorker. More recently, the mainstream media has come under severe economic threat from online startups. In addition, the rapid spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories via social media is slowly creeping into mainstream media. One solution is for more media staff to be assigned a fact checking role, as for example The Washington Post. Independent fact checking organisations have also become prominent, such as PolitiFact.

External post hoc fact checking by independent organizations began in the United States in the early 2000s. However, a study by Morgan Marietta, David C. Barker and Todd Bowser found "substantial differences in the questions asked and the answers offered." They concluded that this limited the "usefulness of fact checking for citizens trying to decide which version of disputed realities to believe." A paper by Chloe Lim, PhD student at Stanford University, found little overlap in the statements that fact checkers check. Out of 1,178 fact checks by PolitiFact and 325 fact checks by The Washington Posts Fact Checker, there were only 77 statements that both fact checkers checked. The study found that the fact checkers gave the same ratings for 49 and close ratings for 22 out of 77 statements, about 92% agreement. Lim concluded, "At least in some cases, the strategic ambiguity of politicians may impede the fact checking movement's goals." The process of fact checking is sometimes questionable, partly because the fact checkers are just human subjects, and also because the purpose of some instances of fact checking was unclear.

Studies of post hoc fact checking have made clear that such efforts often result in changes in the behavior, in general, of both the speaker (making them more careful in their pronouncements) and of the listener or reader (making them more discerning with regard to the factual accuracy of content); observations include the propensities of audiences to be completely unpersuaded by corrections to errors regarding the most divisive subjects, or the tendency to be more greatly persuaded by corrections of negative reporting (e. g., "attack ads"), and to see minds changed only when the individual in error was someone reasonably like minded to begin with.

A 2015 experimental study found that fact checking can encourage politicians to not spread misinformation. The study found that it might help improve political discourse by increasing the reputational costs or risks of spreading misinformation for political elites. The researchers sent, "a series of letters about the risks to their reputation and electoral security if they were caught making questionable statements. The legislators who were sent these letters were substantially less likely to receive a negative fact checking rating or to have their accuracy questioned publicly, suggesting that fact checking can reduce inaccuracy when it poses a salient threat."

One experimental study found that fact checking during debates affected viewers' assessment of the candidates' debate performance and "greater willingness to vote for a candidate when the fact check indicates that the candidate is being honest." A study of Trump supporters during the 2016 presidential campaign found that while fact checks of false claims made by Trump reduced his supporters' belief in the false claims in question, the corrections did not alter their attitudes towards Trump. A 2019 study found that "summary fact checking", where the fact checker summarizes how many false statements a politician has made, has a greater impact on reducing support for a politician than fact checking of individual statements made by the politician.

Individual readers perform some types of fact checking, such as comparing claims in one news story against claims in another. Rabbi Moshe Benovitz, has observed that: "modern students use their wireless worlds to augment skepticism and to reject dogma." He says this has positive implications for values development:

1=Fact checking can become a learned skill, and technology can be harnessed in a way that makes it second nature By finding opportunities to integrate technology into learning, students will automatically sense the beautiful blending of their cyber [and non virtual worlds]. Instead of two spheres coexisting uneasily and warily orbiting one another, there is a valuable experience of synthesis |sign=|source=

According to Queen's University Belfast researcher Jennifer Rose, because fake news is created with the intention of misleading readers, online news consumers who attempt to fact check the articles they read may incorrectly conclude that a fake news article is legitimate. Rose states, "A diligent online news consumer is likely at a pervasive risk of inferring truth from false premises" and suggests that fact checking alone is not enough to reduce fake news consumption. Despite this, Rose asserts that fact checking "ought to remain on educational agendas to help combat fake news".

Political fact checking is increasingly criticized as being opinion journalism. Criticism has included that fact checking organizations in themselves are biased or that it is impossible to apply absolute terms such as "true" or "false" to inherently debatable claims. In September 2016, a Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey found that "just 29% of all Likely U. S. Voters trust media fact checking of candidates' comments. Sixty two percent (62%) believe instead that news organizations skew the facts to help candidates they support." A paper by Andrew Guess (of Princeton University), Brendan Nyhan (Dartmouth College) and Jason Reifler (University of Exeter) found that consumers of fake news tended to have less favorable views of fact checking, in particular Trump supporters. The paper found that fake news consumers rarely encountered fact checks: "only about half of the Americans who visited a fake news website during the study period also saw any fact check from one of the dedicated fact checking website (14.0%)." During the COVID 19 pandemic, Facebook announced it would "remove false or debunked claims about the novel coronavirus which created a global pandemic", based on its fact checking partners, collectively known as the International Fact Checking Network. In 2021, Facebook reversed its ban on posts speculating the COVID 19 disease originated from Chinese labs, following developments in the investigations into the origin of COVID 19, including claims by the Biden administration, and a letter by eighteen scientists in the journal Science, saying a new investigation is needed because 'theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable." The policy led to an article by The New York Post that suggested a lab leak would be plausible to be initially labeled as "false information" on the platform. This reignited debates into the notion of scientific consensus. In an article published by the medical journal The BMJ, journalist Laurie Clarke said "The contentious nature of these decisions is partly down to how social media platforms define the slippery concepts of misinformation versus disinformation. This decision relies on the idea of a scientific consensus. But some scientists say that this smothers heterogeneous opinions, problematically reinforcing a misconception that science is a monolith." David Spiegelhalter, the Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk at Cambridge University, argued that "behind closed doors, scientists spend the whole time arguing and deeply disagreeing on some fairly fundamental things". Clarke further argued that "The binary idea that scientific assertions are either correct or incorrect has fed into the divisiveness that has characterised the pandemic." Likewise, writing in The Hedgehog Review in 2023, Jonathan D. Teubner and Paul W. Gleason assert that fact checking is ineffective against propaganda for at least three reasons: "First, since much of what skillful propagandists say will be true on a literal level, the fact checker will be unable to refute them. Second, no matter how well intentioned or convincing, the fact check will also spread the initial claims further. Third, even if the fact checker manages to catch a few inaccuracies, the larger picture and suggestion will remain in place, and it is this suggestion that moves minds and hearts, and eventually actions." They also note the very large amount of false information that regularly spreads around the world, overwhelming the hundreds of fact checking groups; caution that a fact checker systemically addressing propaganda potentially compromises their objectivity; and argue that even descriptive statements are subjective, leading to conflicting points of view. As a potential step to a solution, the authors suggest the need of a "scientific community" to establish falsifiable theories, "which in turn makes sense of the facts", noting the difficulty that this step would face in the digital media landscape of the Internet. Social media platforms – Facebook in particular – have been accused by journalists and academics of undermining fact checkers by providing them with little assistance; including "propagandist linked organizations" promoting outlets that have shared false information such as Breitbart and The Daily Caller on Facebook's newsfeed; and removing a fact check about a false anti abortion claim after receiving pressure from Republican senators. In 2022 and 2023, many social media platforms such as Meta, YouTube and Twitter have significantly reduced resources in Trust and safety, including fact checking. Twitter under Elon Musk has severely limited access by academic researchers to Twitter's API by replacing previously free access with a subscription that starts at $42,000 per month, and by denying requests for access under the Digital Services Act. After the 2023 Reddit API changes, journalists, researchers and former Reddit moderators have expressed concerns about the spread of harmful misinformation, a relative lack of subject matter expertise from replacement mods, a vetting process of replacement mods seen as haphazard, a loss of third party tools often used for content moderation, and the difficulty for academic researchers to access Reddit data. Many fact checkers rely heavily on social media platform partnerships for funding, technology and distributing their fact checks. Commentators have also shared concerns about the use of false equivalence as an argument in political fact checking, citing examples from The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Associated Press where "mainstream fact checkers appear to have attempted to manufacture false claims from progressive politicians [out of] a desire to appear objective".

Operators of some fact checking websites in China admit to self censorship. Fact checking websites in China often avoid commenting on political, economic, and other current affairs. Several Chinese fact checking websites have been criticized for lack of transparency with regard to their methodology and sources, and for following Chinese propaganda.

Among the benefits of printing only checked copy is that it averts serious, sometimes costly, problems. These problems can include lawsuits for mistakes that damage people or businesses, but even small mistakes can cause a loss of reputation for the publication. The loss of reputation is often the more significant motivating factor for journalists. though they were not originally called "fact checkers". Fact checkers may be aspiring writers, future editors, or freelancers engaged other projects; others are career professionals. Others may hire freelancers per piece or may combine fact checking with other duties. Magazines are more likely to use fact checkers than newspapers.

With the circulation of fake news on the internet, many organizations have dedicated time to create guidelines to help read to verify the information they are consuming. Many universities across America provide university students resources and tools to help them verify their sources. Universities provide access to research guides that help students conduct thorough research with reputable sources within academia. Organizations like FactCheck. org, OntheMedia. org, and PolitiFact. com provide procedural guidelines that help individuals navigate the process to fact check a source. MIT and Stanford began an online MOOC course in the fall of 2020 called Sorting Truth From Fiction: Civic Online Reasoning. This course is for educators that want to teach students how to do basic fact checking.

Sarah Harrison Smith, who headed the fact checking department for The New York Times, wrote The Fact Checker's Bible. Jim Fingal worked for several years as a fact checker at The Believer and McSweeney's and co authored with John D'Agata The Lifespan of a Fact ,which is an inside look at the struggle between fact checker (Fingal) and author (D'Agata) over an essay that pushed the limits of the acceptable "artistic license" for a non fiction work.