Washington Post launches Chrome plug-in to fact-check Trump on Twitter

From the "never start a land war in Asia" department...

Proving even traditional media is capable of having fun, The Washington Post today released a plugin designed to fact-check our President-elect. ‘RealDonaldContext’ is a Chrome plugin that scours Trump’s tweets and adds fact-check summaries beneath them.

As for what’s deemed inaccurate, that’s for WaPo’s editors to decide. Its creator, Phillip Bump did point out that readers are welcome to point out Trump tweets that need additional explication. If found to be false — either in part, or wholly — the tweet displays a grey box with a few leading sentences and a link to a longer piece to help clear up any confusion. The publication claims “our goal is to provide additional context where needed for Trump’s tweets moving forward (and a few golden oldies).”
source

You might recall Mr Trump's feud with WaPo (you might sympathize with him, for that matter.) His relationship with the media has been increasingly hostile - he banned WaPo from the press pool during his campaign. At this point he is refusing most interviews and news conferences, preferring to send out Tweets instead - possibly to avoid tough questions with his famously inaccurate statements.

So WaPo came out with this.

It could be used with other politicians as well.

While obviously a slap at Trump, it could become a useful tool to ensure that lawmakers aren't just spreading misinformation in an effort to gain political power and force accountability.

...and because I did fact-check this, here's the WaPo announcement from themselves

a reply to: Byrd

Frightening. Tactics reminiscent of Orwell's Ministry of truth have never turned out well for society.

Wonder if they were still going to roll this out if Hillary had won.

As for what’s deemed inaccurate, that’s for WaPo’s editors to decide

100% trustworthy indeed !!

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Why??

If it's truly "fact checking" and simply showing additional context for the source material that should be of interest, then why is that bad??

They aren't removing the original material or changing it.

Why do you assume that is a bad thing???

Couldn't it also help remove incorrect assumptions being made too???

a reply to: Byrd

Newspeak!

a reply to: Martin75

Newspeak is about changing the meaning of words to suit a political agenda.

This isn't changing anything. It's just providing related information for context. (According to how they describe it anyway.)

a reply to: mOjOm

They already change the meaning of what is said....this is Newspeak!

They decide what is fake or real news...now they decide what is real or fake. Dangerous!

a reply to: Byrd

Wow, talk about a useless plugin.

The kings of 'fake news' are going to help me fact check.

No thanks.

a reply to: Martin75

According to the description it's not changing anything though. The words in the tweet are still from the Author who writes them.

The plug in just finds related information about the subject matter and includes it along with the original material. That's how I understood it anyway.

For example if someone tweets something but in the past has tweeted the complete opposite statement that would be shown as a contradiction.

a reply to: Martin75

How are they changing the meaning of the words??? The words are the same words that were tweeted by the person who wrote them.

They aren't changing the meaning of words either. You'd have to change the actual definitions of words in general to do that.

a reply to: mOjOm

Because they are touting themselves as the arbiters and dispensers of facts and truth. Such motivations should be met with suspicion.

It's perhaps benign, sure, but when it comes from a vast and highly-viewed media outlet, which has pushed agenda and OP-Ed more than news, a fact-checking plugin requires a fact checking plugin. In fact, it's fact-checking plugins all the way down.

thanks Byrd. Happy to see tools like this...they could become increasingly important.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Suspicion is perfectly fine. But outright accusations of fraud or intentional lying is going to far.

Because it could actually be just as much of a benefit as it is a curse being that we're only speculating at this point.

What if that added context material actually made the source tweet make sense and give it more credibility as a result?? After all you can only say so much in a tweet. Not much context is included.

Similar to fact checking, all that can really be done is to show other related information as to why it's been determined true or false. Sometimes it's very obvious, sometimes not. When it's not all you can do is show why you lean one way over the other. But all that material is also included so the reader still ultimately decides for themselves.

Remember the tweet he sent a while back with the false crime stats about blacks killing whites??? He just blew that off and said he can't be responsible for his own tweets. But he retweeted false information and used it as if it was true to give support to the things he was saying. So even if he didn't know if it was true or not, he should have found out first. At the very least should have made a point to after he did find out to correct it and he did neither. He just blew it off.

originally posted by: kinglizard
thanks Byrd. Happy to see tools like this...they could become increasingly important.

Why only for Trump ?

Increasingly important for what? It's just another stupidity made for those who refuse reality.

a reply to: mOjOm

It adds it's own context. It lies by omission. In the example it says that Trump didn't win by a landslide, contrary to what Trump says, and smugly makes a case. In comparison to other elections, sure, Trump didn't win by a landslide, but they have no clue if Trump was comparing his elections to other elections. In assuming that, they are no longer within the realm of fact, but that doesn't matter, because all they intend to do is paint Trump as a liar or an idiot.

It's unethical for the exact same reasons as it would be using the plugin against anyone else, like yourself for instance.

How many WaPo articles a day are going to drive the dialog in this site???

Eleven Years On: How ‘The Washington Post’ Helped Give Us the Iraq War
In the months before the war, The Washington Post ran more than 140 stories on its front page promoting the war.

“We are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power.“ —WaPo Reporter Karen DeYoung.

originally posted by: Trueman

originally posted by: kinglizard
thanks Byrd. Happy to see tools like this...they could become increasingly important.

Why only for Trump ?

Increasingly important for what? It's just another stupidity made for those who refuse reality.

The original news story I cited said it could be used with others.

It's just a hack, similar to looking at a tweet and then googling for news stories from one source about the topic. Fox News could do something similar (so could Breitbart.) They just hadn't thought of it.

a reply to: Byrd

The bigger implication is that such checks could be developed as plugins for any browser and any site (like... ATS for example.) So imagine if you could use that to browse ATS (for instance) and doublecheck if I really had made some claim or if there was a sourced news story on ATS about it.

...which is interesting. In this case it's client-side checks, which doesn't eat up the original site's bandwidth.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

So you admit he didn't win by a landslide but it's not ok to point that out???

If I say something that is incorrect and it's pointed out and fact checked as false that is fine with me.

I'm talking about actual facts though not opinions.

Some things can be factually wrong, some can't. If you can verify the ones that can, why not do it???