On: Ending our third party fact-checking program and m...

[techfeathers]

As a Harris supporter, I actually agree, I think it was way too heavy handed and hurt Harris more than helped. I’m not sure anymore what the goal of fact checking is (I’ve always felt it was somewhat dubious if not done extremely well).

[WalterBright → techfeathers]

Any fact checker is going to be inevitably biased. For a debate, there should be two fact checkers, each candidate gets to pick a fact checker.

That could lead to a debate between the fact checkers, which would derail the debate.

Better to not have fact checkers as part of the debate, and leave the fact checking to the post-debate analysis.

[techfeathers → WalterBright]

Agreed, I always felt like most of the fact checking that has become vogue in the past ten years is designed to comfort the people who already agree, not inform people who want genuine insight.

[riversflow → WalterBright]

If you don’t have fact checkers, a debate loses all its value. Debates must be grounded in fact to have any value at all. Otherwise a “debate” is just a series of campaign stump speeches.

[WalterBright → riversflow]

The value in a debate is the candidates can directly address the opposition's claims.

[frankzinger → WalterBright]

Theoretically, yes, but when every second sentence is a lie it becomes impossible.

[riversflow → WalterBright]

They routinely do just that in campaign stump speeches.