My biggest concern with how fact-checking has played out is that fact-checkers themselves have gotten into an "us vs them" perspective. With "us" being the fact-checkers themselves. This is a problem when they are analyzing claims about how fact-checkers got stories wrong. Such as the year they spent shutting down all discussion of the lab leak hypothesis.
I've noticed this contradiction very strongly across misinformation studies. For example Sander der ver Linden, author of https://www.amazon.com/Foolproof-Misinformation-Infects-Mind..., regularly uses such claims about fact checkers as an example of right-wing misinformation. But it isn't.
Fact-checking as a profession can only work if they figure out how to get past their own internal biases. Unfortunately, they haven't. And the fundamental reason for that is that when our emotions engage, it is easy for us to think we've made a logical decision when we've actually made an emotional one. None of us are immune to this. And the emotional tools to solve it tend to mostly be discussed in professions where it is harder to fool others about your objective mistakes.
> Fact-checking as a profession can only work if they figure out how to get past their own internal biases
I'm thinking about how doctors and lawyers handle this. And it seems to be a combination of self policing (medical boards and bars) and a tolerance of diversity (off-label prescriptions and representing awful clients).
That, with an unfortunate side of not getting past this. Take a look at the overuse of back surgery, despite decades of evidence that it is almost always the wrong approach for back problems.
Why does it persist? Three reasons. 1) Back surgery is very profitable. 2) Back surgeons are emotionally inclined to believe that they've done good rather than harm. 3) Professionals are generally unable to learn from long-term outcomes.
The last is true to a shocking extent, and was revealed over again in Daniel Kahneman's research.
I've noticed this contradiction very strongly across misinformation studies. For example Sander der ver Linden, author of https://www.amazon.com/Foolproof-Misinformation-Infects-Mind..., regularly uses such claims about fact checkers as an example of right-wing misinformation. But it isn't.
Fact-checking as a profession can only work if they figure out how to get past their own internal biases. Unfortunately, they haven't. And the fundamental reason for that is that when our emotions engage, it is easy for us to think we've made a logical decision when we've actually made an emotional one. None of us are immune to this. And the emotional tools to solve it tend to mostly be discussed in professions where it is harder to fool others about your objective mistakes.
See https://paulgraham.com/identity.html and https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-ten-commandments-of-egoles... for examples of how good programmers address their own inherent biases. Programmers are one of the professions that deals with this, because we can't hide when it is our code that has the bug.