Wonderful article and points mcfarm!

Thanks!

The Psychology of Fact-Checking

Fact-checkers aim to get closer to the truth, but their biases can shroud the very truth they seek

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-psychology-of-fact-checking1/

"The same is true of the allegation that in the aftermath of Heather Heyer’s death in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, Trump said there were “fine people” among protestors and counterprotestors, a statement generally interpreted by liberal fact-checkers and journalists as referring to fine people among the white supremacists and Neo-Nazis, but disputed by conservative journalists. 

Fact-checkers’ decisions have significant consequences for debates about fake news that cannot be overstated. Researchers have studied the cascading cognitive effects of misinformation, and their findings are relevant to current concerns about fake news and to the limitations of fact-checking. Misinformation can be insidious; it can seep into the unconscious mind and influence beliefs and behaviors long after we have forgotten its source or the evidence invoked to support it. Under laboratory conditions, a selection of objective facts and complete fabrications can be presented, and researchers can then examine the spread of misinformation about these facts and whether and how this spread results in false beliefs.

Unlike a pristine laboratory setting, however, the world of politics is messy, and there can be deep disagreements about the facts themselves, as the above contradictory claims illustrate. When it comes to partisan fact-checking about complex issues—which describes much of the fact-checking that takes place in the context of political news—the truth as stated is often the subjective opinion of people with shared political views."