One of my motivations for working on tools for reading, broadly defined, is that by giving people direct access to real sources together with the ability to interpret them themselves you may liberate them from a hall of mirrors that fact checkers, science communicators, health advocacy, and popular authors can become. Helping people read and understand a broad range of the best sources easily with less of a need for third parties to interpret doesn’t seem the controversial, but in the light of some of the flirting with fact checked authoritarianism that we experienced in, around and after COVID perhaps it is.
The right to read, the right to think
Having interacted and read a little about checkers during COVID, there seems to have developed a certain philosophy which might be best summed up with the term “authoritative source”. The idea here is that the interpretation of facts is outsources to an expert, often at quite high level. The right that the individual has in this framing is reduced to expressing suffering or experiences or possibly asking questions, in an interesting fusion of expert status with standpoint theory.
You can see this mindset in the policies of Google, whose misinformation policy explicitly disallows information that disagrees with specially selected “authoritative” sources such the World Health Organization.[1] You could see a trend during COVID where fact checkers started to gradually move up the “interpretative chain” away from hard facts and towards interpretation and towards so-called narratives. A report on “countering disinformation” by the Government Communication Service, mentions the word narrative 88 times.[2] UK fact checker started commenting on whether you were allowed to draw conclusions based on data saying that data "[could] not be used” to measure certain conclusions.[3]
All of this seemed to detract from the idea that individual can read research and data themselves and come to their own conclusions and perhaps express these to others. The idea of “doing your own research” started being heavily derided on social media.[4]
The problem with fact checkers
COVID illustrated some issues with fact checkers, but they are not necessarily that unique and tend to be applied to various forms of “official information”. The first issue is that sources often intend to influence you in some way. This is not exactly a new idea and is a topic that comes up in most media literacy sources. An interesting property that COVID fact checking hand was a combination of seeking to be both authoritative and advocate for behavioural change at the same time.
A common feature of advocacy, science communication and a popular literature aimed at audiences who are identified as lay readers is that people feel the need to simplify for an audience and often simplify in a particularly direction hiding relevant details from the reader. While this may not matter for simple decisions for more complicated (as with specific health issues) decisions become more complicated or personal this can become important.
The “experts” at play are often science communications and the organizations are often incapable of admitting they are wrong. Indeed fact checkers themselves can refuse to admit when they are wrong due to the reputational damage they might experience. A perverse property of the reputational standards attached to authoritative sources that might increase the likelihood of them being correct is that they are disinclined to admit that they are wrong. Other systems of obtaining information are somewhat more flexible: a Wikipedia page can be edited, a twitter user can be switched out for another, a YouTuber can be unfollowed.
Wikipedia vs fact checkers
It is interesting to contrast Wikipedia with fact checkers. Whereas fact checkers often produce unsourced statements of truths, occasionally citing what a spokesperson at an “authoritative” organization says, Wikipedia produces thoroughly cited material which often refers to technical and detailed sources which anyone can check. The contrast between citing a plethora of material that the individual can read and disagree versus a brick wall of “authoritative sources” is interesting.
The limits of Wikipedia - a role for technology?
Is Wikipedia enough? Maybe. While Wikipedia is well cited, it doesn’t necessarily make it easy to read the sources that are cited, identify what section of the source supports the claim and to actually interact with the cited material can take a lot of reading. I often only have enough motivation to interact with the sources when I am editing myself.
There are accusations of Wikipedia , particularly of late. [3] Having interacted with Wikipedia I think these are often overstated and limited by the rules of Wikipedia which editors tend to stringently follow (to the point of weaponization). I would say that Wikipedia can fail when academic literatures don’t exist and the other side of the literature that exists is excluded based on standards and I would say that Wikipedia deliberately fails to be creative. I do feel that tools that help people actually interact with the literature behind Wikipedia would be valuable.
The hall of mirrors: Narratives and counter-narratives
A problem that we could see about fact checking during COVID was the creation of two sides often interested in attacking on another’s legitimacy. Often engaging in arguments at some distance from the facts talking about things like conspiracy theories, the Dunning-Kruger effect, commercial interests, expert, safetyism. Towards the beginning of COVID there was a lack of information, and this lack of information was filled with ideology. Fact checkers became petty often seemingly trying to “gotcha” contentious figures. When all discussion becomes about disproving what someone else is thinking about what you are thinking about what they are thinking and the motivation for it, things all become quite silly.
COVID was a case visible case study that we were all forced to live through, but there are a lot perennial arguments in policy with think tanks or advocacy taking the roles of fact checkers and public figures in the COVID debates.
Living in world with competing arguments where many arguments could be true and people aren’t to be trusted can be difficult and in such a situation recourse to the detailed and careful analysis that science provides can be valuable, but fact checkers and advocacy groups often have no use for such things they instead want simple messaging with authoritative facts.
The tools I am creating
I have a pretty clear vision of the tools I want to make. I want tools that fuse note taking and reading by making it trivial to open and search multiple documents (targeting PDFs at the moment) and then provide AI queries based on these search results and documents - again in a way that fuses note taking and reading. These will be useful because they will make it far easier for the individual to read the best sources and check claims for themselves and easily contrast multiple sources.
If you are interested in updates on these tools you can subscribe this blog.
Is the fact checker’s instrumental contempt for society’s thinking valid?
Behind much of the fact checkers thinking is a kind of contempt for the average individual and society as a whole. They do not view society or the individual as a thinking entity, so much as a medium in which ideas spread which is to be manipulated so the correct - or at times most “useful” ideas get to be injected. This viewpoint of individuals and society is made clear by reading the publications that they produce.
I do not share such contempt. Particularly, as you get closer to the individual deciding how to live their lives, where it can be very necessary for the individual to form their own unique understanding of the world and their situation. But… I try not to be idealist to the point of fantasy and have empathy for the individual who does not want to understand.
I don’t necessarily think that the fact checker’s analysis of social processes in entirely incorrect - I think it discounts the abilities for people and groups to think, and I think it assumes a magical correctness of “experts”.
I do acknowledge that people often want an trustworthy source and want to outsource their thinking to experts to save them time. Tools for reading can be useful when the individual is motivated but it is not everything. In truth, I admit that the tooling I might create will not be used by all people. I do think that it may be very useful for individual’s trying to work on difficult problems and understand difficult things. Additionally, I think that those who share ideas with others, or create them such as those working in advocacy, policy or research.
A lackluster defence of fact checking
I’ve been quite harsh of fact checking (and the related areas of science communication and popular science). While I’m inclined to think that Wikipedia tends to be more valuable, I don’t necessarily think that these fields shouldn’t exist. I would prefer if they had better referencing standards and interacted with academic sources rather than their standard “some expert said”. Nevertheless, I don’t really think they shouldn’t exist - they can be useful sources as part of a collection of sources and debates the issue is when the start attacking commentators, arguing that they should be included in every conversation on a topic, and calling for podcasters to be censored by their distribution networks[5]. We are, however, gradually leaving such times.
Read with ai
I am @readwithai. I make tools for reading and research often often for Obsidian. If you light this post you might like to:
Learn a bit about Obsidian by reading my review of note taking in Obsidian or having a look at my cookbook of Obsidian tricks.
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