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Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Twitter's Hypothetical Fact-Checking Program is a Terrible Idea

There have been a few various Reddit posts and news articles, and I fully admit that this entire thing, at the moment, is really a non-story; Twitter had created design mockups (likely not even functional yet) as to how they'd designate posts that provide what they designate as "harmfully misleading" information. Twitter users, likely prolific public figures, would recieve an orange or red label based on the verity of whatever statement they squeeze into 240 characters.

So, this argument moreso falls along the idea that, if implemented, this would be an awful idea.

I will admit that, of course, the idea of this project is well-intentioned: Twitter is one of the largest social media platforms and regularly gives people (yes, even famous people and presidents) the ability to mass-spread misinformation. 

I will not argue that misinformation is harmful, to a degree. 

However, Twitter seeking to easily identify and place warnings on such tweets would be bad for a myriad of reasons, and I'll list them below.

1. Most obviously, who gets to decide what's truth? Assuming Twitter is labelling tweets as true or false, they have to have some form of information backing these statements. If you're going to specify something as objectively false, you need a source, which becomes murkier when a claim isn't totally backed by just one source. If Trump makes a claim and says Study A supports that claim, could Twitter find Study B that came to a different conclusion and say it's false? 

2. Is "truth" only determined by statistics or by a larger narrative? Facts can be objectively "true" and  may not necessarily add to the greater picture or support a false bigger picture. For example, there is a well-known and oft-parroted (by the alt-right or other white supremacists) statistic that states that the black population, a minority of the united states, commits nearly fifty percent of the crimes. This implies that african americans are more prone to crime in general. However, if we look at these statistics- which are usually supported by government studies- we see that this only accounts for the actual charges, not taking into account how often black youth are charged for crimes they didn't commit. It also doesn't take into account that poor, urban areas usually result in an increased crime rate regardless of ethnic makeup of said urban areas. So while it's "technically true," it's being used to dogwhistle a racist narrative (blacks are prone to crime). But if Trump tweeted "...you know, thirteen percent of the population commits fifty percent of the crimes," how would Twitter regard this statement, assuming it is the only one made in that tweet? If Twitter denied that statement, it would be ignoring government data. If Twitter supported that statement, it would be enabling racists everywhere that their beliefs are true.

3. Certain "studies" aren't always truthful in their own decision-making. Consider the also oft-cited study of how nearly forty-percent of police officers in the United States are domestic abusers or whose spouses have experienced "spousal abuse." Regardless of your personal opinion on policing in the U.S., the study was conducted under certain pretenses, that included "shouting" at your partner as "spousal abuse." Due to this inclusion, the numbers of the study are inflated, which some see as misleading in it's representation (most people, as well as the law, assume domestic abuse is physical.) But really, you could do the same for any survey or study; assume a politician wants to point out the success rate of a political strategy, and points to a study where other countries who've done A + B get C, our desired outcome. The study could easily fail to mention that said countries have D, E, and F in place to make A +B work; but since a study says "yes, that's true, in these countries A + B = C" then the claim, based on that source, is correct. Another study could come out and contradict those findings by adding the additional information. Which would twitter decide is fact? 

4. Trying to argue against social media's influence on communication and information would be silly at this point. It's ingrained itself in our politics, our culture and our popular discourse. But we shouldn't allow it any more power to discern what we see as the truth. If an anti-vaxxer states explicit lies on a platform, then it's up to you, as a viewer, to base your decision on your own findings. Of course, anti-vaxx methods being disproven is only a google search away. Where this gets sticky are the claims that aren't easily proven or disproven. Once again, you'd need to look into it yourself; trusting Twitter's binary response of "yes or no" on a fact contributes to intellectual laziness. "Oh, twitter said it was true (without providing details) so I guess it's true."

5. We already have other third-party (in this case, not Twitter or the claim-maker) fact-checking websites available for everyone to see, like Snopes or Politifact. Even these reputable sources are labeled as "biased" by their opponents on both sides of the political sprectrum. While these sources usually provide a simplistic way of understanding (Snopes via their "mostly true/false" and Politifact's "pants on fire meter" they often make more than just that binary claim of wrong/right. They'll explain the claim, the scope of the situation, the facts and any other circumstances or context, and then why they based their judgement as such. Even if these services made a false or faulty judgement, the process of their decision-making is explained, so they can always be held accountable if they make a mistake. With a simplistic "wrong/right" indication for Twitter and nothing else, we have no way to understand how Twitter comes to their conclusions or if they did so in a manner that avoids mistakes. It'd be nearly impossible for a fact-checking source to be unbiased; if we can get their reasoning, however, we can better understand the situation without relying solely on the opinion of others to guide us. 

6. I'm not trying to argue that all fact-checking is wrong: I just believe that Twitter should remain the plaform, not the arbiter, of the information that it disseminates. Do I have a better idea on how to stop misinformation online? No. But I don't believe that an influential company becoming the arbiter of truth in the digital age is the solution, or even a solution, that could do more good than harm.

So, CMV?
gpt
" ... Indeed it has been said that democ­ra­cy is the worst form of Gov­ern­ment except for all those oth­er forms that have been tried from time to time. ..." - Winston Churchill

The salient question isn't whether a fact-checking program like that has drawbacks.  The question is whether it's better or worse than the status quo or some other alternative.   So just looking at the shortcomings is looking at half the picture.   How does this new scheme compare to whatever twitter is already doing where there is clearly one set of rules for famous and powerful people, and another set for normals?

Similarly, something can be "good for twitter" even if it isn't good for you.  The fact is that twitter doesn't really care whether people use the service to publish dangerous bullshit.  To me it seems like this 'fact checking' stuff is part of an effort to avoid more stringent or onerous government interference.